Tag Archives: gross motor skills

Early Years 2023-24 Term 1 – Week 4

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We headed to the Village Club for a new musical experience this week.  Joy Duncan is providing drumming sessions for the rest of the term.  First, we learned that there were two rules in drumming class – only use palms on the drums and listen to Joy so you know when to start and stop drumming.  The bairns were asked if they knew where these drum were from “Africa”.  We learned the names of the drums too – djembe, tam tam, panlogo, boogaraboo and doon doons.  We explored using different parts of our palms to make sounds on the drums.  The bairns took turns to go freestyle on the drums too.

Mrs Garrick joined us back at the school hall to continue our music session, where we moved our bodies to the changing beat, going fast or slow, with big steps or small.   We revisited Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes which might have been the fastest yet!  Afterwards, we lay down, relaxing our bodies from our toes to our heads.

Our indoor/outdoor room play this week has included trains, fire fighters, the floor is lava, telling jokes, stormy seas, sand angels, jumping, musical statues, hide and seek, catching the green-toed stingy monster, caring for baby and a car wash.  These experiences have promoted gross motor skills, co-operative play, risky play and creativity.

After our exciting gingerbread man hunt last week, we extended the bairns’ play by making gingerbread playdough.  Molding the dough aids fine motor skills needed for early literacy.  There is no end to the creativity of what is produced at the playdough station.

We were really lucky to visit the library van when it came to Cunningsburgh.  The bairns were curious to see what would be inside. The librarian explained that there were different areas of van for fiction and non-fiction, books for every age and books about Shetland.  The bairns shared what they were interested in and looked out some books to take back to nursery.  Each book needed to be date stamped and the bairns were keen to offer their help!  We took the books back to nursery and had a read out in the sunshine.

Here’s a collection of some of the other play and learning that has happened this week.