Welcome to our final blog of this half term. This week we have been exploring Diwali, often called the festival of lights. We explored Rangoli designs, with many children experimenting and making their own patterns; using doilies, colour mixing with paints, and even making patterns from fruit! Many of the children also made their own diva lamps from clay, using various tools to help them sculp their masterpieces! The clay was so popular that, as the week progressed, children came up with their own ideas of what to make; tarantulas, birthday cakes, hedgehogs and reindeer!
We trialled something new this week, we created a 'kids only' zone! By sectioning off a small corner of the room with the dressing up trolley, and by filling this area with cushions and blankets, the children had a quiet and safe retreat where they could go to rest, to think and to recharge! We found that a number of children really valued this 'adult free' area, and we noted how it helped facilitate some lovely communication between peers.
As our children's listening and attention skills develop, our Jolly Jo sessions are becoming more structured and often involve 2-part instructions. This week we focused on colours, with children playing a game where they had to run to the 'grass', 'sun', 'water', or 'postbox', and a car game where red means 'stop', green means 'go', blue means 'reverse' etc.
Despite the cold and wet weather, we still endeavour to spend time in the garden each day (coat and wellies really are important). This week the waffle bricks have been popular, with children using these to make football goals. We have also been busy cleaning and tidying - children used the brooms to sweep up fallen leaves, and we used sponges and washing up brushes to scrub clean our 4 tuff trays!
Finally, sensory play remains popular with many of our children. We repeated our oats themed tuff tray, with children enjoying mixing, scooping and pouring the oats. We also set up a potion themed tuff tray with bowls of baking powder and potion bottles filled with vinegar. The result of these ingredients mixing is a bubbling 'explosion' which fascinated many of the children as they watched their mixture bubble up and out of the bottle!
We trialled something new this week, we created a 'kids only' zone! By sectioning off a small corner of the room with the dressing up trolley, and by filling this area with cushions and blankets, the children had a quiet and safe retreat where they could go to rest, to think and to recharge! We found that a number of children really valued this 'adult free' area, and we noted how it helped facilitate some lovely communication between peers.
As our children's listening and attention skills develop, our Jolly Jo sessions are becoming more structured and often involve 2-part instructions. This week we focused on colours, with children playing a game where they had to run to the 'grass', 'sun', 'water', or 'postbox', and a car game where red means 'stop', green means 'go', blue means 'reverse' etc.
Despite the cold and wet weather, we still endeavour to spend time in the garden each day (coat and wellies really are important). This week the waffle bricks have been popular, with children using these to make football goals. We have also been busy cleaning and tidying - children used the brooms to sweep up fallen leaves, and we used sponges and washing up brushes to scrub clean our 4 tuff trays!
Finally, sensory play remains popular with many of our children. We repeated our oats themed tuff tray, with children enjoying mixing, scooping and pouring the oats. We also set up a potion themed tuff tray with bowls of baking powder and potion bottles filled with vinegar. The result of these ingredients mixing is a bubbling 'explosion' which fascinated many of the children as they watched their mixture bubble up and out of the bottle!
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