In the Gibbon room this week the children have making their very own spiders for their new autumn display board. They painted paper plates, stuck on googley eyes and glued on long strips of black paper for the legs. The gibbons had such fun in the flour tray this week. They rolled conkers in the sand and monitored and assessed the trails and patterns left behind. The Gibbons of course couldn’t resist burying their hands in the flour and tricking Mimi and the team pretending they had disappeared before pulling them out of the flour and waving their hands to show they had still got them. Those little tricksters. They got to have a good old dance about with the CD player pumping out songs for the Gibbons to wiggle away to. They shook their hands, feet, bottoms whilst holding hands with each other and sang along with reckless abandon. They love a button or two and your little Gibbons showed no exception as they couldn’t resist pressing the buttons on the CD player to make the music stop and play and to change songs. Sweet. Kind of.
The Baboons made their own playdough. They are getting pretty good at the recipe and what to do and pretty much told the team how to do it. The children chose what colour they would like their playdough and enjoyed watching the colour change as they added the food colouring. When ready they picked rolling pins, cutters and modelling tools to create patterns and create different sculptures. Down at the park the Baboons tried out some new sports games. They stretched up to the sky and down to their toes to warm up before listening to Nadeem’s instructions. The children were told to run to a tree, hop three times, sidestep back and do 5 jumping jacks. The children ran as fast as they could to a tree and counted their hops before walking sideways back for their star jumps. I’m exhausted thinking about it. The children also played the traffic light game where they could run if the adult said green, run on the spot if they said yellow and stop moving if they said red. Back at nursery they had lots of fun building large train tracks that snaked around the room, adding tunnels, bridges and crossing as they went. Some children put small world houses and trees along the tracks to the people had things to look at when they were on the train. Once the track was built the Baboons chose cars and trains to push along the tracks. A few trains accidentally went the wrong way on the tracks and met trains coming their way. Thankfully some of those very useful trains could jump over each other so everyone could go where they wanted.
The Gorillas had a great time at The Outdoors Project. They collected lots of leaves and twigs and using string created sculptures and spider webs. They enjoyed collecting more leaves and twigs to take back to nursery to use in their Reggio Emilio table and to give to other groups to use for activities. So kind. The Gorillas had even more fun listening to bird songs and trying to decide if the song was coming from a blackbird or robin. Clever stuff. The Gorillas decided the birds sung for them all day so they should sing for them for a change. The park was filled with the sounds of the new nature songs we have been learning plus a few old classics. Back at nursery the children chose some colours to use for painting. They were given bowls of powder paint in lots of natural colours. The Gorillas concentrated on mixing the water bit by bit to make the paint nice and thick but smooth. Once all the lumps were gone the children picked a few leaves they had brought back from the park and began painting their leaves all the colours they could use and proudly showed their friends the beautiful creations they had made. When the Gorillas got a bit peckish they all sat down around their snack table and with the help and supervision of their adults they used knives (not sharp don’t worry) to help cut up their fruits to use for snack. The children talked about where the fruits might grow, what country they could be from, the colours, smells and tastes. They told their friends what their favourite fruits were and what animals would like eating their fruits.
We planted Spring bulbs this week with the children for the nursery and in planters to take to the allotment next week. We now have lots of herbs and flowers to attract lots of different fascinating bugs in the Spring, plus a colourful array of Spring flowers to look forward to. Well done everyone!
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