Welcome to Zebra Class!

Staff in Zebra Class

Teachers: Rachel & Sarah

HLTA: Jo

Teaching Assistants: Caitlin, Louisa, Samantha,

Chelsea (Mon, Thu & Fri) & Vicky (Tue, Wed & Thu)

SALTA: Kyra

Zebra Class follow the Sparkle Curriculum. We are part of South America team and each child has a diagnosis of ASD and follows the TEACCH approach in class.  Each child has personalised targets which they are working towards through a range of play and sensory activities each day.

• We use our hydrotherapy pool to develop our water confidence and swimming skills each week.
• We participate in rebound therapy weekly to develop our physical skills as well as our listening and attention skills.
• We use the school bus weekly to explore our community.
• We enjoy outside play with the other classes in school.

We look forward to showing you some of the activities we will be completing during this term.

Thank you,

Zebra Class Staff

Key Days to Remember!

Wednesday AM - Swimming (Swimming Kit needed)

Wednesday PM - Rebound Therapy (Long Sleeves needed)

Thursday AM - Bus

Thursday PM - Swimming alternate weeks (Swimming Kit needed)

Our topic this term is 'Journeys'.

Week Commencing 7th April- 

A lovely week celebrating Easter, we have had a fun filled last week of term. We started the week practising some Easter line motor control. We made Easter egg wreathes, we can not wait to bring them home to our parents and carers! In cookery, we made Easter cornflake cakes with mini eggs on top! We got out into the community walking to the park, after we returned back to school we had a special visitor from the Easter bunny, who kindly gifted us all with a special egg. We hope everyone has a fantastic two week break and stay safe.
Children return to school on Monday 28th April. Zebras x

Week Commencing 31st March-

A fantastic week for zebras, we started the week practising our fine motor skills by placing buttons on the circles of the moon, this was very tricky but with some help from our adults and some persistence from the children they all completed this task. All week we have been trying hard using PECs at different times of the day: breakfast time, snack time and even exchanging for our favourite cause and effect toys. Well done to all the zebras! Our favourite time of the week was an attention autism session watching the dancing skeletons and spinning tops, the children could not take their eyes off them, brilliant attention and focus. In literacy, we listened to our focused sensory story one last time and explored the props. Following on from our sensory story we made our own rocky moon bread, exploring flour by mixing and getting messy. We even tried the bread later for snack time, it went down a treat. In maths, we got out into the sunshine and explored some sensory play with maths resources. We got messy in the mud finding different coloured dinosaurs and finding numicon in the rice and oats. This week in swimming we practised PECs in the pool, exchanging for our favourite toys. In PSHRE, we visited ALDI and used the self checkouts to scan and pay our cooking ingredients. The children enjoyed getting into the community and paying for their own shopping. 

Week Commencing 24th March-

Wow! What a week, zebras have been very engaged in lots of different activities. We started the week completing lots of different mothers days activities, we created Mother’s Day cards for all of our motherly figures in our lives. All of zebras would like to say a big thank you to you all for the special care you do for us. We all enjoyed sitting together completing Mother’s Day mark making with crayons, felt tips and chalk. In cookery, we made yummy rice crispy cakes with white chocolate, we all enjoyed mixing the chocolate with the rice crispys and even better trying them after. In PSHRE, all the children took turns choosing their own nursery rhyme songs and listening carefully. In literacy, we continued with our sensory story “Panda bear , Panda bear, What do you see?”. We explored the different animals from the story and made our own pandas, cutting out different body parts and sticking them to the pandas correct body parts. On Wednesday, we had a full physical day, swimming on the morning and rebound on the afternoon. We practised transitioning with visuals by learning the rebound symbol, all children could find the trampoline in the hall. These rebound photos show how much fun we had! On Thursday, we loved an attention autism session, we all were fully engaged in watching the wiggly worm, dancing chicken and flying butterfly. On Friday, we learnt all about Ramadan and we made some arts and crafts, while practicing our fine motor skills with finger painting. Happy weekend everyone!
 

Springwell Superstar- Wonderful Award 

We want to say a massive well done to one of our zebras today for receiving the Wonderful Award for all her brilliant work this week. Well deserved we are all very proud :) 

Week Commencing 17th March-

What an amazing week for Zebra Class! We have worked very hard this week and have particularly enjoyed the sunshine we have had! Our focus has been on our new sensory story, “Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What do you see?”. In literacy, we listened very carefully and explored the different animals featured in the story. Linking with our new story in cookery, we improved our cutting skills by making our own bears made from fruit, we were lucky enough to eat them afterwards! On Wednesday, all the children had lots of fun in our class assembly, showing all our parents and carers all the hard work we have been working on. Our assembly was based on “The Gruffalo”, we went on a sensory walk, made Gruffalo pictures and masks and tried some yummy food. Zebras have also been individually working hard completing their work box activities, everyone has completed lots of fine motor work, puzzles and matching activities. We enjoyed getting out and about in the community, practising walking on reins. In PSHRE, we finished the week getting out into the community with a bus trip to Elwick Park. Children developed their gross motor skills by running, jumping and climbing. They also practised waiting their turn on all the equipment with their friends.  


 

Week Commencing 10th March-

This week, the zebras have been learning about “The Gruffalo”. We listened to the story and made our own Gruffalo masks! Each child made a Gruffalo picture with his poisonous green nose, his orange eyes and his purple pricks all over his back! We used different tools to create our own Gruffalo, including a rolling brush, paintbrush and even our fingers for finger painting. In cookery, we made some delicious Gruffalo cakes. The children loved mixing the cake batter and getting a bit messy. In the middle of the week, we enjoyed listening to the Gruffalo song and dancing with our musical instruments. On Wednesday we celebrated Science Day, we had great fun exploring a range of science-themed sensory activities in the hall. We used all our senses to explore colours, water and ice. We also tried some fruit and vegetables and the children’s favourite part watched the volcano explode! In PSHRE, we continued to develop our cutting skills. We coloured in the snake from the Gruffalo and carefully worked with our adults to cut the snake out, amazing work zebras.

Week Commencing 3rd March-

What a busy week for zebras! Starting the week with some fine motor skills, tracing over dotted lines. All children could carefully make different marks holding the pen. On Tuesday, we celebrated pancake day, our favourite day. We loved trying new foods to decorate our pancakes: golden syrup, jam and lemon juice. The children enjoyed flipping their own pancakes in the pan. In music, the children took turns by choosing their favourite songs to dance and play their instruments to. Well done Zebras! In Literacy, our new story this week is “The Gruffalo” we listened carefully to a sensory story when we met the animals from the story. After the story, we got out into the community and practised walking around Summerhill. The children found some special animals along the way: owl, snake and fox. We finished the week with some outside play, playing with our friends. 

Week Commencing 17th February-

A lovely week for Zebras continuing with our story “Elmer in the Snow”, we created our own Elmer masks with lots of different colours. To improve our fine motor skills this week we have been finger painting with blue paint to make winter pictures! In music we all had a sing and dance and chose our own favourite musical instruments to play. Our favourite song was “I am the Music Man”. 
 

In PSHRE, we had a visit from the school nurse, we learnt the importance of hand washing and learnt to wash our hands correctly. We all listened to a story about a princess who needed to wash her hands, we then looked under the UV lamp to see the germs on our hands. We washed our hands and looked under the lamp again to see how clean they were. We all got a sticker for our hard work, well done Zebras!

Have a lovely February half term, stay safe and see you all back on Monday 3rd March. 

A Massive Thankyou to TeesValley Stagecoach! 
All zebras would like to thank the lovely TeesValley Stagecoach team for gifting these wonderful gifts that we will all enjoy. We participated in their competition by creating our own zebra to be on a stagecoach bus. We love our new zebra class mascot! 

Week Commencing 10th February-

This week in literacy, Zebra class enjoyed listening to our new story “Elmer in the snow”. We explored different props from the story, tried on Elmer masks and pretended to be elephants! After, we created our own Elmer the elephants by gluing different colour tissue paper to elephants. During the week, we worked really hard in practising our fine motor skills. We all focused on holding a pen correctly and forming some marks, we finished with an exciting song of dough disco! The children's favourite part of the week was getting messy in our sensory lesson. We got to touch and taste some cold ice, then went outside to make marks in the shaving foam and feel diffrent textures of the pasta. In PSHRE, we all tried very hard practising cutting skills with our adults. 
 

We celebrated Safer Internet Day this week, by listening to a story all about strangers. It was called “Cutest Little Alien” and it was all about keeping us and everyone safe. 

Week Commencing 3rd February-

This week all zebras have been amazing. We have practised our fine motor skills by painting with corks on our favourite animals from our book “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?”. In maths, we worked on our number skills. We all sat together and listened to number songs and used the props to act them out, Five Currant Buns was our favourite! We then went outside, where the children chose their favourite number song pack and explored it with an adult. We continued working on maths later in the week, practising mark making and tracing numbers, all children tried very hard. On Wednesday, Zebras improved their gross motor skills with a split rebound session and a soft play session. In PSHRE, Zebras have been developing their interaction skills and have been playing alongside each other in different environments like soft play. Lots of happy, smiley faces in the ball pit. A relaxing swimming session on Thursday, children practised floating and swimming in the water. We finished the week celebrating ‘Number Day’ we celebrated by participating in lots of number activities. Zebra Class enjoyed posting coins into the school money box, exploring a messy play activity outside finding different numbers and we even got out into the community and looked for different numbers!

Week Commencing 27th January-

A very busy week in zebras, learning all about our new story “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?”. We started the week making polar bear pictures with white paint and forks, the children all joined in with this activity independently and enjoyed getting a little messy. We then continued making snowflake pictures with glue and cotton wool. All children explored Chinese new year on Wednesday, they explored new foods like curry, rice and noodles. Zebras made their own Chinese dragons by painting their hands red and yellow. We finished the week getting out into the community, developing our walking skills. We enjoyed a cold walk around summerhill, taking turns to walk with reins. The children enjoyed taking in the nature and were even lucky enough to see a horse galloping by!

Week Commencing 20th January-

This week in zebras, all children enjoyed learning about the sun from our new story “Elmer’s weather”. We all got very messy painting our hands yellow and orange to paint the shape of the sun. All children carefully practised their cutting out skills using scissors to cut around different shapes. In cookery, we explored different foods and textures to create a sunshine, using ingredients such as pineapple slices, pretzels and yogurt. Well done zebras trying new foods! In PSHRE zebras explored recognising their own faces, children could start to choose from two different faces. 

Week Commencing Monday 13th January-
This week in Zebras, we have had lots of fun and worked really hard. In PSHRE we have enjoyed getting out in the community and developing our walking skills. We used reins and took turns walking. We had a nice long walk around the Headland on Thursday. Also, on Friday we had a walk around our local community. The children did an amazing job, we are so proud of them. In Maths, we have been singing counting songs. The children were given choices of which song they wanted and we used the packs and props to act them out. The library ladies came in for a visit. Joanna read the children a sensory story of Aladdin using props - they had lots of fun exploring them. They even made their very own genie lamps that they brought home, we hope you enjoyed them as much as we enjoyed making them! In cookery, we made some scrumptious iced cupcakes. The children enjoyed getting messy and exploring all the ingredients. They took turns pouring and mixing in the ingredients. We shared the cupcakes out for snack time, they were delicious!

  Week commencing Monday 6th January-

A lovely busy first week back, all children enjoyed settling back into school with their friends. We started the week exploring the colour purple in maths. All children improved their fine motor skills by painting with purple paint, gluing and sticking with purple pom-poms and drawing with purple crayons and pencils. Zebras made fabulous purple pictures! Zebras also enjoyed looking at their favourite story books, turning the pages of the books independently. We enjoyed a cold messy Wednesday assembly outside, relating to our new Extreme Earth topic. All children engaged in playing with the ice and some children even made snow angels in the flour! We finished the week with a rebound session, where the zebras shared lots of smiles and giggles. 

Friday 20th December

Meeting Santa

The children had a very exciting visit from a very special visitor Santa. We all hope you have an amazing Christmas and stay safe, see all of zebras back on Monday 6th January. 

Wednesday 18th December 

Christmas Dinner

All children enjoyed Christmas dinner together!

Tuesday 17th December 

Christmas Party

A lovely Christmas filled day today for Zebras, making Christmas cards on the morning. Developing our fine motor skills by finger painting with our favourite colours. On the afternoon a special visitor, Gav the Dj man, visited our party and played our favourite songs. We danced at the party, played pass the parcel, won lots of prizes and ate party food! 

Monday 16th December 

Maths- Learning about colours
A very busy day today, learning all about colour, we all listened to a colour song and explored our favourite colours. We then explored outside and found different colour sponges in the water, this was so fun and messy! The children then showed interest in finding the coloured bears in the shredded paper, after being so busy outside some children used their fine motor skills to pick coloured buttons to glue on our rainbows. 

Friday 13th December

Understanding the world- A visit to see the Christmas lights

Zebras enjoyed a bus trip to tees bay retail park to explore the Christmas lights in the range. 

Thursday 12th December 

Christmas Performance

Some pictures of the lovely zebras today wearing their Christmas jumpers. All Children were fabulous in the Christmas performance, singing and dancing to “Santa Claus is coming to town”. Very brave in front of all the parents, well done zebra class. 

Tuesday 10th December 

Expressive Arts and Design- Christmas Crafts 

Today we have been very busy in zebra class getting in the Christmas spirit. We practiced our fine motor skills to make lots of messy Christmas themed crafts, Christmas calanders, Christmas cards and winter pictures. We can not wait to bring them home for you all to see! 

Friday 6th December 

Christmas Activity Afternoon

All Children enjoyed a sensory Christmas afternoon: walking in cold ice, sensory snow exploration and lots of other Christmas sensory activities. So many smiles and so much fun getting messy! 

Thursday 6th December 

Understanding the world-Trip to the park 

Today all Zebras enjoyed a walk to Bishop Cuthbert park and Hartfields Cafe. All children enjoyed improving their gross motor skills by climbing and running around the park. We finished our trip in the cafe, sharing biscuits and a drink with our friends. 
 

Wednesday 5th December

Attention Autism

Today, all children were fully engaged in attention autism. All children explored bubbles, feathers, flashing spinning lights and balls. Good sitting and attention skills Zebras!

Tuesday 3rd December 

Maths

Today, we went outside to investigate Maths. We explored some colour, our pouring skills, our matching skills and our sorting skills. It was very cold and a bit messy but we all had a fantastic time.

  Monday 25th November

  Expressive Arts and Design- Music

Today, we had a music session in school. We do this regularly in Zebra class. We used the musical instruments to make some sounds and we played some music alongside to accompany us. We enjoyed making lots of noise and we had lots of fun sharing the instruments. We used our voices to sing along too.

   Monday 18th November

Knowledge and Understanding of the World- Computing

Today, we practised our turn-taking and communication skills by sharing some cause and effect toys. We all had a great time and we each got to choose our favourite toy. We enjoyed the noises and the lights and we practised choosing the toy we wanted. 

Friday 15th November 

PSHE/Anti Bullying Week

This week, we have been celebrating Anti Bullying Week and how it is ok to be different. Children and staff came into school wearing odd socks on Monday and Wednesday. We also enjoyed activities linked to this theme. Here are some pictures of us in action. 

Tuesday 12th November 

Literacy- Reading

Today, we went outside to read and explore some texts together. We absolutely loved it. We all chose a different text and had a cosy time reading on our cushions. We enjoyed turning the pages, looking at the pictures and listening to our adult read the words to us. We are already looking forward to next time.

Friday 8th November

 Knowledge and Understanding The World- Remembrance Day

This week in Zebra Class, we have been learning about Remembrance Day. On Thursday, we headed to the Headland on the bus and looked around the War Memorial in Redheugh Gardens. It is dedicated to Hartlepool civilians and servicemen who lost their lives in the First and Second World War. During the afternoon, we used potatoes to print our very own poppy pictures - we needed to use our fine motor skills to manipulate the potatoes and press down. On Friday, we completed another art activity and painted our hands to look like poppies to make Remembrance pictures. They looked fantastic! Some of us enjoyed the sensory tactile feeling on the paint on our hands more than others. 

Wednesday 6th November 

PSHE/Understanding the world-

Assembly/Food Tasting

Today, it was our Wednesday assembly. We learnt the Makaton signs for lots of different types of food and then we tried to cut them up and taste them. Some of the vegetables we liked very much and some, we did not like at all!

We all had a lot of fun being together.

Thursday 24th October

Understanding the World- 

A trip to Tweddle's Farm

Today, we visited Tweddle's Farm.We had a lovely time. The weather was very sunny and we were able to play outside on the swings. We also visited lots of animals. We saw the rabbits, guinea pigs and were followed around on our walk by a baby goat!

 Tuesday 22nd October

  PSHE/Literacy-Share A Story

Then, later in the afternoon, we had invited parents into the classroom to "Share a Story." We shared the sensory story "We are Going on a Leaf Hunt" with our parents and went outside to collect some leaves. We then created some artwork and had some cake! Everyone had a great time. Thank you to our parents for visiting! 

Tuesday 22nd October

   Expressive Arts and Design- Liz Million

We have had a really busy day today! This morning we had a visit from an author- Liz Million. She was fantastic and taught us how to draw cats. We all tried really hard and produced some lovely work.

  Thursday 17th October

  Autumn Sensory Walk

This afternoon, we went outside and explored our Autumn Sensory Walk. We all got very messy and enjoyed ourselves very much. We enjoyed the colours and the textures of the different sensory experiences. Luckily, we all had our waterproofs on. When we came back inside (and got cleaned up!) we made some pictures with the leaves we had played in.

Wednesday 9th October

Literacy

Over this half term, Spot Goes To The Circus has been one of our class stories. The children have enjoyed exploring different props and completing related activities. Using materials, we made clown hats and we completed colour matching activities. 

Tuesday 8th October

Literacy-Mark Making

Look at us practising our mark making skills! Some of us used different grasps like palmer and pincer grip to hold the chalk. We made different movements to make the marks like linear, shapes, swirls and squiggles. This also helps to develop our hand eye coordination. 

Thursday 3rd October

Understanding The World- Headland

Today, we spent the morning at the Headland. We took in the fresh sea air and had a nice long walk around the prom. 

Wednesday 25th September

Physical Development-Rebound Therapy

Zebras have really enjoyed our rebound session today. This helps us to develop balance and the coordination of our motor skills. It also helps us to develop  our proprioception, knowing where our body is and how it needs to be positioned to be able to jump, be in the air and land back on the trampoline. We also really like putting the sensory lights on and listening to some music, helping us to unwind and relax after a busy day at school!

 Thursday 19th September-

Knowledge and Understanding of the World- Beach

What a fantastic day we had! We hopped onto the bus and visited the beach. To start off, we enjoyed a calm, relaxing walk around Northgare. The children had fun exploring using their senses pouring sand, listening to the waves, looking for shells and rocks. It was lots of fun being outside enjoying the fresh sea air.

Wednesday 18th September

Physical Development- Hydrotherapy

This morning, Zebras have really enjoyed the hydrotherapy pool. We listened to relaxing music, played with the toys and explored different movements in the water. Our new children's confidence in the pool is growing already, we are so proud of them! Here are some pictures of us in action.

Tuesday 10th September

Understanding The World and Communication and Language

Today, we got very messy! We made some egg free chocolate chip cookies. Taking turns, we explored all the different ingredients (some of our children liked it more than others!) using our senses. Some of our children enjoyed watching the ingredients falling like the flour, others liked tactile exploration mixing the ingredients together and using fine motor skills to shape the cookies. Whilst some really liked using their taste to explore the ingredients (I bet you can guess who!). We had a lovely time and the cookies tasted delicious, we shared them for our snack. 

Thursday 5th September

Physical Development and Exploring the World

Today, we left the classroom and headed out to explore our community. We went to Ward Jackson Park. The children enjoyed seeing the ducks and being out in the fresh air. Enjoying our first week back together.