Learning Through Play

When we do learning through play there are lots of different areas in our classroom that we can go and play in. The areas are set up with fun things we can do to do with our book of the week.

We do "Plan, Do, Review". First we plan what we are going to do, then "do" is doing it, and "review" is people going around and looking at what you've done and speaking about what we've learned. Mrs Harcus gives stickers to some people that say "Ask me about... " and when we review we explain what we've been doing and all about our area. When we say what we've done the rest of the class have to listen carefully and see if they are going to want to do it next time.

This is the book nook, there's lots of questions on the walls for you to think about the books that you are reading. This is a picture of some of us sharing the book and reading it out to each other.

This area is the construction area. I've never been there yet but what I think it is is people build things with connex and lego, things that are in the book. Like for Sam's duck we could build a shed for the duck to fit in, and for Uan the Lamb that we are doing now you could build anything to do with it. This is a picture of Davy who has built a sheep.

In the art area Mrs Harcus brought in some things like sand, seaweed, this fluffy stuff, and you could make clouds or the sheep with the fluffy stuff, and with the sand you could make the beach. Courtney did something different, she did her lamb in a field. Carys made the island all stormy, because in the book it was mostly all the time stormy, and the lamb in the field was abandoned. She made big black storm clouds with the fluffy stuff and painted black over them.

This is the writing area and there's jotters here that says Characters and Action and Setting. The setting is where the story was placed, so you can draw or write about different settings, and the characters is where you write about the characters. And we haven't learned about the action yet, but I think it might be what they're doing and what happened.

Before we start we write a little plan. And then at the end we write about what we did, and we think about things like what we learned, and "could I have done things differently?" and "how do you feel about what you did?"

I was in the book nook, and I was one of the ones that Mrs Harcus gave a sticker to today, so I had to share my reflections with the class. I was reading Spooky Poems, and I thought it was really fun doing the writing there, and I would definitely go again!

On the bottom you can write what you think you're going to do tomorrow, so you could go to any place you want and do anything you want! I will be going back to the book nook!

by Ailidh Rendall, Middle Primary