Fine motor building

One day each week in Crew Frost, we spend time focusing on developing our fine motor skills through activities such as using scissors to cut along lines and around shapes. Cutting is an excellent skill to master in the Early Years, as it supports so many of the important skills children need as they begin their writing journey.

The children are learning how to separate and strengthen the muscles in their fingers and hands whilst carefully controlling the scissors. They are also developing their hand-eye coordination and problem-solving skills as they work out how to move the paper and scissors together whilst trying to stay on the lines. This takes a huge amount of concentration, control, and perseverance.

Alongside this, we have been practising our “ready to write” positioning by sitting with our tummy to the table and all six chair legs on the floor. Developing core strength, balance, and posture is a very important part of early writing development, helping children to gain the stability needed for mark making and pencil control in the future.

Although cutting may look simple, it is actually a very tricky skill that requires children to coordinate many different movements at the same time. We are so proud of the resilience, determination, and focus Crew Frost have shown whilst practising these important skills. Well done, Crew Frost — it is much harder than it looks!

Writing

Writing session today. Focusing on describing the wolf from The Three Little Pigs is a great way to build vocabulary. By coming up with lots of descriptive words like “stray” , “sharp teeth”, “grey fur” and “big feet” they’re learning how to make their writing more vivid and interesting.
Using those words to create their own sentence is an important step too, because it helps them apply what they’ve learned rather than just listing ideas. Activities like this build both creativity and confidence in writing.

Writing about The three little pigs.

Over the past three days, the children have begun writing simple sentences using colourful semantics. They started by describing pictures verbally, identifying key elements such as who, what, and where. This was followed by a shared writing activity, where the class worked together to construct sentences. The children then had the opportunity to write independently, using a help sheet for support.