Firstly apologies to my readers, this is a day later than planned. Because I couldn’t resist enjoying a day in the garden on what will probably be the only day of summer in the UK this year. Ha.
So, Jemima was a bit gutted over Easter. One of her favourite classes, Sounds Right Phonics, was on a two week Easter break (how dare they!) and even at the age of two, Jemima was asking when she was next going to see Robot Reg and Jenna… Everytime we left the house. Finally, on Wednesday 18th April, I was able to tell her that we were off to the class and she was SO excited to hear that it was Robot Reg day and the new term was starting.
Off we headed to St James Church Centre in Mere Green for 10:30am when the session started.
The session that Jemima attends is for ages 2-5 and it was nice to see that half the class was the familiar faces of last term (a sign of a good class is when the same faces return the following term) and we also had some new faces too which was lovely. Interestingly for me, Jemima was the only girl in the session (she enjoys this “I like boys mummy” as I so often hear and plan to end by the time she’s a teenager. Haha). I think it is lovely to see a class with so many boys in. Often the sessions I go to (and I’ve been to many) are over subscribed by girls and boys are incredibly rare. So it is lovely to see boys have fellow boys to interact with. But if you’re a mum of girls reading this, bring them along too, it really is a great session for all children.
Each class follows the same format. Great for kids who learn so much better with repetition (as an ex year one teacher at a primary school, I learnt quite quickly that repetition is one of the ways to enhance learning at a rapid pace).
At the start of the session, children come in and have to find their name tag on a table. It always amazes me that Jemima can find hers and bring it back to the semi circle now. She couldn’t when she first started, but two sessions later and she knew what her name looked like. Other children also manage to find theirs, even if sometimes it is by process of elimination when others correctly take their names. Children also enjoy helping each other, so there’s some passing of name tags around.
All of the children then return to the semi circle, where they sit on coloured spots facing Jenna who runs the class. Each child takes it in turn to go to the front, post their name into a mini red post box and shout out to the class what their name is.
When everyone has had a go, it is time to sing the hello song to each other. The children love this. Using not just words but actions too.
Followed by a recap of the songs that they have learnt in other sessions, relating to different letters (E.g. A song about the letter ‘A’) . This is great for any child who may have missed a session as they get to learn all the sounds again. Reinforcing that sound recognition and repetitiveness to help remind them what they have learnt (or fill in gaps of missed sessions) .
I don’t like to give a full description of a whole class as I like people to go and experience themselves how brilliant they are.
But some bits that Jemima really enjoyed in Wednesdays session were;
- Dough Disco – a chance to improve her fine motor skills (perfect for preparing her for when she begins to write). She gets to roll Playdoh into various shapes, splat the Playdoh (her favourite) and learns what each finger is called and how to use them to make shapes and pressings into her Playdoh, all whilst the curtains are closed and party lights are on. Jemima loves this. I do too as Jemima always grabs mummy some Playdoh to have a go too.
- Finding animals with the same letter around the room – this helped Jemima learn the names of different animals. It was a chance to see what the words look like (next to a picture too) and to identify the main letter of the session. This weeks was ‘M’. So Jemima found animals around the room such as a meerkat, moose, monkey etc
All of the children enjoyed walking around the room learning about the different animals.
- Pom Pom dancing – a great variety of activities with some Pom poms and music, learning how to listen to (and follow) instructions and copy people. The children love dancing around, copying Jenna.
There’s so much more in this session than I have included and I highly recommend it to all children aged between 2 and 5.
Watching how much Jemima has improved within just a term is amazing, and I plan to continue coming until she starts school.
The sessions are educational, fun and give Jemima and all the children that attend, the fundamental foundations for reading and writing. There’s not many sessions out there that cover sound recognition, alliteration, oral blending and segmenting.
Definitely a class you don’t want to miss if you live in and around Birmingham. Jenna runs various sessions around North Birmingham.
Any questions, please feel free to ask. I know Jenna let’s you pay for your first session as a trial before paying for the term. I pay when Jenna does early bird offers meaning my classes are under £6 a session. A bargain!
Hey, if you liked this review or maybe were inspired to try this out because of my post, you can always buy me or the kids a drink or a slice of cake on our next big trip! Just hit the button below, if you want to. 🙂
Buy me a coffee
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