Hello, I'm Miss Eastwood.

I am a qualified teacher who has experience in Key Stage 1 and Early Years. I have a passion for learning through play, and I love creating an inspiring environment that children love to explore. You will often find me recycling and upcycling to create interesting ‘treasures’ for our classroom.    

When I am not at school, I am a busy mum-of-two who enjoys family days out beach combing or walking through our spectacular local woods. I am particularly excited to notice seasonal changes with your children and explore why this might happen, through stories and play, ultimately, allowing the children to follow their interests. 

A day in Ducklings might include:

              

Bucket time: Engaging and sustaining children's focus on an adult-led activity. It is high-energy and exciting, in which the teacher pulls interesting objects from a bucket. 

Sensology: Learning through all our senses; children will taste, smell, hear, see and touch their learning. Our theme this term is linked to our maths around colours. For example, Week 1 is all about the colour red, so we taste strawberries, smell a red flower, hear red beads drop on a drum, and see a red lava lamp. 

Dough Disco: Building our finger muscles to music using playdough. This is an upbeat session where children enjoy developing their fine motor skills. 

Calm Time: Usually, after lunch, children lie down, listen to calm music, and watch real bubbles float all around them. We discuss how to relax each part of their body and listen carefully to different parts of the music. 

Music: Nursery rhyme time! We are learning traditional songs and actions. 

Discovery Time: A time for children to direct their learning, enabling them to enact and cement their 'newly' learnt knowledge, develop social skills, acquire 'new' knowledge from others and develop their creativity and confidence. 

Story Time: This might be a well-known book with practised actions, a story bag with objects to enhance the storytelling or a book selected by the children. 

Squiggle Whilst you Wiggle: It's as good as it sounds! We are working on our gross motor skills in a progressive style, through stretching and dancing to music. 

Maths: Exploring colours, numbers, patterns and shapes, using songs and everyday objects to bring the concepts to life!

Phonics: Beginning the year with Phase 1, including distinguishing between everyday sounds, then continuing with Phase 2 in terms 5 and 6, including recognising the graphemes and producing the phonemes. 

Supervised Toothbrushing: In accordance with advice from Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust, funded by Kent County Council, we take part in supervised toothbrushing. 

Forest School: Using our school field, it's a time for children to develop newly acquired skills and knowledge learnt in the classroom in a 'new' environment. It supports play, exploration and risk-taking. It develops confidence and self-esteem through learner-inspired, hands-on experiences in a natural setting.

 

Term 4: 

Super Seasons – Spring - Let's Celebrate!

This term, we will explore and talk about collections of materials with similar and different properties, and talk about ways that we can respect and care for the natural environment and living things; including knowing what a seed needs to grow and how to care for a seed we have planted. 

Our focus texts are:

Jack and the Beanstalk – Traditional Tale  

Bugs by Loulou and Tummie 

The Jolly Postman by Ahlberg 

 

Our focus nursery rhymes are:

Mary had a little lamb 

Five Little Ducks  

The Animal Fair 

When Goldilocks went to the house of the bears 

 

Be ready for learning! In Ducklings, your child will need to have these items in school: 

• Small bag – change of clothes/ nappies if needed 

• Lunch box with healthy food options (if not having a school meal) 

• Wellington boots (to leave at school) 

• Coat (weather dependent)

Everything you send to school MUST be labelled clearly with your child’s name. Lost property will be available for parents to access daily on the school premises should anything go missing. 

 

Highlights of our learning so far this year