Inspired by Halloween the children have been interested in exploring the story ‘Room on the Broom’ in our literacy area this week. We have been using puppets and props to tell the story, working on our story sequencing and making our own ‘rhyming potions’ by matching the rhyming words. We have also been creating spooky stories of our own, designing front covers and becoming authors and illustrators.
“The dragon comes at the end to make her witch and chips” BF
“She loses her hat first” MM
“Rat rhymes with hat and cat” NP
In the malleable area this week the children have been letter dunking! They have been looking for letters to explore letter sounds and to create both spooky and non spooky words with the support of the adult. The children used their fine motor skills to use the large tweezers to retrieve the letters from the magical potion! The children were tasked to create a name for the game and some of their ideas included ‘the word and letter potion’, ‘pumpkin soup’ and ‘lava rock’.
The children explored the force of the wind today, using the scarves. This led to lots of discussing and sharing of ideas. They looked closely at the direction of the wind and talked about where the wind might come from, where it was going and what types of material it might move. The children suggested what types of wind might move heavier objects – “ a stormy wind” AS; “a whirlwind” JW.
“Make it higher, we can’t lift it up” RP
“It’s sticky!” AAe
“Mine is at the top.” MB
“It’s blowing (the ribbons) like the scarves.” MG
We even made up a magic spell to try to get the scarves to fall down:
“Abracadabra, ziggety zoom, make our scarves fall doon.”
🧙♀️Spooktacular Sewing Skills 🪡🧵
Our sewing area is looking super Halloweeny, and the children have taken on an epic challenge: making their very own trick-or-treat bags. The children are developing fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as they concentrate on threading their needles and making those tricky stitches. This activity is a fantastic workout for their concentration and persistence. The children get to be creative designers by picking their own materials, and they’re learning to follow instructions and problem-solve when things don’t go quite right. We are so impressed with their effort, and we know they’ll be so proud to show you and use their unique, handmade bags.
🎃 Welcome to Our Pop-Up Pumpkin Patch!🎃
The sand area has been completely transformed into a gorgeous Pumpkin Patch, and the kids are loving the imaginative play! It’s been non-stop fun mixed with some numeracy and mathematics. The children are all taking on roles—farmers, shoppers, and shopkeepers—which is fantastic for the development of social skills and learning how to communicate and take turns. For numeracy, they’ve created their own pumpkin patch shop with a till into the patch, turning it into a brilliant chance to practice coin recognition! They are using simple transactions, learning the real-world value of money as they “buy” and “sell” the ‘harvested’ pumpkins. Beyond money, the children have been counting, focusing on numbers 1-10 and sorting the pumpkins by size, small, medium and large.
In our creative area we have been exploring different senses around the seasons of autumn.
Sight: still life in the centre of the table with different texture and objects relating to autumn.
Sound: Exploring materials that sounds like “crunching leaves.”
Smell: Adding scents, herbs and spices to paint.
Touch: Using different textures of materials to feel and select to create
In the block area we have been exploring the story of The Three Little Pigs. We used different materials to create houses for the pigs and explored which material was the strongest to use by trying to blow them down. The children were able to use the skill of recall to explain and remember key points throughout the fairy-tale.
