Chicks News - 3rd October 2025

The Chicks have had a very busy week at 345 Wandsworth. This week was all about healthy eating, learning about different fruits and vegetables, and exploring how they grow. The children enjoyed a variety of activities inspired by our Topic Story From the Garden by Michael Dahl.

The Chicks were fully immersed in hands-on learning through exciting, sensory-rich, and imaginative activities, all centred around gardens, vegetables, and seasonal changes.

Children built social skills by sharing, taking turns, and engaging in collaborative play —supported by tools including sand timers and group-based activities.

Vocabulary was expanded through activities such as naming vegetables and animals, describing textures and tastes (e.g., bumpy, crunchy, juicy), and discussing homes and families during small-world play.

Children developed fine motor skills through activities such as digging in soil, mark-making with chalk and pens, cutting vegetables with plastic knives, using tweezers for maths tasks, and rolling playdough into vegetable shapes.

At the mark-making table, the children coloured in pre-drawn vegetables using felt pens and used chalk to make marks on black paper.

At the maths table, children explored counting and sorting with Unifix cubes and tweezers. They also created their own designs with Duplo, magnetic tiles, and flower construction sets, enhancing early concepts of shapes, patterns, and spatial awareness.

In the Outdoor Learning Environment, we worked on our gross motor skills by climbing on the climbing frames, completing obstacle courses, riding tricycles, and chasing bubbles.

Elsewhere in the classroom, in Cookery, the Chicks explored real vegetables such as beetroot, pumpkin, lettuce, and peppers — cutting, tearing, tasting, and describing them.

On our Outdoor Learning Walk, the Chicks visited a local allotment where they saw vegetables growing and collected conkers for future learning.

For our Art project this week we used conkers to paint pre-cut vegetables and fruits.

The highlight of the week however was our Harvest Festival which was a proud moment for the Chicks as they sang in front of their parents!

We are looking forward to another busy week ahead at 345 Wandsworth.