Spring Term Week 3

Snow at pre-school! We have had a lovely week, despite the very cold conditions and we have had to block off some of our top patio area as it is so slippy and all of our rock salt had frozen solid! The children have loved exploring the ice and playing out in the snow on Wednesday. We have also been learning all about Chinese New year – the week ahs been action packed, full of activities and craft and dancing and dragons and the beautiful red and gold of the Chinese New Year colours. The China Orchid donated some absolutely beautiful decorations for us which the children have taken great care of and we will store those away safely for next year too. Lots tried prawn crackers and noodles in circle time, learnt which animal represents the year they were born and about traditions too. We have loved learning all about the difference concepts and ideas and celebrations.

Lunchtimes have been full of spotting dairy items this week, looking for butter in our sandwiches and talking about different yoghurts and cheeses. There are still a few lunchboxes that have too many sweet items in them, just one is ideal.

The Star group have milked a pretend cow, made butter and enjoyed milk experiments, they painted a Chinese dragon and had some lovely story times. They also welcomed a visit from the Sun and Moon’s dancing Chinese Dragon which they loved!

The Sun and Moon groups have really had a focus on Chinese New Year, so many ways to learn and practice so many other skills within such a vibrant theme. Colour, language, celebrations, names of the year, numbers, patterns, mark making, imagination, food, texture, taste and so much more.

Our Forest School children wrapped up warm in the frost and have had an amazing time in the garden with the fire, enjoying porridge and hot chocolate and learning all about spiders this week – the largest is the Goliath tarantula, their webs are so big that they catch birds! Female spiders can lay 3,000 eggs at a time. Spiders can jump 50 x their own length.

Next week we will be moving into learning about where our food comes from and lots of lovely home corner role play in the Sun room – a favourite moment from this week was one little boy sat on the mini sofa in front of the pretend TV, wrapped up warm in a blanket watching the pretend TV while holding an empty tub of celebrations! Very cosy and relaxed!

Next week we are going to explore construction outside as well and any building magazines or home improvement magazines would be very welcome please!