As well as dads, we’ve also been focused on bugs this week! Our tuff tray has been filled with an array of creepy crawlies to find, as well as a messy mix of soil and worms (spaghetti!). At the craft table we’ve been using different techniques to create bugs; butterfly printing, stencilling, decorating butterflies with gems, and using stones and wooden discs as a canvas for our insects! We’ve also been practicing moving like bugs! We’ve been playing a new carpet-time game where we’ve spun like spiders, waltzed like dragonflies, and marched like ants; offering children an opportunity to explore different ways of moving.
To celebrate bug week, we were very excited to receive our own baby caterpillars on Monday. The children have been observing these each day and watching as they grow. To link in with this, we’ve been reading the story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar; this helps children to become familiar with the lifecycle of butterflies and to understand how things can grow and change over time.
It’s not been all bugs this week, on Thursday some of our children asked for the hairdresser set. This enabled us to observe some lovely role play, with children doing hair as they chatted about their favourite Disney characters. This led to children deciding that we were doing wedding hair ready for a marriage to Disney’s Aladdin!
The mud kitchen has also been popular, with the rain this week making it especially muddy! Children have been adding an array of mud, sticks, water and leaves as they’ve mixed, stirred, mashed and made their muddy recipes!
Other popular resources this week have included making rainbows with the Duplo, the shape boards, building with waffle blocks, and cars.
Ideas to continue this week’s fun at home: Bugs continue to be one of our children’s strongest interests at the moment, so why not have a bug hunt of your own. If you have a garden, explore under stones, flower pots etc. and see what bugs you find. Alternatively, take a local walk and look at leaves, in flower beds etc. and discover the array of local wildlife. Let us know what you find!