Following on from our fire pit experience last week the children have been helping to set up a camping role play area and there has been lots of discussion about holidays, camping and camp fires. Some more children had the opportunity to toast marshmallows on the real camp fire again today. We will be developing our planning around the children’s ideas about holidays and summer.

Today some of the children were able to experience building their own camp fire using our lovely new fire pit. We worked in small groups and Ollie the Owl helped to teach us how to be safe and wise near a fire. We showed great respect for the fire and followed all safety rules and as a treat we got to toast marshmallows on our fire. We talked about the fire, flames and smoke and what fire is used for.

By using our Fire Pit we are developing:

Social interactions

Life skills

Risk Taking

Confidence

Experience

Co-operation

Communication

We will be using our fire pit again soon to allow other children to have the experience.

Our little chicks are settling into their lives at Bathgate West this week with lots of cuddles from the boys and girls. They have attracted lots of attention from parents, grandparents, brothers and sister and they are growing very quickly! Some children helped clean out their cage today in preparation for their holidays at the weekend. They will be back on Monday and we will be looking to see how much they have changed over the weekend. Chick number 9 still has no name so any suggestions will be appreciated.

Our chicks have arrived:) So far out of our 12 eggs we have 10 beautiful little chicks. The children are loving the experience and all being very gentle and responsible.

We have been learning about all kinds of creatures this week, from mini beasts in our garden to the largest safari animals from the jungle. We are very much looking forward to meeting the chicks, hopefully next week, and have been learning all about the life cycle of a Hen.

With the slightly warmer weather we have even managed to eventually plant our potatoes in our new vegetable planters, so hopefully we will have a bumper crop of tatties by Harvest time! Our fire pit has drawn some attention this week as we have been discussing how we can make fire…what we can cook on fire and most importantly…how we will stay safe we really do light the fire!