Week beginning 18.12.23

What an exciting week we have had in the run up to the holidays 😊🎉🎅

🄸🄽🄳🄾🄾🅁🅂

Indoors this week, the children have enjoyed exploring transient art 🪵🌲

https://earlyimpactlearning.com/transient-art-definition-examples-activities/

They enjoyed exploring various materials and creating Christmas trees using moveable objects 🎄 This encourages creativity with open ended resources and supports language and communication skills.

Some children created play dough before exploring various shape cutters, making Christmas ‘cookies’ 🍪 We added some cinnamon spice to the play dough and enjoyed using our senses to smell and touch throughout. We also decorated some gingerbread biscuits with our TAP teacher Hannah before eating them 😋 The children discussed the different smells, taste and touch. Some children described the biscuits as spicy, salty and minty 🍪

P A R T Y!

On Tuesday we enjoyed our Christmas party 🎈 All children looked amazing in their party clothes and enjoyed taking part in some party games. We played musical bumps, Christmas corners and had a prize for the best dancer. We danced to a selection of Christmas music and showed off our favourite moves 🕺 Also, thank-you to the parent council for donating a special party snack 🍬

P A N T O M I M E

Our N5 children had the opportunity to watch our in school pantomime on Wednesday ‘ Robin Hood.’ They all thoroughly enjoyed the performance.

Oh yes they did! 🍿🎭

🄾🅄🅃🄳🄾🄾🅁🅂

Outdoors this week some children enjoyed making a gaming station using wooden planks and crates. The children worked together and shared the resources well. They also created an ice rink using the wood, working together and working as a team.

Some children created a water slide with balance materials 💦 They took it in turns to explore the slide and had great fun. This supports the development of large motor skills as well as encouraging problem solving and creativity. The children also demonstrated balance and co-ordination skills and supported each other throughout. Due to a weather warning, outdoors was not permitted at the end of the week for the safety and welfare of everyone 🌬

The staff at Mauchline ECC wish all our children and families a healthy and happy Christmas 🎄Stay safe and we can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store for us all 😀

𝐿𝒾𝓈𝒶 x

This week in the Main Playroom the children have been exploring different traditions for Christmas and finding out the true meaning behind Christmas 🎅🏼  🎄

RME/ Literacy

This week in the Art area the children have been making gingerbread men. We have been focusing on the story of the Gingerbread man and making our own song.

We have also been Creating our own Christmas biscuits 🍪 🎅The children have been exploring the play dough and creating Christmas biscuits to sell in our Christmas shop 🏬

Expressive Arts/ Literacy

This week on outdoors the children have been continuing to explore distance through mathematical language. We set a challenge to see who could make the sleigh travel the furthest 🛷.

Indoor Learning

The children have been busy writing letters to Santa and creating patterns to make their own wrapping paper. They have been using the Christmas cutters in the dough area to make shape cookies, they were discussing the different shapes and selling them in their Christmas Cafe. The children have been focusing on how Christmas is celebrated in different countries around the world and the meaning behind advent. On Thursday the children wore their Christmas jumpers and enjoyed a Christmas lunch in the dining hall.

Curricular Areas: Health and Well-being, Expressive Arts, RME

Outdoor Learning

This week the children who have been outdoors have been using their  imagination to build a boat and travel to South America, using the iPad to find different countries and how far away they are. They had fun exploring the frost and ice, using warm water to make patterns and write on the ice and watching it melt. They also made Christmas lights using paint and talking about the length of their lights, being long and short. Some of the children made bird feeders to take to the woods during their Woodland Wednesday visit, whilst at the woods they listened to a story that explored senses and explored the change in weather❄️

We would like to thank everyone who came along to our Christmas sing-a-long this morning, we hope you all enjoyed it and were as proud of the children as we were. 🎅🏼👏👏😊

Have a lovely weekend everyone 🎅🏼🤗

Jan

Indoor learning

This week we created our very own Elf Workshop indoors🎁. We explored different skills in this area such as development of our fine motor skills through cutting, developing hand eye co-ordination and exploring different shapes and sizes with the wrapping paper. We also created our own shop at the play dough area, beginning to explore money and focus on sharing and turn taking.

We read the story Oh Lila. This story aims to help children to develop an understanding that you go to a trusted adult for help, understand who that trusted adult might be and understand that asking for help is good thing to do. Below is a resource to discuss Oh Lila at home.

On Thursday we celebrated St Andrews Day🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 We spoke about who St Andrew was, what he means to Scotland and how we celebrate. The children experienced Scottish music, dance and a story as well as some exploring pattern through Scottish Tartan in the art area.

Outdoors we focussed on imaginative play, we created our own cafe in our new mud kitchen; naming it the Star Cafe⭐️ We made our own Christmas menus and role played as families, chefs and customers. We also enjoyed a lot of loose parts to create Santas workshop and sleigh🎅🏼

Remember next Friday(8th) is our Christmas concert🎄🎅🏼 We hope you can all make it! We have been working extremely hard on our songs🥰

Have a lovely weekend everyone

Beth☺️