This week we received an Ofsted inspection.  The children were amazing and were eager to show the inspector all of our favourite activities! 

These activities included the return of the Squirrels' talent show!  A number of children, feeling inspired by the musical instruments and microphones, decided to host their own singing and dancing talent show.  Before the show started, we created our own 'stage', then set up the chairs and handed out tickets!  The children took turns to sing favourite songs, dance, and even perform tricks! We had solos, duets and even group performances!  The children demonstrated how amazingly confident they are when it comes to leading their play and performing in front of peers.  It was lovely to see some of our less confident children join in and have-a-go.

The children's interest in using herbs in the mud kitchen was extended and brought indoors.  We added herbs and scissors to our playdough area to enable the children to practice their cutting skills, and combine this with the sensory enjoyment of adding herbs to the dough.  The smell was amazing and inspired many of the children to create food with the dough!  This 'food' was then transported to the kitchen area and used within role play.

We also used rice this week in our sensory play.  We explored this using a range of scoops, spoons and jugs, enjoying the process of tipping and pouring, and introducing words such as full and empty.  The rice also seemed to find it's way into the home corner, combining with the dough to make some very yummy looking recipes!

Ice has created interest this week!  Inspired by the frosty weather, we explored ice in a tuff tray.  We then combined this with powder paint and watched as the ice melted, mixed with the powder and created paint!  This enabled some wonderful colour mixing opportunities, as well as discussions about how the ice felt, and what weather we had observed.

Our focus story, 'We're Going On Bear Hunt' has continued to inspire this week.  We observed the children, with their coats and backpacks on, organising their own bear hunt!  They recited the story almost word for word as they tackled obstacles of their own choosing in the garden!  It's so lovely to watch the children lead their own learning in this way.  We introduce them to new ideas, set up an enabling environment, and then watch the direction they take their learning in.

On Friday we were very excited to take a trip to the library bus.  A group of 4 children visited the bus and chose a story each.  We sat and shared one of these stories, before then asking the librarian if we could borrow the rest.  He stamped each book and we then returned to Squirrels to show our friends the books we'd chosen.  The children were very excited to share their choices and explained why they'd chosen them.  We'll revisit the bus when it returns in 3 weeks time.

Other popular activities this week have included the popoids, which have been used to create robots, the new sensory den, which has created a calm and quiet zone, the marble run and the bikes and trikes in the garden.  

Ideas to continue the learning at home:

The library bus visits Highwoods every 3rd Friday - why not sign your child up to the library and see what books you could share?  Remember you are always welcome to borrow books from our lending library too.

We started the week by creating kites, using various craft resources to decorate our kites before then flying them in the garden.  This led to us focusing on the weather and, on Wednesday when it rained, we used wax to create rain paintings!  We drew our raindrops in wax, before then washing over it in watery paint.  The children were mesmerised to observe how their raindrops (and other pictures) magically reappeared!  

Continuing to focus on the rain, we decided to set up a rain-based science experiment!  We filled a jar with water, added our 'raincloud' (shaving foam) and then used pipettes to add coloured water... the resulting effect looked like rain!  However, with such keen investigators - our children decided to then mix the shaving foam and water with the resulting mixture resembling a swamp! But, swamps aren't blue - they're green!  So, we decided to add different coloured water until we'd made a satisfying green sludge!  The curiosity didn't stop there! The shaving foam was then used for sensory mark making; the children made various patterns, including many of them attempting to write letters from their name in the foam!

Mark making has been popular all week, with children eager to do large scale drawings!  Taping rolls of paper to the floor, the children have worked together to create mega-masterpieces!  This helps develop different muscles compared to drawing at a table, as well as learning to work collaboratively with peers.

We've continued to enjoy our focus story this week, 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt,' and at carpet-time on Thursday we decided to re-write the story!  Using our story map, we came up with new obstacles the family faced on their hunt, as well as changing other key events.  Our version had our family going on a, 'doggy hunt - what a thunderous day!' We went through, fog, snow, trees and a swamp, finally finding our doggy under a log!  When children are familiar with a story, this empowers them to then be able to imagine new ideas and create their own stories - this is why it's so important to revisit favourite stories again and again.

Our focus story also featured in our craft area on Friday; we used various textured resources to create bear hunt inspired craft!  This was a great opportunity for children to talk about the story, as well as explore and talk about textures.

Puzzles and games have been popular this week.  A tile-matching orchard game has been popular which enables children to develop turn taking skills and teaches them the importance of following  rules.  Floor puzzles have also been a popular activity all week, with children completing a range of jigsaws as they've worked together to find and fit the pieces.

The indoor climbing frame was a fun activity on a wet afternoon.  This was then turned into a sensory den, complete with a range of materials draped over the frame.  This offered children a quiet child-only zone where they could sit and talk together in small groups.

Other popular activities this week have included; circle-time games such as 5 currant buns, honey pot, and what's the time Mr Wolf?  Jolly Jo where we focused on positional language as we passed a ball 'over' and 'under' our heads and legs, moved 'in' and 'out' of cones, and carried things 'on top' of a tray.  The large garden Duplo alongside 'tools'.  Making an assault course in the garden.

Ideas to continue the learning at home:

Our children enjoyed exploring our raincloud science experiment - why not look at our website for other science-based ideas you could try at home?  Use the link below, and let us know how it goes!

http://www.squirrelspreschool.com/uploads/1/8/4/4/18444885/science_experiments.pdf

Welcome to our first Blog of 2020, we hope our families all had a relaxing break?

One of our focus stories this term is the book, 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'.  Many of our children are already familiar with this story and will join in with repetitive phrases. To extend our learning, we decided to retell the story from memory, drawing a story map of the main characters and events.  Our children did really well, remembering all of the things the family faced on their search for the bear; grass, mud, a river and so on!  Some of the children even suggested new ideas; leaves, twigs and snow - imagining what sounds these might make as we have to go through them!

One thought the children often have after reading this story is how the bear is feeling - the final page shows him walking away along a beach.  This led us to discuss how the family might have felt during their bear hunt, when they found the bear, and how the bear felt when the family ran away.  Children suggested feelings such as excited, happy, sad and scared.  This led us to a carpet-time discussion about how our actions can make others feel.  The children brainstormed ideas such as; cuddling, sharing and saying sorry to make our friends happy, and pinching, hitting, scratching and telling tales to make our friends sad.  This is a wonderful way for children to talk about feelings, and realise how their actions can impinge on others.

The bear hunting continued into the garden with children deciding to build a 'cave' using the wooden bricks and waffle bricks to build a footpath to their cave.

New this term, we have created a sensory area.  This area has a range of colours and textures for children to explore.  As children were introduced to these new resources, many chose to remove their shoes and walk across the textured tiles.  This led to lots of lovely adjectives, such as spikey, 'spike'er'ly', soft, smooth and liney!

Another new addition this term has been our 'old-school' dressing up area.  We've removed many of our character costumes, and replaced them with a mix of generic fabrics, materials and accessories.  Whereas an Elsa dress is lovely for a child to be Elsa - a collection of material can be used to be a princess, a superhero or maybe a sari - our intention is to help inspire imagination and creativity in this area.

The children have enjoyed plenty of time in the garden this week.  The mini trampoline has provided an excellent opportunity to count jumps, with children counting their own jumps and their friends'.  This was then extended, with some children asking for chalk boards to enable them to record how many jumps they'd done.

Other popular activities this week have included; the train set, washing station, lego, home corner and playdough. 

Ideas to continue the learning at home
We've really enjoyed our focus story 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'.  You can watch the author telling this story using the following link...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iou5LV9dRP0

Can your child join in with key words? Maybe they can come up with their own ideas for hurdles to overcome?