This week in the fine motor area the children have been exploring the story book ‘How to catch a star’ by Oliver Jeffers. Through different mark making and fine motor activities the children explored different ways of catching stars.
Outdoors
In the garden this week the children have been using their fine motor skills to break up the ice and find toys hidden underneath. we’ve been using hammers to set them free and our goggles to protect our eyes.
Construction
This week in the construction area the children have been busy building with lego, magnets and wooden blocks. We have been focusing on 2d shapes. The children have identified squares, rectangles, triangles and circles and have been exploring pentagons and hexagons. Some children matched the shapes, some drew shapes and together we explored the differences the shapes had. The children were able to look at the wooden blocks and identify squares, circles and rectangles.
Acorn Room
We made snowmen using playdough, developing our fine motor skills, learning the concept of big/small and identifying colours. The children used their hands to roll playdough into ball shapes then using their hands to flatten the dough down before adding buttons, carrot noses & spaghetti arms.
Courtyard – cosy corner
In the cosy corner of the courtyard the children were reading “ Katie’s Ferm” where they helped Katie find the cat on the farm. They were developing their language and role play skills when playing with the animals creating their own adventures on the farm . Some of the children then counted out the correct number of animals for each square from 1-10. This was developing their 1-1 correspondence and number recognition skills, a few of the children were able to add numbers together to find the correct answer.
Courtyard
We have been making the most of the frozen weather this week. We decided to make our own ice tray. The children explored the ice, the animals and people that live in cold places and countries. We discussed the different seasons and looked at the winter season in the book about what weathers can happen in winter. The children also used paint, paint brushes and pipettes to change the colour of the ice. The children also thought of different ways to rescue the animals from the ice. We also made some art ice using natural resources such as leave, grass and flowers. The children learned about freezing and melting process, weather and different seasons.
Art Area
This week the children have been making decorations in the art area to put on our Christmas tree. After making them for our tree the children wanted some to take home. So we decided to create large baubles with tissue paper, glitter, pens and we used scissors to cut them out when they were finished. They explored patterns and shapes whilst making the baubles and developed their fine motor skills throughout
Malleable Area
This week in malleable the children have been looking at positional language like under, over, beside and behind the children used the different animals and characters to show their understanding of the new language. The children were using the blocks and playdough the children were building houses for the ginger bread men and showing exactly where they would be at the house the children were also beginning to use the correct language for this.
Baking Area
This week in the baking area we have been focusing on experiences based on books! The children listened to a variety of stories and we discussed the roles of the author and illustrator and explored the events within the story learning about ordering and sequencing. The children made gingerbread men, forming the dough and then rolling and cutting them followed up by mark making them using icing exploring pattern. 5en the children chose to read Michael Rosen the chocolate cake and follow instructions to bake their own cake discussing their favourite flavours of cakes and learning how to ice the cake using piping bags.
STEM area
The children spoke about decorating Christmas trees so we decided to use pinecone and pom-poms to make our own tree. They used their fine motor skills to spread the glue and added the pom-poms onto the pinecone. We spoke about colours throughout the activity and the children expressed their favourite colours.
