Chinese New Year !

The pre school children have been focussing on our book of the month 'Dear Zoo' and have incorporated animal talk and animal play in lots of their free play. The children made an aeroplane using the chairs, Eddie suggesting, "We need a pilot, who wants to be the pilot?" Tomas sat in the big chair, turned around to face the children and said, "I'm going to fly the plane, but first you need to put your seatbelt on". The children all pretended to put on their seat belts, Riley even saying, "Click" as she done so. Once the plane was ready for take off, Zachary told his friends that they were going to Africa to go and find the giraffe and elephant for our dear Zoo board. The children also enjoyed writing their own letters to the Zoo and drawing what animals they would like. Ada drew a giraffe but then laughed, "We can't have a giraffe here, silly, he will eat all of the leaves from the trees!" 

The children have been celebrating Chinese New Year and have taken a very keen interest in the story book 'The great river race' which informs you about the race of the animals to see who wins and the order in which the animals came in. When Oliver saw the dragon, he asked "But how is the dragon supposed to swim? He has wings!" and when he noticed that in fact the dragon does fly through the sky instead, he was very proud of himself, "See I told you that". The children helped to make their own Chinese dragons and lanterns to decorate the pre school room. When Riley came in to nursery, she was looking all around and said, "Wow, it's amazing".

We have been exploring more of the grounds and observing the effects that the cold weather had on the puddles. Most of them were frozen over and the children loved standing in them and Mateo said, "That noise sounds funny, listen, its like a crack". When they got to the duck pond, the children realised they had forgotten the bread and Ezra said to his friends, "Oh no, they won't have any breakfast now", so they went back later!

The toddlers have been enjoying pancake day this week by making some stainless steel pans out of paper plates and pencils and then making a pancake to go on top. The toddlers were able to create their pancake out of tissue paper, crayons or paint. Zachary’s said he wanted “melons” on top of his pancake. The children were also lucky enough to have homemade pancakes for snack which they loved! Last week the toddlers celebrated Chinese New Year by creating some beautiful lanterns from paper, sequins and red and yellow crayons. The room was also decorated in lots of colourful decorations which the toddlers enjoyed looking at. Zac said “Wow!” and pointed up at them. Meanwhile, Amelia asked to be picked up to get a better look. She held out her hand to feel the lantern and then laughed as it tickled her hand. 

The toddlers have ventured out a lot in the last week to explore the snow and ice. Fabian saw the hill was covered in snow and thought it would be fun to run up to the top and slide down on his bottom. The toddlers laughed and then followed, shouting “Wheeee!” as they slid down. On another walk the toddlers enjoyed looking for natural things. Leo, Fabian and Ari found big sticks and Connie asked the boys for help to find her one. 

Inside the toddlers have enjoyed building giant train tracks that go all the way round the room. They demonstrated good team work, each adding a piece to the track to extend it. Ethan was on damage control when anyone broke the track, he would say “Oh no, broke it” and then repair it. As Louis pushed the train around the track he said “Choo choo” and “Beep beep” if anyone was moving too slowly! 

The under two’s have been celebrating Chinese New Year by creating some lovely traditional hand held fans from paper plates, lolly sticks, red and gold paint. The children also sampled some traditional Chinese food of noodles and egg rice during snack time. They enjoyed the different flavours and textures and loved waving their new fans, Alastair, Chloe and Finley were laughing as the air whooshed over them.

Outside the children have been exploring the garden. Sadie was laughing and saying “Boo!“ as she crawled through the tunnel, Billie and Emily took an interest in the wooden bridge, crawling across to the centre then pulling themselves up to standing, waving to their teachers. Samuel and Tomas chose to play with wooden racing cars, making “brrrm” noises as they rolled them across the ground and along the outside of the tunnel. Samuel said “Race car” and Tomas said said “Uh oh” when one fell off of the tunnel. 

Back inside the room, the children had great fun building tall towers from mega blocks, they worked alongside each other with Alastair and Blake handing blocks to Samuel who built it up and they all laughed when it fell. The children also had lots of fun playing with the new sensory bottles. Sadie particularly liked the blue one filled with oil and coloured water, Billie preferred the one with green jelly inside and Tomas loved the rattling sound of the orange lentils.