Please see our multicultural blog in the Friday email for a more detail of all activities that happened this week during Around the World Week!
Wow – What a week!!
It was Around The World week at Young Friends Nursery and we have had an incredibly busy week. Aris’ mum, who is Spanish, came in and sang some songs in Spanish and Greek with our Gibbons. On Wednesday Melanie, Abigayle’s mum, in the Gorillas came in and read a Caribbean story to the children. She was amazing – explaining all the tropical fruits and the Gorillas got to try them all. The story is a classic all about Caribbean family values. Friday was jam tarts day ready for the Queen of tarts! The Gibbons spent the morning with Amy making jam tarts perfect enough for the Queen of Tarts herself. Mimi showed the Gibbons Turkish belly dancing using bells and traditional music. The children copied Mimi doing belly dancing but mostly just wiggled their bottoms especially when they tried on the skirt that jingled – there were bells everywhere and we hope Mimi doesn’t think she is getting away with not doing this again we are hoping it’ll be a regular feature from here on in. Our Gibbons got creative and stuck different flags, food and people from around the world and made posters. Happy Valentines from our Gibbons – They made lovely valentines for home and decorated the cards ready for the day of love – last Tuesday. Let’s paint our skin – In the nursery, we have a variety of paint colours of course but the most educational kind is skin tone/colour paint. Your Gibbons spent some time looking in the mirror at themselves and used the skin colour paint to paint themselves with marvellous accuracy
Around The World Week in the Baboon room was very busy with lots of different things for our Baboons to make and create and see. Alice from the office came down and showed them how to make ‘Pan con tomato’. This is bread with garlic and tomato spread across it typically eaten in Catalonia and Spain. The children enjoyed smelling the different ingredients especially the garlic however when it came to tasting the garlic, the baboons did not enjoy this! Another day, one of our Gorillas’ dad, who is Italian, came in to make fresh pasta with the Baboons. He brought in fresh dough and the children practiced rolling it out and making ravioli. We then cooked the pasta and ate it for our snack in the afternoon. Delicious! The children Part of Multi-cultural week in group time, the Baboons learnt counting in Polish, Spanish, French, Portuguese and German. They have practised it through the week. Paula our German teacher in the Baboon room taught the Baboons different animals in German; Dog: Hund, Cat: Katz etc! The Baboons looked at famous monuments from all over the world and were showed pictures of the Eiffel tower, statue of liberty and more. They then used the wooden block to try and recreate these constructions. Carrying on the creative construction theme, the Baboons looked at picture and photos and made abstract mosaics and talked about the different colours used.
In the Reggio Emilia area in the Gorilla room, the children were making patterns with the shapes on the reggio table using pasta, lollipop sticks and pegs. The Gorillas talked about the different textures and made different patterns using them. Water play was combined with in our around the world theme. They discussed the different sea creatures from around the world. They looked at pictures of different animals and fish and what part of the world they came from. They also learned about the different seas and their climates and the animals that were found there. Some of our Gorillas mums and dads came in this week to talk about traditional things from their country. Abigayle’s mum came in and talked about different fruits that grow in the Caribbean; mangos, coconuts, star and passion fruit to name just a few – oh and sugar cane too! The children took it turns to feel the different textures of the fruits and said which fruits were there favourite, what they looked like, if they had tasted them before. They also learned about they use headscarves to help balance the fruit basket on their head when they are carrying the fruit baskets from they have been picking them. Next was Emilio’s dad from Italy who came in to make fresh pasta with our children. They rolled the dough and cut the dough into squares and filled the pieces with fresh cheese. They then used their hands to pinch the pasta together to enclose the pasta. In the afternoon, the pasta was cooked and the children tired it for their tea. The pasta making was a huge success. Another cooking activity the Gorillas took part in but this time from Spain. Alice from the office came down and showed the children how to make ‘Pan con Tomato’. This is typically eaten in Catalonia and Spain, and the ingredients are very simple just bread, tomato, garlic and oregano and oil. Lilly’s mum came in also in around the world week and talked to the Gorillas about Russia and Russian dolls. They looked at the dolls and how they get smaller and smaller. Lilly’s mum also gave them a stone from Brighton beach where they then decorated a picture of a Russian doll using special colouring pencils.
It has been a fantastic week and we would like to say thank you to everyone that helped or took part in Around The World Week. Yet again we couldn’t have done it without you. Please remember you are welcome any time to do these sorts of things with the children – we LOVE having you in and so do the children. Thank you x
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