This week we have been exploring Chinese New Year, talking about how this is celebrated and looking at photographs of the festivities. This helped inspire various activities… We made Chinese lanterns using red card and scissors, giving us an opportunity to practice our cutting skills. We used tracing paper to copy over Chinese numerals, offering an opportunity to practice pencil control, as well as plenty of opportunities for counting and number recognition. We set up a Chinese restaurant with Chinese inspired food and chop sticks available for our ‘customers’, this helped to inspire lots of lovely role playing and communication skills. We’ve also enjoyed trying rice, noodles and prawn crackers for snack this week, helping children to try different tastes. We finished off by crafting a large dragon’s head which we will finish off next week!
Rice has been popular this week. Not only did we try it for snack, we also filled a large container with rice for scooping, sieving and pouring. The children enjoyed exploring the rice; we practiced our fine motor skills as we carefully spooned the rice into cups, as well as our gross motor skills as we tipped and poured the rice, we also talked about its texture (‘hard,’ ‘crunchy’) and then transported it to our Chinese restaurant role play area to make for a more authentic menu!
Sometimes we will plan activities based on what our children are showing an interest in. Other times, however, their imaginations will inspire child-led ideas and we go with them ‘in-the-moment’. This week this has led to us having a ballet lesson with a child teaching others various ballet moves in their makeshift ballet theatre! It also led to the opening of a ‘Halloween shop’ in the garden, with all manner of witches and monsters available to buy! It’s amazing to see what their imaginations can inspire and, by becoming involved in the children’s play, we can observe as their ideas evolve, more children join in and we can truly see learning in progress.
Despite the cold this week, we’ve still managed to spend plenty of time in the garden. The children were surprised to see that some of our tree stumps had been removed over the half term! However, we quickly realised that one of these is now wonderfully shaped to be a pre-historic dinosaur landscape! So our dinosaurs were taken outside and we set up an exciting dino-swamp with erupting volcanoes, swishy grasses and large logs!
Ideas to continue this week’s fun at home: Try and be involved with your child’s ideas – if they declare they want to have a ballet show, or open a Halloween shop, then go with it! Help them to explore their ideas and together you can help develop these further!
Rice has been popular this week. Not only did we try it for snack, we also filled a large container with rice for scooping, sieving and pouring. The children enjoyed exploring the rice; we practiced our fine motor skills as we carefully spooned the rice into cups, as well as our gross motor skills as we tipped and poured the rice, we also talked about its texture (‘hard,’ ‘crunchy’) and then transported it to our Chinese restaurant role play area to make for a more authentic menu!
Sometimes we will plan activities based on what our children are showing an interest in. Other times, however, their imaginations will inspire child-led ideas and we go with them ‘in-the-moment’. This week this has led to us having a ballet lesson with a child teaching others various ballet moves in their makeshift ballet theatre! It also led to the opening of a ‘Halloween shop’ in the garden, with all manner of witches and monsters available to buy! It’s amazing to see what their imaginations can inspire and, by becoming involved in the children’s play, we can observe as their ideas evolve, more children join in and we can truly see learning in progress.
Despite the cold this week, we’ve still managed to spend plenty of time in the garden. The children were surprised to see that some of our tree stumps had been removed over the half term! However, we quickly realised that one of these is now wonderfully shaped to be a pre-historic dinosaur landscape! So our dinosaurs were taken outside and we set up an exciting dino-swamp with erupting volcanoes, swishy grasses and large logs!
Ideas to continue this week’s fun at home: Try and be involved with your child’s ideas – if they declare they want to have a ballet show, or open a Halloween shop, then go with it! Help them to explore their ideas and together you can help develop these further!
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