Squirrels News - 11th October 2024
We have had the best week in the Squirrels classroom. Our week started with us baking yummy treats for our Grandparents. We began by identifying all of the ingredients we would be using and smelt the produce. It was important that we measured the ingredients before everyone took a turn pouring, mixing and folding the mixture, ready to go in the oven. We were all very pleased with how our blueberry muffins turned out.
Later in the morning It was time for what we had all been waiting for which was the arrival of Grandparents. The children showed their Grandparents around the classroom and enjoyed exploring numbers, letters, emotions and animals. Our joint Art activity for the Grandparents and children to participate in, was for the children to draw their Grandparents and for the Grandparents to draw their grandchild. It was lots of fun and the pictures were all wonderful. Before the Grandparents left it was time for Music with Miss Leisa where the children sang some of their favourite songs, including one we had written especially for the Grandparents. Everyone had a lovely day.
But, the fun didn’t stop there! This week we had also been raising money for the charity Mary’s Meals and this involved the children creating porridge faces using pieces of fruit to top off the yummy snack. With this in mind our book of the week was Who’s Been Eating MY Porridge. This story is about a baby bear who thinks the porridge monster has taken his yummy breakfast and goes on the hunt for him with various book character friends he meets along the way, such as Little Red Riding Hood.
We took inspiration from our book In Art where the children created a porridge face out of cut out pictures of fruit for a book, TV or film character. It was great fun developing cutting and drawing skills as everyone drew a picture of who their porridge was for. When porridge day came around the children were very excited to create their actual porridge faces at the table next to our new art display. It was lovely to hear the children discussing each other’s work, sharing compliments and discussing who they had chosen to give their porridge to, having drawn their character alongside the bowl of porridge. I often say to the children it is ok if we do not know the answer or how to do something as we are all learning. It was fantastic to hear the children discussing this as they spoke to each other; "I’m learning how to do the face of the monster." "I’m learning how to do a face too."
The fun continued on our Outdoor Learning Day where the focus was on getting messy and making yummy treats! Some of the children do not like getting mucky hands or if they do, they want to wash them straight away. With this in mind last week we took some items from the outdoor kitchen. This included spoons which naturally many of the children used to scoop up mud. This week we adapted the same activity. We did not take spoons this week and instead encouraged the children to pick up the mud with their hands AND wait until it was time to leave the common before cleaning them. Initially some of the children cleverly used the pots and pans to scoop up the mud but with a little encouragement everyone got their hands mucky to various degrees. We had a great time, even creating a kitchen amongst the trees and foliage. We were very proud of the children for embracing their muddy hands.
What a lovely week we have had and this is only a very small snapshot of all the fun we had!