We have been baking each day this week, ready to sell cakes for our Children In Need bake sale. Baking offers so many learning opportunities. We have been measuring ingredients, recognising numerals on our scales and using language such as more / less. We've been developing our gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination as we've poured and spooned in ingredients and mixed them all together. We've also learnt new cooking words, such as 'creaming' and 'folding', whilst working together with our peers and learning to listen to instructions.
Space has been a strong theme all week. The children had told us they found the changing area 'not very fun' - so we held a vote to decide how it should be decorated. The children chose a space theme, so we then spent time crafting planets, space rockets and pictures of the stars to enhance this area. This prompted space inspired role-play where we introduced our dark den alongside a range of rockets and aircraft, as well as space themed songs at carpet-time.
In Jolly Jo we've been practicing a range of skills. We practiced carrying cups on a tray, an essential skill for when children go to big school! We also practiced throwing hoops over cones, before then finishing off with a bike race!
We finished the week with some new maths games. The children received a letter from Cat-Boy who had sent the children a mission to match quantity and numerals using our number and numicon cards. The children enjoyed this task, and were then encouraged to write Cat-Boy a letter, asking for their next mission to be sent!
Other popular activities this week have including construction toys, such as Lego and popoids, jigsaw puzzles, and toy animals. We've also enjoyed the garden (despite the rain!) - enjoying the very muddy mud kitchen, sweeping the leaves, and playing football!
Ideas to continue the learning at home:
Cooking and baking can be such wonderful learning opportunities, so why not involve your child in preparing food at home. You can count ingredients as you add them, use scales and introduce the idea of more or less, explore the textures and smells of different food, and enjoy looking through cook books (or the internet) for ideas.