Froglet Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 My school has recently moved to a new structure for long-term planning for my Reception/Y1 class. The idea is that for the first 3-4 weeks of each half-term there is a designated topic in order to ensure that the Y1 get the National Curriculum coverage they are meant to and then for the last 2-3 weeks I have a 'child-initiated topic' to allow for greater child-led work (I am still being child-led during the first 3-4 weeks but less so). I'm just about to embark on my first one and I'm nervous! The ideas I have so far are either something on bees - they have been fascinated by bees in particular during our minibeast work and also love 'Bee Movie' so was thinking of something around that. The other possibility was related to floods - we had a torrential downpour last week at school and after reassuring several of them that we weren't going to be flooded they were fascinated by watching flood videos, building flood shelters etc. Do you think either of these would work? And, do you have any ideas how I could start things? I'm not asking for people to do my planning for me, I'm just really not sure how to do it given that neither I nor the children have really done things this way before! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KST Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 Why not ask the children which one they would like to do. You can then ask them what they want to find out and create your plan together. I had a whole week on bees when doing minibeasts as they were really interested in them. I had a non-fiction book on bees, we looked at the parts of the bee, they drew their own and labelled the parts. We made bees by wrapping blakc and yellow tissue paper around kitchen rolls, then adding wings, legs etc. In maths I had some numbered beehives and lots of laminated bees and they had to add bees to the behives. You could maybe do some honey tasting? You just want to create a bank of ideas with the children and plan from week to week. The children might lose interest in bees after a week so you can change and go with their new interest. Hope that helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Froglet Posted June 26, 2011 Author Share Posted June 26, 2011 It does help - thank you and you've given me some good starting points for activities. Think I can see how to do these and extend enough to tick Y1 boxes too. I personally quite fancy the bee one but will try not to influence their choice too much ! I know it probably sounds odd but my current class don't often seem to show an 'interest' in anything specific. There is one girl who loves all things Barbie a group of farmers (we've already done lots of farming work) and a group of boys for whom everything is about fighting and guns! I don't know why I'm not picking up other things - maybe I have the wrong 'basic' continuous provision or maybe I'm just not listening hard enough! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panders Posted June 26, 2011 Share Posted June 26, 2011 How about teaching them the Busy Bee song by Arthur Askey, you can find it on Youtube I used to love this as a young child (Sad I know!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Posted June 27, 2011 Share Posted June 27, 2011 Here's a live webcam of the inside of a beehive they might find interesting Helen: http://blackhallmill2.dyndns.org/ (user and bcam for the username and password). Once you're on the page set the refresh rate and you should see them moving around - I've spent many happy minutes watching them doing their thing. I keep bees myself so if you get any questions you can't answer I'll be happy to help if I can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
currycraver Posted June 27, 2011 Share Posted June 27, 2011 Wow thank you. Your ideas have inspired me to have a go with our nursery children as we are doing caterpillars atm and the children are fascinated by mini beasts. (Unlike me) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Froglet Posted June 27, 2011 Author Share Posted June 27, 2011 Steve thank you that's great and will definitely be in touch with any questions. I've asked colleagues if anyone has a copy of Bee Movie I can borrow so at least I can see what I'm up against misconception wise - I've only seen the first couple of minutes! I think it's definitely going to be bees at least to start with. Today I was trying to get suggestions from my class for their favourites songs to perform to parents at the end of the term. One little girl ask if we could do a poem song. I was sure what she meant and it turns out she wanted to 'perform' a poem that I've read a couple of times which they love. Can't remember the title but it's about 'Bees being everywhere'. The children call it the 'bees in your weetabix one'! There are another couple of bee poems they're really into so I think we're heading that way! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 fasinaticing facts about bees we even found a timeline about bees and when the first bee hive was created. look on bee keepers society website and eden project I think it was there I found the information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan Posted April 3, 2012 Share Posted April 3, 2012 hi and welcome Alie, thank you for making your first post, although you seem to have been hiding for quite a while! How did your Bee theme work, Helen, I'm assuming you did work with that? Are you still working in that way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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