Author: Miss Devlin

The children in bubble A and bubble B have been working hard all week to learn a Halloween rhyme to share with everyone.

Happy Halloween 🎃

The children in bubble A have had lots of fun at their Halloween Party.  We started the day with the Winnie the Witch story and then played some party games. Once the games were done we went for a Halloween snack which included the edible witches hats the children had made yesterday. After snack some children then went on to explore the slime and green spaghetti to see what bugs they could find whilst other children made some Halloween crafts. We also dooked for apples and danced a lot.

Here are some pictures of the fun activities we have done today .

For my last post before the summer I have a fun game that you can try and build to keep you entertained over the summer holidays.

Build a marble run!

You will need : a carboard box lid or a paper plate, paper, straws, scissors, glue and a marble/small ball.

Step 1 – Cut a few strips of paper (depending on the size of your lid/plate). These will be your tunnels or barriers.

Step 2 – Glue the paper to the cardboard lid/paper plate ensure you leave enough room for your marble to roll through. You could also add some straws to make a track.

Step 3 – Place your marble on the lid/plate and try and move it around your course.

If you make tunnels with the paper on you marble run (like the plate picture above) then you could make the game more challenging. You could add a numbers, letters or even a sum to the top of each tunnel and when your marble goes through the tunnel you need to identify what number/letter or what the answer is to the sum it went under is.

Have fun!

Enjoy the summer holidays see you all soon!

Today’s challenge is to see how many items within the household you can find with the number 4 – you can then draw a picture of the items you have found. If you wish to challenge yourself look for other numbers within the house and outdoors.

An Eggcellent Experiment!

What you will need : Eggs, clear cup or jar, distilled white vinegar and a bowl of water.

Firstly get an egg, allow your child to feel the egg and ask them to describe what the texture of the egg shell feels like. Encourage the use of words such as hard, firm, strong, flat and smooth.

Then get your cup/jar and gently put your egg in it, be careful not to drop it as you might crack the sell. Pour in the vinegar and ensure the vinegar covers the egg.

Leave the egg in the vinegar for 4-6 days, each day have a look at your egg and see if it looks different or if there are any changes. You could record any changes you see by the use of drawings or taking pictures using a camera.

After leaving your egg in the vinegar for 4-6 days, remove the egg from the vinegar and place it in a bowl of water. (Adults might want to help as it may need a little rub) Can you see any changes in your egg? Can you feel any changes in the texture of your egg?

Ask your child to describe how the texture of the egg feels now and compare it to how the egg felt before they put it in the vinegar. Encourage words such as bouncy, squishy and soft.  (Some of the eggs might even bounce however do be careful as they might burst) If they do burst explore what the inside of the egg looks like.

Ask the children why they think the egg has changed and where has the shell gone?

The vinegar dissolves the shell of the egg which then exposes the membrane of the egg and that is why the egg changes. (Introduce your child to the word dissolve)

While taking part in this experiment please reinforce that the egg is not cooked therefore the children should not eat this egg.

Exercise affects lots of different organs in our body. When we exercise we have to breathe faster to ensure our body has enough oxygen to move during exercise.

Here is a video about the respiratory system – it shows how our body takes more oxygen in to help us during exercise.

You could try and make your own respiratory system.

What you will need: Paper, 2 straws, 2 food bags, scissors, sellotape and glue.
Instructions: Draw a nose, a mouth and 2 lungs then cut them out.

Sellotape your 2 straws together (making sure the 2 bendy parts of the straws are at the bottom).
Put one bendy part of one straw into one food bag and wrap sellotape around it to ensure no air can escape. Do the same with the other bendy part of the straw with the other food bag.
Sellotape your nose near the top of your straws (leave enough room for your mouth to blow into the straws), your mouth underneath and then attach your lungs to the back of the straws where the food bags are.
Breathe in and out using the straws and watch the food bags inflate and deflate just like your lungs do when you breathe in and out.

The heart is another organ that has to work harder to help the body exercise. Before you start exercising hold your hand on the left side of your chest and try and feel your heart beat.

Now try this Zumba workout and at the end feel your heart beat again.

Active Apple Man wasn’t too happy that the song was about bananas and not apples ! However he said it was ok because the song helped everyone be active and bananas are a healthy fruit as well. Hope you enjoyed it and had fun.

Does your heart beat feel different ?

Is your heart beating faster or slower?

Lolly stick planes

What you will need: 1 wooden peg, pens, 3 ice lolly sticks, elastic bands or glue and scissors.

Instructions

• Colour your wooden peg and lolly sticks.
• Glue or use your elastic band to stick or hold one lolly sick on the top of your peg and one on the bottom of your peg.
• Use the scissors to cut the last lolly stick to make a short tail for your plane then glue it onto the peg.

Have you ever been on a plane?  Where did the plane take you?

Can you name any parts of a plane before watching the video?

Here is a video about the different parts of a plane and how they work.

Can you think of anything else that can fly ? 

Have fun !

In the Jack and the beanstalk story, Jack throws the bag of gold down from the top of the beanstalk and then he climbs down to the ground. Climbing is hard work so I thought that we could make Jack a parachute so that the next time he climbs up the beanstalk he has a quick and easy way to get back down to the ground.

What is a parachute?
A parachute is a device used to slow the movement of a person or object as it falls or moves through the air.

Introduce the force called gravity.
Gravity The force that pulls things to the ground, the heavier the item the quicker it will fall.

The parachute creates a resistance which slows the item/figure down for a safer landing.

What you will need…
Tissue paper/piece of material
Cellotape
Scissors
String/ribbon
Lego or small/light figure

• First encourage your child to use the scissors to cut a square out of the tissue paper/material.
• Cut 4 strands of string/ribbon, make sure they are the same length
• Cellotape one strand of string/ribbon to each corner of the paper/material
• Take the ends of the 4 pieces of string and tie them all to your figure

Test out your parachute, throw it up in the air or drop it from a safe height.

You could test out different materials or different shaped parachutes and see which one works best to safely bring Jack back down to the ground.  Discuss how the different materials feel. Reinforce language such as rough, bumpy, smooth, soft, hard or fuzzy.

You could also try cutting a small hole in the middle of the parachute will allow air to slowly pass through it this should help the parachute fall straighter.

Here is an activity you can do indoors or outdoors.

Can you build a den ?

With your child use technology (iPad, phone or laptop) to research ideas for what their dens could look like and what they could us to build their den indoor or outdoors.

Encourage your child to collect different materials to build and decorate their den. Allow your child to experiment with lifting, carrying, pushing, pulling and rolling things to help develop their physical skills.

Support them to create their own structure, using whatever materials you have collected and encourage them to solve problems in order to build their den.

Building a den together is a great informal way of engaging a child in conversation. This helps to develop their ability to communicate, listen and take turns in conversation, express themselves and put their thoughts into words. If siblings would like to help build a den encourage them to communicate with each other and work together as a team.

Once your den is built encourage your child to independently use a form of technology to take a photo of their den or even a selfie inside your den. I can’t wait to see them!

There are lots of different activities you can do in your den, such as role play – your den can be whatever you want it to be, use your imagination to explore role play. You could also have a picnic in your den, read a book, have a nap or draw a lovely picture.

Enjoy and have fun!

Since the weather is lovely here is an activity you can do outside.

Can you make a magic potion ?

You will need a jar, bowl, bucket, empty bottle of any type of container to put your potion in.

Here’s some suggestions of what you could use to create your potion: water, washing up liquid, food colouring, shampoo, shower gel, shaving foam, glitter, paint, twigs, leaves or stones.

Encourage your child to unscrew lids, stir, pour/fill and squeeze to add items to their potions.

When creating your potions use of language such as full, empty, heavy and light. You could also count how many of each item you put into your potion such as 6 stones, one twig and 3 spoonful’s of glitter.

Encourage your child to use their imagination to talk about who makes magic potions? What will their magic potion do? They could explore role play and pretend to be a wizard or a magician.

My magic potion makes me invisible so I can read my favourite book, 5 minutes’ peace. 

I can’t wait to hear what your magic potions do.

(please ensure your child does not consume their potion)

Let’s spread some Easter joy and get creative!

How exciting and joyful is decorating your windows for Christmas? Well, let’s shake it up and get decorating our windows for Easter!

Encourage the kids to mark make and develop their snipping and cutting skills for their window displays then send in your photos for us to display on the blog!

-And remember if you’re using paints/pens directly on the window, ensure that they are washable first!

If your window display features a rabbit and a carrot here is a fun game that you could try before putting them in your window display.
Create a carrot using cardboard and fold it (like you would fold to make a paper fan).

Place your rabbit on the floor, since we’re practising social distancing please move 2 meters away from your rabbit and this is where you will start from.
Place the carrot on the floor and use the straw to blow the carrot until it reaches the rabbit.
If you’re competitive you could make more than one carrot and have a race to see who gets the carrot to the rabbit first.
Have fun!

Today I have an experiment to see if you can grow your own rainbow. 

Items you will need: a piece of kitchen roll , felt tip pens, 2 bowls, water, scissors, paper clip (we used a hair kirby because I didn’t have a paper clip) and a piece of thread (we used ribbon).

Here are the steps to grow your own rainbow:

1 Encourage your child to use scissors to cut a rainbow shape out of the piece of kitchen roll. If you need to, draw the shape of the rainbow on the kitchen roll first so your child can follow the line while cutting. Remind your child that scissors are sharp and they need to be careful when using them. Adults supervise or help if needed.

2 Use your pens to colour a rainbow about 2cm up on both ends. Then attach your paper clip (kirby) to the top of your rainbow and attach a piece of thread(ribbon). Put water in each bowl (half fill).

3 Hold your rainbow using the thread(ribbon) allow the ends of your rainbow to touch the water.

Your rainbow should start to grow!

While doing the experiment you could discuss:

What colours are in a rainbow?

In what kind of weather would you see a rainbow ?

Where would you find a rainbow?

Have fun !

Have a look around the house to see if you can finds some items to build with for example; Lego, building blocks, tins, plastic cups, tubs, playdoh, playing cards, cereal boxes or even marshmallows.

Compare the items yous have chosen to build with, look at the size, weight and shape. Use language such as heavy, light, big, small, long, short, hard or soft to discuss the items with your child.

Start building to see who and what items can build the tallest tower.

You could try and count how many items you used once your finished building.

If you have made lots of different sized towers you could encourage your child to put them into size order (smallest – tallest).

Have fun