This week we’ve started a topic called ‘all about me’ – over the course of this half term children will be encouraged to focus on who they are, what they look like, and what makes them special.  We started by talking to children about what makes them special.  This was mainly done during small group activities; we spoke about things that we enjoy, or things that we think we’re good at.  We will use the things children say to make a display over the next week – so do come and have a look.
 
Junk modelling has been popular this week, children used the craft trolley to source supplies and, with a little help, made some wonderful robots, rockets, and other sticky, gluey, masterpieces. 
 
Ball games have also been popular this week.  During Jolly Jo the children rolled balls along guttering and tried to catch them, which led to various ball games being played in the garden – we tried throwing balls through a hoop, as well as trying to get balls into a bucket.
 
The children enjoyed listening to music this week – on Wednesday we danced to music while twirling with scarves, whilst on Thursday we enjoyed playing musical statues; freezing or making scary faces when the music stopped!
 
We’ve also been playing with bugs this week!  We had a pot of bugs alongside our giant tweezers which the children have been sorting based on colour, number of legs, or size.  This encourages children to group things, count things, and look for similarities or differences - the tweezers also help to develop their fine motor skills which will be important later on for writing.
 
New words we have learned this week:

Special
 
Ideas to continue this weeks’ fun at home

Why not talk about special people at home?  Parents, grandparents, siblings, or cousins – talk about what makes them special, or what they are good at doing?  Maybe they’re good at sports, or drawing, or playing a musical instrument? This will help children to look at their own family and start forming a sense of who they are.

The children were excited to return to Squirrels this week and many were eager to tell us about their visits from the Easter Bunny!  Some children were even checking if there were any more eggs hidden in our Squirrels’ garden… just in case!
 
We’ve enjoyed lots of time in the garden this week and, as the weather continues to improve, many of our favourite activities will move outside.  This week, the children enjoyed making jigsaws in the garden, as well as having the Duplo outside in one of our large ‘tuff spots’.  We have also played with our waffle blocks; large flat blocks that connect together – the children built a long pathway with them and enjoyed using them for balancing, and then made them into cubes and rolled them like giant dice.
 
Parents may have noticed that our book corner had moved!  We have refreshed the room layout and also changed all of the books in our book corner.  We have lots of new spring focused books which include lifecycles, spring animals, and growing.  One of our favourite growing books is Jack and the Beanstalk – Jack acquires some magic beans and grows an enormous beanstalk which stretches all the way to the Giant’s kingdom!  On Friday, the children helped paint a large beanstalk which will become part of a new wall display.  We will continue to develop this theme next week; sharing the story with all of the children as well as acting out the story and seeing where else this may lead!
 
New words we have learned this week:
 
Beanstalk
 
Ideas to continue this weeks’ fun at home
 
Why not share a favourite story and see if you can find props to help you act out the story