This week has been a rather mixed bag of activities in the Chimp room. The little ones loved their sombreros so much last week that they have carried on with a hat themed role play. I must say, the hats were a bit more sensibly sized this time around and the chimps had a great time figuring out how to put them on each other’s heads ‘just right’. Some even turned it into a hat stacking game. In the sand tray they have been scooping sand with tubes and getting a tad frustrated with why the sand never stays inside, although some did manage to balance the tube long enough to keep their scoop in. In the group time area, our favourite song glove was out wiggling its fingers to the tune of 5 Green Frogs. The pop up toys have been a self-select hit and the children are now starting to predict which animal is going to pop up by making its corresponding noise beforehand. Of course, it is Mother’s Day this Sunday, so the Chimps’ week wouldn’t have been complete without some card crafting with tissue paper, colourful dots and so on and such like.. It wasn’t all such serious business though – some of the children seemed to enjoy the sound of crunching up the tissue paper, so your cards might be a tad wrinkled. A personal touch, if you will.
NEE NAW NEE NAW NEE NAW! There’s a fire in the Howler room! Well, a role play fire, anyway. The Howlers have been pretending to be ‘Fireboys’ and ‘Firegirls’, responding to emergencies and rescuing their teddies and dolls from the flames. Of course, they had to wear protective gear and spent time talking about fire safety. Quite a few of the Howlers now go up to their fire and say “hot.” And speaking of babies, they have all been getting a good wash at the baby bath time station. The Howlers have been using baby soap and flannels to dry off their little ones and then getting them dressed and ready to go. In the creative area the sea was on their minds as everyone made paper plate stingrays. Their new word of the week may be “barbs” as they learned that some stingrays have these on the end of their tails (keep an ear out for that one). For Mother’s Day, and we hope you enjoy them, the children made their mummies some amazing natural bath salts. They consist of Epsom salts, lavender, rose petals, and orange and tea tree essential oils. You can just smell the relaxation…if you manage to get five quiet minutes alone in the bath that is. For small world, the Howlers have been trying to catch “worms” in their soil with twigs and branches. The growing season is finally kicking off and the Howlers have been planting pumpkins, rocket and peas in the vegetable patch. For mark-making the children traced over maps with felt tip pens, noticing all the lines and colours and talking to the adults about different places and areas. To keep those little hands busy between all these activities the Howlers have been concentrating at the threading table with pipe cleaners and colanders. Some have even made some rather jazzy hats. Once they filled the colander with their pipe cleaners they started walking around with them on their heads. Or maybe they were making fire helmets…hmmm.
Ssshhhhhh…this is a library. Indeed, the Baboons have been practicing good library skills in their role play area. I’ve heard quite a few telling their friends “we must take care of our books.” And “Turn the pages nicely”. They’ve been taking their baby doll ‘children’ and reading them stories and, as usual, our more enterprising, business oriented baboons took on the role of scanning books through and loaning them out to the other children. In preparation for Red Nose Day the children created salt dough noses! You will find that there is even an impression of their noses in the dough. Unfortunately the dough shrank a bit in the oven so they didn’t quite fit but it’s the thought that counts. For Mother’s day, your lovely Baboons made paper flower cards for your mantel and honey rice cakes for your tummy (they were granted special permission to make something a little bit sweet just for you). As well as weighing out the rice krispies, the children also chose the colours they wanted for their rice cakes so apologies if your cake was a bit, umm, unappetizingly coloured. This week the Baboons had some seeds to plant so they ventured off to the vegetable patch and soon we hope we will be able to add carrots and beetroot to our garden repertoire. The children are already very concerned about their seedlings and want to be out there to water them at all times of the day. Also in the garden the Baboons had to endure an intense obstacle course and physical training – military style. Some of the Baboons even led the brigade in creating an obstacle course of their own using the small climbing frames and crates.
The Gorillas have added the final touches to their role play city and, of course, no city would be complete without people, families and vehicles. This week the children have been focused on talking about families. In the designing and making area the Gorillas created their own family trees, sharing their own personal family makeup. With all this talk of families it was only natural that they learned the Italian for family member names. In the small world area the dollhouse dolls were out playing in the park, chatting to each other on the bench, and some were, ummm, having a bath? Crazy Gorillas. For music and movement Paco and his ukulele led the children in a tempo and direction musical – up, down, wriggle fast, wriggle slow…. For Red Nose Day the children spent time talking about the importance of helping others and why we give for Red Nose Day. For Mother’s Day there have been some amazingly unique Mother’s Day cards (Darth Vadar for Mother’s Day? You don’t see that too often) and the children also made their own bath salt gifts with Caz from the Howlers. In the writing area the Gorillas have been creating a rather large amount of mail for the post box, including Mother’s Day cards. In the creative area there’s been painting with a twist…..Using cellotape and paint the Gorillas created negative space initials. Quite rightly they were pretty excited about the process of painting over the tape and then pulling it off. In the garden they have been putting the garden kitchen to good use by creating some rather foamy recipes with shaving foam and sand.
From all of us at Young Friends, put your feet up, mummies, and enjoy your weekend. Happy Mother’s Day!
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