Those little Chimps of yours love an interactive song and this week they were playing a cute little game of singing ‘3 Little Ducks’ first with rubbers ducks and then with dinky little ducks on sticks, taking away a duck away each time and pretending they were off for a swim. For ‘Thanksgiving’ they took the theme of the turkey, looked at some Turkey photos to understand what they were and stuck some some rather exotic feathers and cotton wool (artistic licence) on turkey pictures. For a spot of spatial investigation they had a great time wrapping and unwrapping their favourite toys with tin foil -there are obviously no fillings amongst the ranks as they seemed to rather enjoy sucking on it too – horrid. They had a lovely time doing impressions of the toys that popped up from their – you guessed it, pop up toys. For some snowy mark making and to exercise their digits the little ones dipped and dragged and twisted string and white paint on black and coloured paper and made some really careful patterns. They also had a builders tray full of shredded paper ( a little bit of recycling) and they had a ball putting their heads in it (and playing ‘boo’) and generally swishing it around the tray – and of course the room. For music and movement they explored shakers, tambourines, drums and the xylophone and of course sounded tuneful as ever.
During group time our Howlers talked about family members using props of family photos of their mums, dads, aunts, uncles, grandparents, brothers and sisters. The team practiced the Makaton signs for each relative with the children and they got really rather good at it. Again looking at pictures of Turkeys, they created their own using recycled cartons, googly eyes, and wings. More Thanksgiving – hand print turkeys. They used a handprint to make the turkey and then stuck on feathers and googly eyes to create some rather funny looking characters. With a little help from their favourite adults the children got immersed in Duplo small world. They were very proud of houses that they made for their animals and they had a lovely time living in them. The children enjoyed reading lots of animal flap books this week, exploring the different textures like as leather and fur and making scrunching sounds with flaps. The Howler Role play area was a pet shop, in which the children petted, kept warm and prepared meals for the animals to feed them (Pasta, Rice, Lentils) – in fact they practiced pouring, stirring and transporting all week. For a bit of problem solving/Maths – children matched the animals to the animal pattern such as giraffe (Spotty) and zebra (Stripy) on a table dedicated to such tasks. For their music and movement experience they got stuck into a ‘Bean Bag Dance’ – the children copied adult’s movements such as putting the bean bag on their head, knees, shoulder, and dropping the bean bags and boy were they good at it. They also listened to the ‘Sticky Kids’ (always a hit) bean bag song – you know the one ‘Shake, Shake, Shake your Bean Bag’ – see, we knew you knew it! Your children have, as you may or may not know, planted their own cress in a cup with cotton wool. They have been watching it grow at the rate of knots and watering it throughout the week. In ICT those computer savvy toddlers have been playing with phones and computers. They have been pretending to speak on the phone, opening and shutting computer screen and pushing all the buttons just like the grownups do.
In Group Time the Baboons have been talking about Thanksgiving this week and why we celebrate it. They spoke about the different foods and looked at photos and how it is celebrated. In mark making they created Thanksgiving collages. They used scissors to cut up pictures of turkeys, grapes, and pumpkins to create fabulous creations. They carried on with their Thanksgiving theme by making turkey shaped handprints, and then had a little break from it by making a spaceship out of boxes and other junk modelling paraphernalia. For their malleable experience this week they investigated lovely smelly playdough. The children used cinnamon and other spices to ‘spice up’ their playdough and ended up having a ball turning them into grapes, of all things. In their small world zone they had a beautiful snowy town over which was scattered flour over small world houses, roads and people. The children made up their own stories and made snowy marks with cars, trucks and footprints…Always an interesting topic for our little ones they had discussions about and looked at books all about brothers and sisters and families and what they meant to them. They had a fabulous role play restaurant in which the children donned chef’s aprons and hats and pretended to cook food, order from laminated menus and discussed pictures of food. So grown up. The Baboons had a lovely heuristic play session or two in the dance room. They mulled over spatial problems and solved them and made up some more. To learn about what is healthy and not-so-healthy food the team made up a gluing and sticking activity, during which the children had to choose what the pictures of healthy food and what the non-healthy food was (Pictures) and then they stuck it on the tummy of a human template – biology lessons already!
The Gorillas have been getting all ‘piratey’ and learning about messages in a bottle. They have been writing mystery letters describing what their pirate is wearing, wear they live and what they generally do in their pirate lives. S has been the sound of the week and in their ‘Letters and Sounds’ games they have been doing games related to it. They have been having Spanish lessons too and carrying on with the pirate theme. They have been learning key words like ship, sea, pirate patch and treasure. They have been making a rather brilliant pirate boat group collage on which they stuck blue glitter, string and sequins on pirate templates such as eye patch, and pirate bottles. In their role play zone they have been acting out all sorts of pirate scenes in their pirate ship – going on missions and searching for treasure. The children copied Captains commands like such as scrubbing the decks, shouting ‘Ship Ahoy’, Climbing ropes and they even pretended to look out the window with telescopes. For a spot of investigation they had a sinking and floating activity where the children explored what objects sink and float, the difference between heavy and light and they investigated what they could do to make the floating objects sink. In their small world – Looking for treasure in the sand tray. The children made treasure play dough by finding and adding materials to their playdough like salt, glitter, corn flour and scented with washing up liquid. They also busied themselves making a treasure chest game where they printed off treasure chest templates and gold coins and the children were adding coins and other bling to the treasure chest. The team created a treasure hunt out in the garden and they deciphered clues and worked together to find all sorts of hidden treasure items.
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