This week has been all about those budding professionals and hobbyists and the Chimps have been singing about poorly Miss Polly who needs a doctor to take care of her. They have also been police boys and girls with their very own help desk and reports and incidents book to scribble in. Monday was the very start of 2014’s festive activities and the Chimps cast their handprints in glittery salt dough and started listening to Christmas stories. Their construction activity involved putting the car tracks together and they were very determined to do it on their own. The pop up toys are always a big hit in the baby room and some of the older Chimps have worked out the ever difficult “twist” button and “flick.” Things got a little figuratively wet during music and movement as they had dancing fish on blue material and had to try and catch them…with their hands the poor dears. Fishing poles next time, Chimps. Fishing poles.

As always the weekly itinerary for the Howlers has been packed for the children. The Christmas music has been blaring as they have created Christmas plates and trees from felt. There have also been some extra cute reindeer hand and footprints. In the malleable area they have been squeezing and scrunching the snow dough and slime. Role play was full of very studious office type as the Howlers babbled on their phones, took messages on the registers and typed away on their keyboards. The coloured teddies took the main floor again as the Howlers practiced their counting and sorting skills. There has been a great deal of Christmas tunes coming from the room with the Howlers practicing their songs for their Christmas party. In the book corner there have been stories about different people and the children took some time to stare at each other and talk about their different hair, eyes, and skin colours. Every now and then throughout the week, the Howlers have tried to trick us by getting all dressed up in their not so usual attire (though tutus should be a permanent fashion fixture).

Since it’s professions and hobbies week the Baboons have explored various avenues of interest. There’s been finger printing at the forensic science table and the Baboons used magnifying glasses to examine the prints. They have viewed x-ray photos and tried to recreate their own and use all that wonderful doctor speak like tibias, joints, and mandibles. Speaking of doctors, the Baboons had a special visit from Micha (Asha’s father) who is a doctor, and one of his patients, a puppet monkey. Puppet monkey really appreciated the Baboons’ help in bandaging him up as he had a poorly head and arm. Also in the medical field was Betty’s mum, Whitney, who talked to the children about her job as a midwife and shared her stethoscope with the group. At the chalkboard, the children prepared for Lucy’s (Arthur’s mum) visit to talk about being a teacher. For all the builders and architects in the room, the foam bricks were on hand for some very intricate architectural designs. To round things up, Paco lead the Baboons in a song about different professions for music and movement using his ukulele. As the weather has been a bit chillier, the Baboons started designing their own winter hats for their new winter board and getting into the holiday spirit with Christmas songs and snowy handprints.

The Gorillas have also had a work-filled week with their role play hospital. They drew their own paper bandages and created x-rays with chalk and black paper. Of course, no Christmas time would be complete without a reindeer so Julie, Caitlyn’s mum, was on hand Monday to help the Gorillas make a very large cardboard reindeer and talk about being an art teacher. On Wednesday, Emma, (Orla’s mum), talked to the children about being healthy as she is responsible for public health in Brighton and Hove. A sneaky teddy snuck into her bag of healthy things and sneezed all over the Gorillas, so the Gorillas had to show him where the tissue was and how to sneeze and blow his nose properly. Emma also demonstrated just how quickly germs spread on hands with glitter. If you’d ever like to try this, two children’s hands were covered in glitter, then they shook the hands or touched other children. The Gorillas got to see just where all those glitter germs went. Eww. On Thursday Max’s dad, Troy, came and talked about being a builder. They wore protective headgear, glued wood together, and don’t be surprised if they ask for a nail gun for Christmas. On Friday, Clementine’s mum, Saira came in to head the Gorillas’ very own fashion show and there are definitely a few stars on the rise in the modelling world. With such a busy week, I’d like to say they cooled things down with a relaxing song, but it was all rather merry and jolly as they sang their Christmas songs, which include Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Thank you so so much to all the parents who came in this week. We know many wanted to but couldn’t take the time off so so please remember you can come in ANY time. We really do appreciate your time and the children really enjoyed your talks, demos and activities and we did too – hopefully you all had a nice time to boot.

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