Implementing Play-based activities into our Shared Reading Programme.

                                               Shared Reading

Here are some of the books we read in term 1.  We tried to use a variety of play activities to help the students be motivated and develop a better understanding of what they read.

Book Tittle-Busy Bees

Learning Experiences:

Poem -

We put a pot plant (from our Nature table) in the middle of the classroom and the students enjoyed buzzing around it. The last line of the poem was very interactive as they were trying to sting each other’s knees. It was a fun activity and all students participated.

Busy, busy, busy bees Flying all around the trees Busy, busy, busy bees Watch out or they will sting your knees

Art and Craft-

All students participated and contributed to create a beehive for their bees. Some students needed adult support.

Role play

They enjoyed making their bees interact with each other!

Exploring

   We had to explore a very simple process of how we get the honey!

Everyone offered to taste the honey!!

Drawing

     Our Visual Art for term 1 was drawing, we incorporated this into    our shared reading activities. The students learnt to follow a simple step by step on how to draw a bee.

Book Title-Mouse

Learning Experience:

Role Play: 

All students had to make a play mask. Then we all went to our obstacle playground area to role play the story. They wore their masks and promoted them to be keen to take part in the role play. Some students preferred just to lie on the grass. They were very active trying to look for a piece of cheese. 

The focus of the role play was to develop understanding of the positional language used in the story. Students responded well when asked to go “under, across and through” the bushes. Most were willing to participate and engage. It was a fun and enjoyable activity. 

 The benefits of structured play.

Structured and Unstructured play (free Play) are both vital to our children’s well being, learning and growth.

“Balance is key” -A healthy, balanced play diet will have an equal focus on helping a child develop logical and creative thinking skills.

When can I use Structured play in my classroom?

If you are looking to help children and students learn how to solve problems, work toward an individual or collective goal, or improve active listening then structured play activities are ideal for building these skills. This category of play is also useful for strengthening children’s confidence, encouraging resilience, and learning how to cooperate within a team and develop stronger communication skills.

What does structured Play look like in our classroom?

Structured Play Activities:

1-Brickwork. 

We use lego to help our children learn good social skills such as waiting, turn-taking, listening, sharing and importantly allowing others to create their own without getting upset.

We implemented brickworks into our programme twice a week on Wednesdays and Thursdays for 20 minutes.

The staff is working with a small group of children (2-3 students) if manageable and on a 1:1. The students are encouraged to work together to build a figure under the teacher's supervision and guidance. The teacher’s role is to model and reinforce the target skill where it is appropriate throughout the session.

Brick Work

2. “ENGAGE ME”-

We use ENGAGE games to teach our students a variety of skills. The game they are playing here is called “Object copy” The skills they have to learn is-’ to look carefully, remember the pattern and to make the pattern’.

We implemented this engage game into our weekly programme twice a week (Mondays and Tuesdays) for 20 minutes.

            OBJECT COPY

3. Physical Education-(Simple games)

This term, our students are learning to enjoy participating in a range of games and activities. Every 2 weeks we try to learn a new game such as ‘musical chairs’ and ‘hot potato’.

Every morning we start our day with quick fitness (15 minutes)

 and finish our day with a Yoga session before the students go home.

Our focus is to ensure that our students are going home happy. 

Yoga helps to reset them and ready to go home in a happy mood.

daily fitness	daily Yoga session
“musical chairs”	“hot Potato”

References-Structured play https://www.playgroundcentre.com/unstructured-vs-structured-play/