Again we have spent much of our time outside making the most of our very versatile outdoor area.  We asked the children to help us build a road layout and they used the tyres, crates and planks to do this.  When this was complete the children were each asked to make their own driving licence at the mark making table.  They drew pictures of themselves and wrote their names and then they were able to select a vehicle to use on our new road layout.  When the whistle blew they had to return their vehicles to the holding area where they could swap them with someone else.  They had to show their driving licence each time they chose a new vehicle.  Some of the boys made a garage workshop where they repaired the cars and another group made a car cleaning area.

We had singing in our log circle where we used hazel sticks to make music.  We made lots of flowers and signs for our flower shop and then puppets for a puppet show.  The puppet show had numbered seats so the children had to match their ticket numbers to the correct seat.  Lots of 'food' was mixed and 'cooked' in the mud kitchen and some girls made a 'rock' shop.  Some children made their own picture postcards and grass seed heads and we visited many places on our magic carpet.

Our first butterfly hatched this week!  We are looking forward to the next ones and will then observe them for a few days before we release them in the garden.  We will feed them on fruit and sugar syrup.    

The week ended with our annual trip to Highwoods Country Park where children and adults took part in pond dipping, a minibeast hunt and some sensory activities.  The children all did very well walking to and from the Visitors Centre. 

Week beginning 16th June

This week we have continued our story of the Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  The children have been busy making caterpillar headbands, egg box caterpillars and butterfly biscuits.  They have a very good knowledge of the story and some of them have been retelling the story to each other using the story sack props.  We made the outdoor playhouse into a shop selling real fruit and vegetables and we also used some to do our potato and fruit printing. 
We set up the dark den and took turns to go inside with the rechargeable torches.  We also used it when we went on a 'Bear Hunt' and pretended it was the dark cave in the Bear hunt story.  There has been a lot of outdoor play and we were pleased to welcome a lot of the children's dads and granddads in to join in our fun.  They joined our big group parachute play and we showed them how well we can listen and follow instructions.  We showed them how we are learning to sit with our legs crossed ready for our singing and story times.  We decorated one of the trees outside using lots of colourful chalks-good mark making practise.  We made our own stage to practise our singing and dancing and we turned the wooden box into a cosy place with cushions and soft toys.
We have been given a red tractor and we used the sand timer to practise our turn taking on this.  We have used the knex, briomec and mobilo construction to make our own models and lots of us played with the farm animals making enclosures for them with our wooden blocks.  At the end of the week we played some small group games; dotty dinosaurs, grasshoppers, lunchbox game, a memory game and snap.  
Those of us who will soon be going to school have been practising undressing and dressing for PE.  We need to practise this at home as well to make sure we are able to be as independent as possible when we go to school.

We are looking forward to next Friday 27th June as it is our trip to Highwoods Country Park.  We will be going pond dipping and searching for minibeasts.

 

We have enjoyed some lovely weather this week with plenty of opportunities to play in the garden.  We have continued to look at the lifecycles of animals, insects and birds and enjoyed looking at a real nest brought in from Gill’s garden.  Some of the children made their own nests using egg boxes and craft materials and we had great fun discussing what kind of animals might live in them.

Our eggs have turned into caterpillars and it has been very exciting seeing how quickly they are growing. 

The children have collected snails in the garden and have made them their own “house” using a large plastic tub filled with twigs and leaves. We also found a small green caterpillar which the children found a large leaf for because they remembered this from our Very Hungry Caterpillar story.

This week we turned the playhouse into a supermarket.  The children have been taking it in turns to wear manager or shop assistant badges and serve the other children with a variety of pretend food items.  This has given the children the opportunity to practise counting money, taking turns and sequencing by arranging foods according to colour, size and type.

We have had a lovely time with water play in this lovely sunny weather.  The children enjoy painting the fences with a large brush and water. We played blowing bubbles and added glycerine to the water and washing up liquid solution to give us better and bigger bubbles. We added numbered ducks to the water tray which was great fun.  One child wanted to build a waterslide so we compromised by adding a blue tarpaulin to the bottom of the slide so that the children could pretend that they were at a theme park.

In recognition of Father’s day this Sunday the children have been making cards and some have made biscuits for any special people in their lives.

We played a colour matching game this week.  The children selected a coloured lolly stick from a decorated egg box.  Then they took the stick to try and find a matching colour somewhere in the room or garden.  This is a simple idea that you may like to try and home and can be adapted to use shapes, symbols or words.

We finished the week with lots of art and craft activities in the garden, and a party snack time.

 

This week the children have been enjoying the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We have been acting out the story with the children taking it in turns to count out all of the lovely bits of food that the caterpillar ate.

We were delighted when on Monday our Grow your own Caterpillar eggs arrived in their special pot.  We will be carefully watching over the next 7 - 14 days to see the eggs grow into caterpillars and then attach themselves to the top of the cup and form into chrysalides.  We will then transfer them into their butterfly habitat and wait for them to emerge as beautiful butterflies.   Please ask your children to show you our butterfly habitat because it is a wonderful learning experience that we are sure your child would love to share with you.

We have also enjoyed playing aeroplanes this week.  The children built their own aeroplane using chairs, and we bought tickets, had refreshments , belted our seats and we were off.  We flew to the moon but unfortunately crashed on the way back.  Happily we landed in the sea and went for a lovely swim before ending up on a beautiful beach.

We have continued to look after our plants in the garden, using watering cans made from the kindly donated milk bottles.

Marley, our puppet visited the children to talk about feelings and positive behaviour.  The children were very kind to him and made him so welcome that he would like to visit again next week.

We are spending a lot of our time in the garden at the moment and the children have enjoyed den making which is something we will continue with next week.  Any donations of large bits of material suitable for making dens are always appreciated.

We finished the week with celebrating two children's birthdays by having a lovely party snack time in the garden.  Lovely!

We look forward to more fun and games next week.