The fire theme continued throughout the week, and the children decided to make their own bonfire on Friday – we collected sticks and planks of wood from the garden, and then sat around the bonfire to sing campfire songs. The children did mention we needed marshmallows with a bonfire, so we’ve planned our Monday snack to include marshmallows and hot chocolate around our campfire!
This week, with the harvest full moon, our thoughts have turned to Harvest Festival – a celebration of the produce we collect from the earth! Unfortunately our growing efforts haven’t yielded quite enough vegetables for a feast fit for 26 children - so we took a trip to Tesco to see what vegetables we could find! We chose potatoes, onion, and leek and then made soup that we shared for snack! The children enjoyed exploring all of the different vegetables available at Tesco, so we will build on this interest and explore some vegetable themed ideas next week!
As the weather becomes more autumnal, our garden is awash with acorns and leaves. These have created a lovely craft focus. Leaves became stencils – we painting around them and observed the patterns they left once we’d removed the leaf (one child suggested the fern actually looked more like a crocodile!). The acorns were then used to introduce a technique known as acorn rolling! We loaded the acorns with paint, and then rolled them across paper in a tray; this leaves a lovely effect which you can see on our autumn wall display.
Playdough is a popular resource at Squirrels; but unfortunately it can quickly vanish! By Tuesday we were completely out! So the children were invited to help us make some more! We measured out the ingredients and then had fun as we mixed, mashed, stirred, and squished the dough! This is a wonderful sensory experience as well as an early introduction to material science; watching as the dry and wet ingredients combine to form dough!
Ideas to continue this week’s fun at home: Why not let your child explore the fruit and vegetables available in your local store – there are many weird and wonderful types available! Compare the sizes, shapes, colours, textures etc. the learning possibilities are endless! Maybe you could even introduce new tastes and cook your own feast together?!