We have been continuing our bug theme this week in the garden. The children were helped to make a wormery in a 2 litre plastic bottle and they spent some time trying to find worms to introduce to their new home. We hope to be able to watch the patterns created by the worms in the soil and sand. The children then decided to make houses for other garden creatures. We made a snail house and introduced spiders to spiders webs. The children created many other structures from sticks, mud and wood to try and attract new bugs. Some larger homes were made from the big coloured waffle bricks and these were able to provide homes for soft toys, bugs and of course three and four year old children!
All of these bug activities have given the children the opportunity to problem solve, discuss nature, understand growth and decay, and to look at the environment in which we live.
Bugs have also provided many other opportunities to develop skills. For children to be able to write and use small motor movements as they grow, it is important to strengthen wrists and fingers by using materials such as playdough. Another excellent way to do this is to use tools like tweezers. We have a set of larger coloured tweezers and the children have been enjoying using them to pick up small plastic bugs hidden amongst pasta and other objects. This developed into a race of who could pick up the most and is an excellent example of how we learn and develop through play activities.
Jolly Jo as we call her has continued to do some excellent sports activities in the hall on a Tuesday morning. We have managed to extend this to a further session on a Monday afternoon and are trying to secure some extra “big hall time” to give every child who attends on other days this opportunity. Many of the games that the children play during these sessions are recreated by the children themselves in the garden at other times and it is interesting to observe which ones they remember and how they are able to organise themselves into groups and follow the rules.
We are focusing this term on activities that will prepare the children for school, primarily for those that will leave us in July to start Big school in September, although the younger children are encouraged to join in if they show an interest. These activities are, changing shoes for PE, carrying a cup on a tray (requested by the school), holding a pencil correctly and saying please and thank you and name recognition/writing.
There have been many other activities happening at Squirrels this week, too many to write about in detail but they have included: making paper aeroplanes and numbering them, making clay bugs, drawing shapes in shaving foam, talking about and drawing our families, tracing and playing with the dolls house, water wall and mud kitchen. Phew, what a busy week!
Words we have learned this week:
Wormery
Tweezers
Ideas to continue this week's fun at home
Make bug houses in the garden or at the country park and see what moves in.
Try using tweezers to pick up small objects
All of these bug activities have given the children the opportunity to problem solve, discuss nature, understand growth and decay, and to look at the environment in which we live.
Bugs have also provided many other opportunities to develop skills. For children to be able to write and use small motor movements as they grow, it is important to strengthen wrists and fingers by using materials such as playdough. Another excellent way to do this is to use tools like tweezers. We have a set of larger coloured tweezers and the children have been enjoying using them to pick up small plastic bugs hidden amongst pasta and other objects. This developed into a race of who could pick up the most and is an excellent example of how we learn and develop through play activities.
Jolly Jo as we call her has continued to do some excellent sports activities in the hall on a Tuesday morning. We have managed to extend this to a further session on a Monday afternoon and are trying to secure some extra “big hall time” to give every child who attends on other days this opportunity. Many of the games that the children play during these sessions are recreated by the children themselves in the garden at other times and it is interesting to observe which ones they remember and how they are able to organise themselves into groups and follow the rules.
We are focusing this term on activities that will prepare the children for school, primarily for those that will leave us in July to start Big school in September, although the younger children are encouraged to join in if they show an interest. These activities are, changing shoes for PE, carrying a cup on a tray (requested by the school), holding a pencil correctly and saying please and thank you and name recognition/writing.
There have been many other activities happening at Squirrels this week, too many to write about in detail but they have included: making paper aeroplanes and numbering them, making clay bugs, drawing shapes in shaving foam, talking about and drawing our families, tracing and playing with the dolls house, water wall and mud kitchen. Phew, what a busy week!
Words we have learned this week:
Wormery
Tweezers
Ideas to continue this week's fun at home
Make bug houses in the garden or at the country park and see what moves in.
Try using tweezers to pick up small objects
- Wormery
- Tweezers
Ideas to continue this weeks fun at home:
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