This term the children have been exploring shape. They have made wonderful pictures using our big foam shapes, created magnificent constructions using the magnatiles and made circular bird feeders. Some of our older ones have been on shape hunts to discover shapes in the environment. We have also had snacks with a shape theme – round crumpets, triangular flatbreads and square and flower shaped waffles.
The weather has also created lots of opportunities for play. On a particularly cold week we froze some of our animals in one of our tuff spots and the children had great fun using our hammers to smash the ice to release them. We have also had lots of rain this term and the children have enjoyed splashing in some very big puddles and using the rain water to make their own versions of tea, coffee and soups!
18th January was Winnie the Pooh day. To celebrate the occasion the children were invited to bring in their own soft toy for a Teddy Bears picnic. The soft toys also joined in with our singing and action rhymes. Some children helped to create a big map of One Hundred Acre Wood and at Forest School that week we created our own version of One Hundred Acre Wood using the branches from Flora and Kizzy’s old Christmas trees.
This half-term has been the turn of our younger pre-schoolers to participate in Teddy Group and they have been doing activities to support and develop fine motor skills and to support number recognition.
We celebrated the Lunar New Year in our last week of term and we were incredibly lucky to have one of our parents come in with lots of lovely lunar new year resources for the children to have, including chocolate money and fortune cookies. She also read them The Great Race story which is all about how the years came to be named after animals and taught us all to say Happy New Year in Vietnamese! We also had our very own noodle cafe one morning for snack time and the children enjoyed playing Chinese restaurants using wool noodles and oats. We decorated the room with Chinese lanterns and Kizzy taught the children how to do a lion dance.
We have had quite a few two year olds start this term and all the staff have been impressed with how well they have settled in and how our older children have looked after them and included them in their play.
Our final Forest School of the term was a very muddy affair! Most of the children got well and truly stuck in to the mud experience – we had mud castles and even mud hand washing. We also had lots of spotting of worms and snails! Those who weren’t so into the mud experience helped Helen dismantle One Hundred Acre Wood and create a pretend bonfire.
We hope that you are enjoying your half-term break and look forward to welcoming you back on Monday 19th February.
fallodonwayplaygroup.wordpress.com 