The Gorillas have been learning to work as part of a team and in partners whilst following directions of Nadeem, our very own qualified sports coach, in the park. The children have been learning how to snake run, and double race along, and do knees up heels u jogging to warm the group up. We are aware this sounds like a boot camp for adults these energetic souls had so much fun and as you can see we caught some great action shots for the blog. We’ve had a week of glorious weather and the preschool children were full of stories about family trips to the beach; so using sand, draft wood, rice, shells and stones, they made a Gorilla beach of their own. The creativeness didn’t stop there however – the Gorillas also made collages by cutting up magazines. They glued lollipop sticks and string, to create patterns and shapes around the magazines they cut out and we are sure many of you were lucky enough to receive one of these to take home for your fridges.
The Gibbons have explored a particularly wonderful Reggio table on which they had a variety of herbs from our herb pyramid in the garden to pull apart, smell and prod into play dough. The Makaton sign of the week was ‘Milk’ so keep an eye out at home for some flashy hands at the dinner table. Sizzles and Bagheera were very popular with the little ones this week as always and they ventured outside to give our happy furry friends some carrots and a cuddle with a joyful smile and stroke whilst the sun was out. The Gibbons made some Monster faces using paper plates, and a variety of crafty materials to glue on top. The group experimented many ball activities, some copied adults by rolling balls on the floor, but throwing them seemed to bring the children the most joy and laughter. They also used a giant tube to roll the balls through and watch pop out at the end.
The smoothie the Baboons made this week went down a treat, it contained mango and passion fruit. Lovely. The Baboons chopped their mango up themselves (a rather messy experience) and explored the texture of the passion fruit – however a little less than planned went into the smoothie itself as those cheeky Baboons just couldn’t stop snacking on the fruit they were chopping up – no one blamed them for that. At snack time the group nibbled on some home-made cheesy spinach balls, using cheese and spinach these tasty ingredients left the Baboons taste buds wanting more. The water tray has been the host of many transferring schemas, the children have been taking the water into the sand tray and stirring up all kinds of mixtures. The Baboons also liked transporting the sand around the room with other children sweep up behind them with dustpans and brushes. What a team! The Baboons have also been developing their scissor skills by chopping up paper, and learning about colours as they mixed and stirred different coloured bowls of shaving foam.
This week has been a very proud one for all our children lucky enough to visit the allotment. We collected our first huge batch of home grown vegetables. Bags of lettuce, beetroot, potatoes, green beans, and onions have made their way into the kitchen ready to be eaten by our very own greenkeepers. How wonderful, next week will be a week full of cooking activities for our children to explore the fresh taste of the vegetables they’ve been planting, weeding, watering and watching grow. We always knew this was going to be a great thing for the children but now that it is in full swing and is a lot to do up there we couldn’t be more pleased. They just want to help – their behaviour is almost always impeccable and the excitement on their faces when they pull their own produce from the ground is just a gift. We are also really excited to be offering the sports sessions now too and between the two the Gorillas and Baboons have had an outdoors week full of learning, fresh air and exercise. Fab. There were two trips to both this week so as to maximise the numbers of children who got to go.
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