As it was World Book Day on Thursday, Jodie, our storytelling rep was hard at work on creating a new stock of story bags for the groups. We now have Goldilocks, Dear Zoo, Hungry Caterpillar, and Three Little Pigs to get the little ones’ story caps on. If you’re not sure what a story bag, they’re basically a collection of objects and sensory materials to support storytelling. So, a Three Little Pigs bag would/should have straw, sticks, and something representing sticks inside, along with other objects. They’re really a great resource for any age. In the Green room, the Gibbons decorated their own Goldilocks and Bears masks using paint glitter and other materials. For their cooking activity, the Gibbons made broccoli nuggets! I know, that may not sound particularly exciting, but they were apparently quite delicious. They used cheese, breadcrumbs, broccoli and egg. The Gibbons also made their very own porridge and oats playdough, which they used for their Goldilocks role play area. In the small world area, the Gibbons have been visiting the Lego zoo – you know, feeding the animals, and taking them on excursions around the room – very lax on the rules in this zoo.

Yes, we did have a hailstorm and, yes, it has been rather chilly this week, but the magnolias are blossoming in our tree and the Baboons have got Spring on the brain. All week they’ve been creating “Spring things” for their new Spring display, making flowers, bees, and lambs, sun and clouds. They even made tomato tulips, with tomatoes, obviously, cream cheese, and spring onions. On the tablet, they’ve been observing the lifecycle of chicks and during group time they talked about the different changes we’ll start seeing in the weather and environment. They visited their small world pond throughout the week, which was made up of sand, shave foam, and tissue paper. It was quite the biodiverse area as there were ducks, frogs, and the occasional teddy bear.  For their maths activity, they ran the risk of falling asleep as they counted sheep (1-5) in not only English, but also Italian, French, German, and Romanian. Their physical activity was all about managing space as they balanced along six lines of tape, each with a different style (zig-zag, straight, horizontal, vertical, etc). Their actions included walking along the line, balancing, and hopping from line to line. Their story of the week was the timeless classic Alice in Wonderland. Their book version focuses on the colours running throughout the story such as Alice’s black shoes, the Queen of Hearts’ red tarts, and my personal favourite, the blue caterpillar. Whoooooo arrrrrrre youuuuuuu….

The dinosaurs have been stomping their way through the Gorilla room and the Gorillas have been flipping pages in their ‘Big Book of Dinosaurs’, trying to identify them quickly. Using their book, the Gorillas also learned about the dinosaurs’ diets and talk naturally turned to what they like to eat. Probably not a Triceratops – bit crunchy. The children have also been watching videos about the dinosaur age and comparing their environment to that of the dinosaurs’. At the writing table, the Gorillas have had to collect scattered letters to spell out their names. For their cooking activity, they made vegan cheese scones which were hit, some literally as they came out a tad hard, but the Gorillas didn’t seem to mind. We’re sure you couldn’t miss their fabulous teddy bear picnic role play and the children have been enjoying creating spreads for their fluffy, and not so fluffy, friends. In honor, of World Book Day, Eboné gifted the nursery a rather opulent Peter Pan musical pop-up book, and the Gorillas were eager to share the happy thoughts that would make them fly like Peter.