Dough dancing muscle strengthening

There has been a lot of interest and intrigue into our dough dancing from parents and friends. At Sparklers we call it 'dough dancing' or as some children call it 'the pokey dance. Our children are all developing the muscles in their hands to help prepare them for writing and other fine motor acticvities.

When dough dancing we mould playdough in time to music with actions such as rolling it into a ball, flattening it (splatting it), putting each individual finger into the dough (poke it), rolling it into a sausage, squeezing it (being strong), pinch it and rub it. This helps to strengthen children's fine motor muscles in their hands helping them to develop their pencil grip which in turn will help to develop their writing skills.

We make our own dough of different density each week although our favourite is our red glittery scented dough. If you would like any of our dough recipies please ask. The childrens favourite song to dance to is a remix of songs including Lets get ready to rumble, YMCA, Pump up the jam. Children come and tell us their favourite songs from films and programmes for us to dance to. We have danced to a variety of music styles from Frozen, Space Jam and Peppa Pig. Dough dancing is great fun everyone loves it.

" Squeeze it"

"Poke it"

This week week we have taken it a step further and its helped us in the garden.  We changed it to soil dancing, even Superworm came up to join in!!

"Splat it"

"Look, it's Superworm dancing"

"Shuffle it"

Fun colour mixing

This week was all about purple. We ate purple fruits, explored our environment for purple resources and used different colours to try and mix our own shade of purple. We used different media to mix the colour but our favourite had to be foam. We all went home exhausted after a very busy day mixing colours.



"Did it"

"I need a purple beard"



Tatty Boggle shape scarecrow

 

We have been looking at shape recognition and finding them in our environment.

 

We chose to use shapes to make scarecrows like Tatty Boggle in the book. We talked about how the scarecrows keep the birds from eating the seeds that are growing. The children used seeds, peas and lentils to create patterns.

 



"Eyes, round and round"

"Pea and seed, pea and seed. My pea is a circle"

                                                    

Using our senses to explore the garden.

This week we have been exploring plants and the outdoors.

We spent time out doors digging and planting. Now we can't wait for our lettuce Superworm to grow and our strawberries, which we must catch before the big hungry bear comes as we know he loves red ripe strawberries from the story.

We collected leaves and talked about their shape, size and colour. We enjoyed using them to make our own garden image.

We have a table of different herbs we have been looking after. We used our senses to look at them, decribe them, feel them, sniff them on our hands after we had rubbed them. Some of us tried rubbing different ones together to see if the smell changed and if we liked it. The best bit had to be tasting the different herbs. We talked about how we can only eat plants that an adult tells us are safe to eat. 

 

 We used different media, paint, crayons, pencils, chalk, felt pens to draw what we could see. Some of us pulled bits off and coloured the plant whilst others drew what they could see.






Some of the art we have produced is going in a local art display and competition with the theme In the Garden. Please ask for more details about where and when the display will be.

 

Anyone able to guess what colour we have been looking at this week?

We have had so much fun with the colour green this week. We used the headphones in the Emerald Palace to listen to stories and music.


 

 

Our green slimy dough made for interesting dough dancing.

 

 

We talked about being healthy and eating our greens. We like apples, pears, broccolli and peas.

 

 

 

You cant possibly look at the colour green and not make your own Emerald Palace. The children told us about the parts of the story they remembered when sticking on the characters.

 

In making these we did make a little mess but had so much fun it didnt matter we soon all cleaned up.

 

 

 

The colour we are looking at next week is blue.

 

 

Building our confidence whilst climbing.

Oh we have loved climbing this week.

 " All aboard the number train"

 

 

We have helped each other and been brave trying new things showing how we are building our confidence in climbing. 

 

 

" I can swing"

 

 

We understand why we need to be careful. We decided if we have our arms like an aeroplane it helps to keep our balance.

       



                                      

Sparklers general election showing what is important to us

This week we have been voting like our Mums, Dads and families have. The only difference was we voted on our favourite foods. We decided what our favourite savoury and sweet was. We chose either a burger in a bun or raviolli, cake or a yoghurt. To do this we placed a pompom in a bowl with our favourite labelled on it. Some of the older children counted the number of pom poms and put a picture of them on a pictograph to show our results. Lunch time was fun on Thursday after all that voting and counting.

Our love of number

I think it is right to say how much our children love number.

The children are understanding more and more about number. We are reciting numbers, ordering and sequencing, recognising, matching and finding quantities in our play all the time. This week some of us have managed to count upto 18. We count from zero the hero as well as counting on from other numbers.

"How many cups have we got? Children may be able to recite numbers upto 10, but only count a small number of objects. They need plenty of practical experiences to link what they say, hear and see when using number. This week the children have independantly been counting many objects indoors and outdoors i.e bubbles that they blew, number of garden tools, hats needed, cups and plates, candles on the cakes, making dough cakes, gems the list goes on.

You can help your child understand number in many ways during your everyday activities maths is everywhere not just in nursery! counting how many stairs they walk up, their birthday number "I am 2" building towers and counting blocks and resources, counting objects as they go in the washing machine, how many knives and forks do we need for tea? looking for numbers in the environment whilst out shopping. This is an online game the children like to complete giving teddy the correct number of cakes.http://www.topmarks.co.uk/learning-to-count/teddy-numbers

Singing songs is great fun. "Five currant buns in a baker's shop, Round and fat with a cherry on the top, Along came you with a penny one day Bought a currant bun and took it away Four currant buns in a baker's shop, Round and fat with a cherry on the top, Along came you with a penny one day. Bought a currant bun and took it away"