Squirrels News - 31st January 2025
This week we were very excited in the Squirrels classroom to take part in the Lunar New Year celebrations. The Role Play area was set up as a fusion restaurant of Korean and Chinese food with the children loving how 'fancy' it was. When discussing our Chinese, Korean fusion restaurant I explained the word fusion meant ‘a mix’. It has been wonderful to hear the children use this word across the week and explain what it means.
We learnt about Lunar New Year traditions all around the world, from cleaning before the celebrations begin, the significance of sweet treats, red envelopes and wishing trees and more. We also learnt that the moons orbit around the world and that this is linked with this celebration. We were extremely lucky to have a Mummy join us in class on Lunar New Year to discuss how her and her family celebrate the festival. The children got to look at photos, try on traditional clothing and try some delicious Korean food. Then on Thursday in Music we took part in a lion dance!
This week the Squirrels headed up to Dew Drop Inn where we played a numbers game with the ‘big kids’. Everyone had to roll the dice or spin the spinner then collect the corresponding piece to make their bug. It was lots of fun and we had some very fancy bugs!
Elsewhere in the classroom we have developed our cutting skills, continued our Art projects and written yummy orders for the restaurant. In one of our Focus Time’s it was lovely discussing everyone's Weekend News before the children wrote what they had done over the weekend and drew a picture. We have also been speaking about friendships now that the children are at an age where they are playing with different people or their friends are which can be a bit confusing. We will continue to talk about this and how some people may not want to play the same game as us all the time, be the same role in imaginative play consistently, or sit next to us all the time but that is ok. Also what would happen if that person was away, we might feel quite lonely. This will be an ongoing discussion, especially with Reception not far around the corner and we have also thought about ways we might be able to ask people to play with us or if we could join in their game.
Everyone was very happy to be back on the common this week for our Outdoor Learning Day where we learnt how to make paintbrushes using natural objects!