Acorn Room
The children were observed jumping from one log cushion to another. J.M said we are jumping like frogs. K.N said “ribbit, ribbit”. L.F scaffolded their learning by adding a dice and numbers and encouraged them to count and identify the numbers they landed on as they role played. A.M said “I want a frog” L.F supported this interest and created a play-dough experience of create your own frogs with play-dough. The children were able to make their own frogs using loose parts. H.T counted “1,2 eyes”. The children were keen to sing 5 speckled frogs at group time, L.F praised them for learning to count. The children smiled as they explored our pop up frog too. We also watched the frog life cycle song. Parents in the acorn room, please find the attached song on your child’s e.journals.🐸🪵
The acorns have been participating in activities to celebrate Chinese New Year! They have been exploring sensory play with rice and Chinese inspired playdough. They have also been learning about the Chinese flag and it’s different colours and shapes.
Woodwork Area
This week in woodwork we have been continuing to create beautiful photo frames🖼 the children have been super busy using their fine motor skills to hammer the nails around the picture and weave ribbon around them in lots of different colours.
The Courtyard – Block play
To celebrate Chinese New Year in the block area, the children have been building their own Chinese Temples! Working fabulously as a team, the children modelled their temples from images. This is a concept skill that requires them create their own version of the image on a larger scale. This also requires great gross motor skills and teamwork which the children displayed in abundance! Fantastic job everyone!
Snack\Baking Area
This week was Chinese New Year! In the baking area we have been exploring different tastes – we have made noodles with a curry or sweet and sour sauce. We also made the traditional Jiaozi (made with Quorn mince, carrots, onion and garlic). The children did really well when using the chopsticks to pick up the Jiaozi. 🤩
Story Corner
We have been learning about Chinese New Year 🧧 this week in the story corner and reading our new books. The most popular book seems to have been Winnie and Wilbur 🐈⬛ at Chinese New Year by Valerie Thomas.
The children have been learning that this is a very important holiday for many people and 2023 is the year of the rabbit 🐇. We found out that Chinese New Year is also known as the Lunar New Year as it is connected to the moon 🌙. The children were very interested in the dragon 🐉 and lion 🦁 dances that are performed to bring good luck. All the children have shown that they are fantastic responsible citizens learning about another culture and celebration 🤩👏.
STEM Area
In the STEM area we have been celebrating Chinese New Year while practicing our numeracy skills. The children have been demonstrating their knowledge of numbers 1 to 10 and their ability to correspond the number of loose parts to the written number. Alongside this the children were able to observe the Chinese symbol for each number and Rong also showed us how to pronounce each number.
Also in the STEM area we have been exploring technology and programming through our bee bot robots 🤖. The children were very excited when the bee themed robots came out. They were able to programme them to go forward, back, left and right. When the children we confident giving the beebots a one step instruction then we built up to 2,3 and some children were able to master 4 step instructions. There was so much demand to play with our beebots we set up a queuing system while waiting our turn, promoting turn taking and cooperative play. This term we will continue to develop our technology skills within the area.
This week we have been exploring Chinese New Year. In the gross motor skills area we have been learning Chinese games. We played, passing the bean bag, jumping and throwing on the squares and picking and throwing pebbles. Rong showed the children the Chinese names for each game.
Fine motor area
This week to celebrate Chinese New Year the children were writing the Chinese number from 1-10. They were able to draw them in the rice with the lolly stick or their fingers or use the pen and paper to copy them too. The children found that writing some of the numbers was easier than others which were quite tricky.
Writing Area
This week we are celebrating Chinese New Year⛩
2023 is the year of the rabbit🐰? Our mark making table displayed a range of Chinese writing and the children were super keen to have a go at writing in Chinese themselves!✏️. It was a little tricky at times as the Chinese alphabet is written very differently to ours!
Home Corner
We made our own Chinese lanterns using paper and glitter which we have hung up on the ceiling. They look great in our new home corner 🟡🔴
