Our visitor from Switzerland

This week we have had a visit from a student from Switzerland who came to see what we do.

Welcome to England Eszter we hope you enjoyed your time with us and thank you.

 

 

Making new dough to make cakes and pizza.

 

Counting and number recognition

 

Happy Father's Day to all our Daddy's

We hope all our Dads have a good day this Sunday. We have had all talked about our Dads and the fun we have with them.

 

Here are some of the things we said about our Dads

 

"I love my Daddy he reads my book with me"

 

"My Daddy takes me to see the birds and eats all the sandwiches"

 

"That's my  Daddy and his Rolls Royce I clean it"

 

"My Daddy goes to work to get lots money for my new shoes and go to see the fish"

 

"Look it's Daddy"

 

"My daddy cuts down the trees and helps me do lots of things"

 

 We were colour mixing and talking about texture to make a letter relief card for our Daddy

A great day learning with water

What a fantastic days learning all the children have had today in the water. All the children enjoy their water play. With the summer weather we have taken our learning large scale. All the children took turns in the water some just enjoyed sitting down to cool down.

 Todays learning came from the children wanting to sing about Incy wincy spider and using positional language.

Moving fast and slow to make bubbles using our arms and legs.

 

 

There was lots of problem solving, reasoning and testing of theories

 

lots of questioning happened:

"How much water can we get in this jug?"

" How fast does it go down?"

"Which has the most water in?"

 

 "If I fill the pots you can water the plants they're hot"

It's all about teamwork

 

The children this week have been working on their outdoor environment.

The children have shown great initiative and skill in working together as a team, sharing ideas, problem solving, encouraging others to join in. There have been a variety of tools chosen and used to support and enhance their play.  

 

 Together they planted the rest of our plants we have been looking after and now we wait for the fruits and vegetables to grow so we can eat them. Ask your child what we are growing

Some of the children were working on a new den under the trees. They used tools to remove dead parts and make a space big enough even for grown ups. It is no longer like a jungle but a great place to hide and explore. Watch this space for for photos and developments. The children involved said "no photos yet we haven't finished."

 

 

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.