Make sure you take a look at the photos from this week – there are some great allotment pictures this week of the children with their new friends the frog and the slowworm – fabulous.

Mmmmm Nature soup!

What tasty soup or petals and flowers you have here, Gibbons! With watering cans and spoons, the Gibbons stirred, mixed and swished around the petals they collected and observed their nature soup come into its own. Please note the soup was not actually tasted although I’m sure the Gibbons gave it their best effort. Swinging their handbags along, the Gibbons travelled around the room collecting miscellaneous items for their shopping trip. During garden time, they picked herbs to stick into their sensory playdough. Using their hands and rolling pins, they squished, squeezed, and rolled with delight. There was also a bit of sniffing as the herbs were very aromatic. They put on a shiny show for all to see with foil wrapped toys, shiny metal spoons and utensils in foil covered baskets. The Gibbons enjoyed tearing the foil off and banging together the metal objects. A big well done to Jodie who made a sensory book using materials from around the nursery including balloons, feathers, seeds and straw. Each felt page features a different character from a scarecrow with a straw hat and a cloth shirt, to a bird with colourful feathers and a beak.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

The Baboons dressed up as princesses, builders and witches trying on different hats and jewellery and acted out their characters. They were flying around on pretend broomsticks, fixing the tables and shelves and turning children into frogs. The Baboons painted penne pasta and threaded onto green ribbons to fashion necklaces and room decorations to hang. The Baboons crafted playdough body parts and playdough people and gave them names and talked about the different body parts. Munching on various fruits and vegetables at snack time, the Baboons talked about the Hungry Caterpillar from the story bag during their snack time, identifying the different fruits and pretending to feed the caterpillar in the room. The children enjoyed cutting out tissue paper shapes in numerous colours and fitting them together on paper to make shape collages. The Baboons talked about how shapes can fit together in lines and gaps and enjoyed glue spreading. But not just on the paper!

Dinosaurs take over the Gorillas…

There was stomping and loud noises coming from the Gorilla room all week as the Gorillas transformed into roaring dinosaurs. With a grassy small world area full of rocks and sand to look like their land the Gorillas stomped and roamed up and down the stairs, hungry for their meals. We had a visit from Kaila the persona doll to talk to the pre-schoolers about playing with everyone regardless of their differences. She talked to them about the ways in which she looked different from the group and the Gorillas shared the ways they looked different from Kaila and each other. They also spoke about all the things they have in common, too. Kaila asked the children about times they were upset and how they became happy again. Kaila also talked to them about how excited she was to be going to school in September. The Gorillas have been creating some beautiful hanging artwork of flowers, which they traced and drew at the Reggio table. They used a wonderful assortment of colours to recall the lovely spring flowers that have bloomed and they’ve collected for us. With all the birthdays they’ve been celebrating this week, the Gorillas have not only been blowing out candles on our ‘fake cake’ and having birthday parties, but they’ve also been recognising the numbers ‘3’ and ‘4’ using the ‘Find the Star Fish’ game. Using role play to play ‘mums and dads’, the Gorillas made homes using the furniture in the room and dressed their babies while talking about what they remember when they were babies. This week, the Nature Kids made an insect trap to deter the little munchers from our produce. They tended to everything that we have growing and also planted some potatoes that one of our parents kindly donated to us.