Welcome to this week's blog - we seem to have had a very busy week!

We were really excited to welcome Karen from St Luke's Church who came and spoke to the children about Harvest.  Taking the story of the fishes and loaves, Karen wowed the children with a magic show where she multiplied a drinks bottle again and again and again, illustrating how we can give our surplus 'harvest' to others and how thankful others will be.  This led to a discussion about what we're all thankful for, with children drawing these things onto a heart.

With the weather more changeable this week, it has been even more important to ensure that the children are able to be active indoors.  Our regular 'Jolly Jo' sports session explored a range of activities this week, including running in and out of cones, matching items to coloured mats and rolling balls down ramps.  Within these games the children learn to listen to instructions and to take turns.

Music and movement has also been popular all week.  Initially children were simply listening to the music on the I-pod (baby shark... again!) and making up dance moves, but we were soon adding our dancing scarves and ribbons to extend our dance moves, before then adding instruments too.  The children were so inspired by their talents that THEY decided they would put on a talent show.  We worked together to create a sign for the stage, added microphones, set up a circle of chairs, and then invited our friends to watch the show.  Many of the children showcased their singing and dancing - showing great pride in their achievements.

Sensory play continues to be one of our most popular activities at Squirrels.  Following on from the oats and rice that we explored last week, this week we explored cooked spaghetti in a tuff tray.  The children enjoyed mixing the different colours together, using tweezers to find the hidden bugs, and generally feeling and 'squelching' it!  After lunch, we also added scissors to the tray which enabled children to practice their cutting skills in a new way, whilst being encouraging to then compare the lengths of their spaghetti and explore concepts such as longest and shortest.

To appeal to our transporters, we set up 2 different height tuff trays and filled 1 with sand, trucks and diggers.  With wooden planks between the trays, we watched as the vehicles were moved between 1 tray and the other.  Interestingly, we noted how the children seemed to have a preference playing in the lower tray, showing how important it is that activities are presented at the correct child height.

Building has been particularly popular this week.  The train track first inspired children to build, but then we noticed they were adding the wooden blocks too.  This building for trains then developed into building vertical towers, enclosing spaces and building 'castles' and 'houses' from the wooden blocks.  To help inspire children's ideas, we have added a range of photos of structures from around the world, such as the Eiffel Tower, the Shard, and Sydney Opera House.

Finally, reading stories is always a favourite activity within the setting, and we encourage children to join in with repetitions within the text.  This week, however, the children had to make up their own story!  During carpet-time, the children were given a tray of story prompts, and were then encouraged to think what could happen next e.g. Gordon the train going to the park, or the super speedy superhero who rescued the dog!  This is a wonderful way to encourage imaginative ideas and start to understand how stories develop.

Ideas to continue the learning at home:

Why not try your own storytelling at home - use a favourite teddy or toy as a starting point, and think about an adventure they might have!

On the 9th October 2019 we were visited by firefighters from the local fire station. They showed us their uniform and talked about how this can help them do their job! We were shown special equipment that they use; including a torch, breathing equipment, walkie-talkie and thermal imaging camera.  Next, we had an opportunity to look at their fire  engine and to spray water from the hose!  This visit helped to inspire various craft and role play opportunities throughout the week.

On Tuesday, we filled our tuff tray with porridge oats, dry powder paint, scoops and funnels; inviting the children to explore this in their own way.  Some children enjoyed scooping the oats and pouring them through funnels.  Others added cars and diggers, watching the marks that the wheels made. Some were interested in the different colours and explored how these could be changed. Water was then added, making new textures, colours and learning opportunities - showing how play can evolve throughout the session.

Following the children’s interest in oats, we decided to explore rice and pasta too – offering shells for scooping and tweezers to encourage fine motor skills.  The children enjoyed exploring the different textures, before then adding large vehicles which they filled with the rice and pasta before then transporting it away! Transporting is a strong schema that many of our children have, so is something we will explore further next week!                                                                 
With the wet weather on Friday, we decided to introduce children to our indoor climbing frame.  There was lots of interest in this new resource; with children taking turns to climb the steps, step between different height platforms, and then exit via the slide.  We used coloured mats to help children wait their turn, using a green ‘go’ and a red ‘stop’ mat.  We observed some lovely examples of turn taking.       
       
Other popular activities this week have included the farm, which linked in with a listening game the children played - children heard animal sounds on the I-pod and then pretending to be that animal. We also played a carpet-time game where children had to pretend to be an animal which their friends then had to guess! 

Ideas to continue the learning at home:

Sensory play is a wonderful way to explore; it can encourage children to explore textures and colours and helps to build motor skills.  What could you find to explore at home? A bowl of dried pasta or rice? Maybe the silky soft texture of flour? Crunchy cereals?  There are plenty of everyday items that could be explored!

This week we enjoyed going on a ‘listening walk’ – this is where the children are encouraged to really listen to the sounds within their environment.  They heard birds, leaves blowing in the trees, a bus, a fire-engine and music from a car!  It provided a wonderful opportunity to practice our listening skills and develop an awareness of sounds.
 
Continuing with our Harvest theme, our new focus story is the tale of ‘The Little Red Hen’ – a hen who seeks the help of her friends to sow seeds, grow wheat, harvest the wheat, mill the wheat into flour and finally make bread. Unfortunately, her friends are all too busy! Will they still be busy when it’s time to eat the bread?  Many of our children have already started to join in with the repetitive phrase, "I'm too busy" when sharing this story at carpet-time.
 
To link in with our focus story, we decided to bake our own bread this week.  The children helped to measure the ingredients, stir the mixture, and knead the dough.  After an hour, our dough had risen and was ready for baking.  We then shared our freshly baked bread for snack.      

We have been gifted a new I-pod, filled with fabulous new music!  This inspired a music and movement session on Thursday, with children using scarves and ribbons to make up new dance moves!  Favourite tunes included; Moana, Lion King and Toy Story.

Other popular activities this week have included the train set (again!), balancing activities in the garden, bikes and trikes, Duplo and wooden blocks (that were used to build a zoo!)
 
Ideas to continue the learning at home:

Listening walks are a great way to encourage children to really listen out for different sounds.  This builds the skills they'll require when learning phonics later on.  Why not go for your own listening walk and see what sounds you hear? Birds? Traffic? People?