Our penultimate week of term has certainly been a busy week!  The children have been busy practicing for sports day with running races, superhero races, egg and spoon races, beanbag races and sack races!  The children have been eager to cheer on their friends, working together to make a banner, and asking to make flags for the big event next week!
 
We were very excited to invite Kimmy’s Zoo into the setting this week, made possible through YOUR brilliant fundraising efforts!  They brought a pygmy hedgehog, a screaming hairy armadillo, a bearded dragon, a snake, and a giant millipede called Rupunzle!  As each animal was introduced, children were given information about where in the world each animal came from, what they eat, and other interesting facts.  The children then got to stroke and hold the different animals, with many of our children brave enough to have the snake across their shoulders.  Kimmy’s Zoo helped inspire lots of animal themed ideas; we made animal masks, animal pictures, and enjoyed small world zoo and farm animals.  We also decorated animal biscuits for snack as a special treat!
 
School readiness is still very much a focus.  On Monday the children were inspired to talk about how they would travel to their new school, making a collage of footprints and tyre tracks to represent this. This picture then provided a focus for a carpet time discussion about big school; with children asking questions and telling their friends about their recent visits.
 
Stories have been popular this week.  We often reread our stories to help children become familiar with them and encourage them to join in.  This week we went one stage further and acted our story out! Whilst reading the story of ‘We’re Going On A Bear Hunt’, children joined us on a sensory adventure as we swished through real grass, squelched through real mud, splashed across our ‘river’, stumbled through the forest and finally found the bear as he hid in his cave!  Acting out stories can really help capture children’s imaginations and inspire a love of stories.
 
Finally, our children leaving for big school joined us for a graduation picnic on Friday.  This gave us an opportunity to present each child with their finished learning journey showing what an amazing journey each child has been on.  We feel truly privileged to have been part of this journey and wish them well as they progress to big school.
 
Ideas to continue this week’s fun at home:  Why not act out a favourite story from home?  Simple props can be used to help explore a story and retell it in a hands-on way.

On Monday we were very excited to see that our beautiful butterflies had emerged from their cocoons!  The children were able to spend the week observing them, before we finally released them on Friday.  As we released them, we talked about the changes we had seen; from tiny caterpillars, to big fat caterpillars, cocoons and then butterflies!  We shared the story of the munching crunching caterpillar, before then releasing our butterflies and waving them goodbye as they went!
 
The butterflies inspired lots of butterfly craft this week, with a group of children deciding to make butterfly kites.  This links in with the recent interest in kites too – with children now able to say the supplies they need in order to complete their masterpieces (card, string, hole-punch!)  It’s lovely to see so many of our children able to craft with a purpose in mind, and to independently access the resources they need.
 
We’ve also been enjoying fruit printing this week.  Following on from the introduction of our focus story, ‘Handa’s Surprise’ – we decided to explore some of the fruit in this story and see what patterns our fruit made.  We extended this further in the week by adding in a collection of vegetables too!  This led to interesting discussions about what food is good for us; introducing the idea of ‘healthy eating’
 
The mud kitchen has been popular as we’ve enjoyed being outside in the sunshine.  We added a canopy to help shield us from the sun, with this inspiring the idea that it was a ‘camping kitchen’.  Also, thanks to the warmer weather, water play has been popular.  We’ve explored this using our water slopes, water wall, and trays filled with different coloured water, along with a collection of sea animals.  The children have enjoyed scooping, splashing, squirting and pouring the water.
 
As we near the end of term, many of our children are preparing to go to ‘big’ school and have been enjoying school visits.  This led to us having a craft session with children drawing pictures of their new school, new uniforms, and new teachers.  As children drew their pictures, we were able to have a relaxed talk about big school and answer any questions they had.
 
Ideas to continue this week’s fun at home:  The butterflies have been so popular this term, so why not see if you can find any butterflies on a local walk?  What colours are they?  How many can you find?  What were they doing (fluttering?  Sitting on a flower?) Let us know if you find any!