This week we had decided to make the focus snow and ice in celebration of the ever popular film Frozen. The children turned the role play area into an igloo by draping white netting over the dressing up stand and the wooden kitchen. We added the fishing game which consists of a small pond and fishing rods with magnets. In the pond there are wooden fish with numbers on and the children are able to catch them and identify what is on them. We talked abut how Eskimos make holes in the ice to catch fish.
For our small world activity we used the tuff spot and we added some small wooden Eskimo characters, an igloo and sea animals. Each day we put something different in to represent the ice and snow. On Monday we added some fake snow which was more like a sludge. On Tuesday we added real ice cubes and the children were able to observe them melting over time. For the rest of the week we added some blue jelly gloop which looked a bit like a frozen sea. The children were fascinated by the process of ice freezing and melting and so Kelly froze water into a plastic glove, which when the the glove was peeled back, revealed a frozen hand! It took a long time to melt and the children spent all day going back to see how many fingers had gone and how fat the hand was.
On Tuesday there was great excitement when it actually began to snow for real. We ran out into the garden and the children tried to catch the flakes on their tongues. We were sad that it did not last for long and there was no prospect of building a snow man. In fact one child said it was a “catastrophe” which is quite a big and dramatic word! Another child said “But when will it actually snow for real” and another observed that the snow gets “turned on and off”.
There were many snow themed pictures produced during the week using cotton wool glitter and white paint.
Pirates were a popular theme this week as well. The children had been listening to the story of Mike the Knight and had asked for the pirate ships out to play with. Some of the children dressed up as knights and some time was spent producing treasure maps. These maps included volcanoes, swamps and raging rivers as we walked around the room trying to find where “X marks the spot” for the buried treasure.
We read the story of Elmer and a small group of children created some lovely pictures of the elephant by cutting out coloured squares and gluing them onto paper.
Towards the end of the week Helen brought in a puppet theatre made from a shoe box with small characters on sticks. The children shone torches behind the tissues paper front in order to make shadows of the characters. Another group of children made a large theatre under the table with blankets and torches and put on a show for us all.
Our volunteer helper Susannah created some stones with the characters from Frozen on them to go with a book. These will be available soon for any parent/child to borrow to help with story telling at home. We plan to build up a library of stories with props for the children to take home and always appreciate your ideas about which stories your children like the best.
Garden games have included getting out the large parachute and bouncing the ball onto different colours. The water wall and mud kitchen are always popular and of course the bikes and scooters are requested each day.
Words we have learned this week:
Catastrophe
Melt
Ideas to continue this week's fun at home:
Try freezing different things in ice cubes and observe how they melt.
Make up your own story bag by using a favourite book and a few props eg making maps for pirates or straw, sticks and lego bricks for the Three little Pigs. This can really add to story telling and make it fun for both of you.
For our small world activity we used the tuff spot and we added some small wooden Eskimo characters, an igloo and sea animals. Each day we put something different in to represent the ice and snow. On Monday we added some fake snow which was more like a sludge. On Tuesday we added real ice cubes and the children were able to observe them melting over time. For the rest of the week we added some blue jelly gloop which looked a bit like a frozen sea. The children were fascinated by the process of ice freezing and melting and so Kelly froze water into a plastic glove, which when the the glove was peeled back, revealed a frozen hand! It took a long time to melt and the children spent all day going back to see how many fingers had gone and how fat the hand was.
On Tuesday there was great excitement when it actually began to snow for real. We ran out into the garden and the children tried to catch the flakes on their tongues. We were sad that it did not last for long and there was no prospect of building a snow man. In fact one child said it was a “catastrophe” which is quite a big and dramatic word! Another child said “But when will it actually snow for real” and another observed that the snow gets “turned on and off”.
There were many snow themed pictures produced during the week using cotton wool glitter and white paint.
Pirates were a popular theme this week as well. The children had been listening to the story of Mike the Knight and had asked for the pirate ships out to play with. Some of the children dressed up as knights and some time was spent producing treasure maps. These maps included volcanoes, swamps and raging rivers as we walked around the room trying to find where “X marks the spot” for the buried treasure.
We read the story of Elmer and a small group of children created some lovely pictures of the elephant by cutting out coloured squares and gluing them onto paper.
Towards the end of the week Helen brought in a puppet theatre made from a shoe box with small characters on sticks. The children shone torches behind the tissues paper front in order to make shadows of the characters. Another group of children made a large theatre under the table with blankets and torches and put on a show for us all.
Our volunteer helper Susannah created some stones with the characters from Frozen on them to go with a book. These will be available soon for any parent/child to borrow to help with story telling at home. We plan to build up a library of stories with props for the children to take home and always appreciate your ideas about which stories your children like the best.
Garden games have included getting out the large parachute and bouncing the ball onto different colours. The water wall and mud kitchen are always popular and of course the bikes and scooters are requested each day.
Words we have learned this week:
Catastrophe
Melt
Ideas to continue this week's fun at home:
Try freezing different things in ice cubes and observe how they melt.
Make up your own story bag by using a favourite book and a few props eg making maps for pirates or straw, sticks and lego bricks for the Three little Pigs. This can really add to story telling and make it fun for both of you.
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