The Gibbons have gone stamp crazy in their post office role play this week. Not only have they used potatoes to stamp on envelopes but they also have been experimenting with the post office computer keyboards and till. Some even took a trip down to the post box and posted their letters themselves. All they need now is their own red van and then the Royal Mail will have some real competition. For their story focus the Gibbons got to meet the big hungry caterpillar for real! The group fed our new greedy friend some sausages, cakes, and oranges – just like in the book. We are sure he will be making another appearance soon – he brought out many giggles and ear to ear sized smiles – its amazing what a cardboard tube and paint can do! Along with our giant caterpillar the Gibbons have been getting rather crafty in the Reggio Emilia corner. They’ve had bright red, blue, pink and purple coloured play dough to explore, along with pipe cleaners, cork, googley eyes and wood shavings. It didn’t stay that way for long however, the children enjoyed squishing the colours together creating a wonderful marble effect. Put together with a few random eyes and pipe cleaners hanging out they seemed to create rather cool looking monsters. Although the weather hasn’t known if its wanted to rain or shine this week the gibbons have been outside popping and chasing our big giant bubbles in the garden. Not only have they been getting wet with the bubbles but these little monkeys have been exploring coloured water in the water tray by pouring water out of cups and spoons. Even though pouring it over themselves was what happened most. At the table the Gibbons taste buds have been tingling after their banana mashing and grape popping activity. Some even used child friendly knifes to cut their fruit whilst others enjoyed using their teeth. (And we don’t blame them)
Not only the Gibbons have been tasting food this week but the Gorillas have been learning about sweet and sour food and how better to do this than a round of food tasting? They tasted lemon, honey, and all kinds of eye squinting ingredients to make this a fun and interesting experience. The children have been getting wet in the math’s corner discovering what objects sink and float. Inside the water tray were some rather cool boats for the children to use weight to make the boats sink. Some children were using words such as heavier and lighter. How clever! I’m sure if Sir David Attenborough popped by to check out the pre-schools insect small world he would have been impressed. The children even went on a mini beast hunt in the garden to see some real life bugs themselves and talked about the bugs they found. Over in the role play area the Gorillas were mimicking some parenting skills. This week the gorilla’s role play was a baby nursery. They were a cute bunch singing songs to dolls to help them sleep and learning how to change their nappies. Not that any baby would be able to sleep with the noise they were making anyhow, some children were pretending to laugh to entertain their babies! They used flour in milk bottles for the milk powder and some even took their babies on a camping trip. Before we know they’ll be putting us out of work! The phonic of the week this week is ‘g’. The children played ‘what’s in the box?’ to discover the new sound. Inside contained glass jars, green paper, glue sticks, and glitter. Along with ‘what’s in the box’ the gorillas also played ‘odd one out’ where the children had to discover the difference between words that rhyme and words that don’t. The children found the game highly entertaining when discovering words that sing in line with the pirate song ‘when I was one’ The children reformed into all kinds of jungle animals for tatty bumpkin yoga. The children discovered many different ways to prance around the dance room being parrots, crocodiles and other exotic animals. They even continued by telling us what colours their animals were and what they felt like. Besides all that moving around the group have also been constructing paper pyramids ready for next week’s history week! They were talking about the shapes they could see and asking questions about what pyramids are. They painted them yellow and used sand to create a brilliant effect.
Those Baboons have been difficult to see through the clouds of flour they made whilst cooking coriander and garlic flatbread. They peeled garlic and tasted their very own coriander they’ve been growing. They looked delicious and the smell made a few tummies rumble while it was cooking in the oven. With a little help from Jamie Oliver recipe the Baboons made fine chefs. In fact they have been fanatical about food this week – along with cooking they used vegetables to print patterns on paper. In line with our Young Friends healthy ethos this excitable bunch spent a session calming and unwinding in the dance studio – they managed to create many a pose to the sound of meditational yoga music. Outside in the garden in this glorious hit and miss weather (sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the sunshine) the Baboons practiced their hand eye co-ordination by catching and rolling balls to each other. How about that for a week for our vigorous two year olds – healthy living, healthy minds and physical activity – brilliant.
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