This week at Squirrels we have been exploring a space theme! This was inspired both by our focus story, 'Whatever Next' as well as a child's interest in the recent Mars rover landing. To learn more, we have been using our laptop to look for facts about space, as well as images of rockets and rovers. This inspired some of the children to recreate their own rockets using a variety of construction materials, including the wooden bricks and the Mobilo, as well as repurposing large cardboard boxes to fly us to the moon! We obviously needed astronauts if we were traveling into space, so we drew around the children and turned them into astronauts - adding space helmets, space boots and other essentials!
Space was the inspiration for our craft this week too - painting stars, planets and aliens! We've also explored this theme within sensory play, using salt, dyed rice, oats, and dough to explore space inspired small world adventures! To complement this, we have shared space songs and space themed books at carpet-time, including the story, 'Aliens Love Underpants' and, 'On the Moon.'
The talk of 'space adventures' led us to discuss our own adventures during carpet-time. The children talked about the seaside, the forest, and camping adventures they'd enjoyed. To extend this, we shared the stories, 'The Whale and the Snail', and, 'This is the Bear and the Scary Night' - both about characters who have enjoyed their own adventures! Inspired by the thought of a seaside adventure, we set up a seaside themed tuff tray, complete with water, seaweed, shells and sea animals.
With the warmer weather this week, we have enjoyed the garden more. Water play has been popular, both in our water tray, and in our mud kitchen. The mud, especially, was popular this week. A group of children found spades and started to dig the borders and pots. We gave them a tuff tray to empty their mud into, which they then decided needed additional water added! This new messy mixture was the perfect obstacle to add to their bike track - with children experimenting with riding their bikes through and making some muddy tracks too! With so much mud - we decided to add flower pots and gardening tools. This started a conversation about seeds and flowers, so we shared the story, 'Jasper's Beanstalk' and discussed how seeds can grow. We will soon be planting our own seeds at Squirrels to enable us to explore this further.
Other popular activities this week have included, using spoons to scoop and pour, mixing flour into playdough to change the texture, creating shape rockets, playing in our dark den, creating rainbows, and practicing our pencil control. We've also enjoyed our Jolly Jo sport session - chasing hula hoops, matching shapes, balancing beanbags, and moving like snakes, crocodiles, lions, dragons and monkeys!
Ideas to continue the learning at home:
Many of our children were inspired by our space theme and enjoyed talking about how a rover had landed on Mars. You can watch the rover landing via the link below...
Why not use recycling to create your own junk-modelled Mars rover? We'd love to see photos of your creations.
Perseverance Rover's Descent and Touchdown on Mars: Onboard Camera Views | Mars Video - NASA Mars
Space was the inspiration for our craft this week too - painting stars, planets and aliens! We've also explored this theme within sensory play, using salt, dyed rice, oats, and dough to explore space inspired small world adventures! To complement this, we have shared space songs and space themed books at carpet-time, including the story, 'Aliens Love Underpants' and, 'On the Moon.'
The talk of 'space adventures' led us to discuss our own adventures during carpet-time. The children talked about the seaside, the forest, and camping adventures they'd enjoyed. To extend this, we shared the stories, 'The Whale and the Snail', and, 'This is the Bear and the Scary Night' - both about characters who have enjoyed their own adventures! Inspired by the thought of a seaside adventure, we set up a seaside themed tuff tray, complete with water, seaweed, shells and sea animals.
With the warmer weather this week, we have enjoyed the garden more. Water play has been popular, both in our water tray, and in our mud kitchen. The mud, especially, was popular this week. A group of children found spades and started to dig the borders and pots. We gave them a tuff tray to empty their mud into, which they then decided needed additional water added! This new messy mixture was the perfect obstacle to add to their bike track - with children experimenting with riding their bikes through and making some muddy tracks too! With so much mud - we decided to add flower pots and gardening tools. This started a conversation about seeds and flowers, so we shared the story, 'Jasper's Beanstalk' and discussed how seeds can grow. We will soon be planting our own seeds at Squirrels to enable us to explore this further.
Other popular activities this week have included, using spoons to scoop and pour, mixing flour into playdough to change the texture, creating shape rockets, playing in our dark den, creating rainbows, and practicing our pencil control. We've also enjoyed our Jolly Jo sport session - chasing hula hoops, matching shapes, balancing beanbags, and moving like snakes, crocodiles, lions, dragons and monkeys!
Ideas to continue the learning at home:
Many of our children were inspired by our space theme and enjoyed talking about how a rover had landed on Mars. You can watch the rover landing via the link below...
Why not use recycling to create your own junk-modelled Mars rover? We'd love to see photos of your creations.
Perseverance Rover's Descent and Touchdown on Mars: Onboard Camera Views | Mars Video - NASA Mars
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