Week beginning 13th April
Exploring Mini beasts
This week at playgroup we have been learning about and exploring all things mini beasts, whilst also strengthening our gross and fine motor skills. From kneading dough to using pipettes and tweezers we’ve had great fun We made some bug hotels and searched our gardens to see which mini beasts we could find We used counting ladybird and butterfly puzzle pictures to help with number, colour and pattern recognition. And of course we had lots of fun creating and exploring with different messy materials. Our children love to go on bug hunts and we found some amazing spiders and a shiny black stag beetle which totally thrilled all of the children.
The stories of the week were:
For the 3-4 year olds • What the ladybird heard • Snail on a whale
For the 2-3 year olds • The Very Hungry Caterpillar • The Very Hungry Caterpillars Bug Hunt
Why not come back next week as we look at Animals of the world and celebrate Earth day
Week beginning 20th April
Animals of the world and celebrating Earth day
This week we spent time looking at all of the wonderful animals from around the world from the pets we might have at home right through to animals who live many miles away in different countries and continents Thinking about what their natural habitats might be and how we can look after and protect them. We looked at the Handa”s surprise story and the animals that live in her country Kenya, and as part of our cookery session we tasted some of the fruit that features in the story. We then voted for our favourite and least favourite. Unsurprisingly Mango was a firm favourite. There was lots of role play centred around being a vet or zoo keeper and also some very imaginative small world play. We explored animal patterns and used different media and materials to create stripes spots and even a majestic lions mane.
The stories of the week were:
For the 3-4 year olds • Handa’s surprise • Monkey Puzzle
For the 2-3 year olds • Dear zoo
Week beginning 27th April
Exploring lifecycles
This week we looked at lifecycles focussing on butterflies, frogs, people, plants and ladybirds. The children were really intrigued to think about what ‘baby’ ladybirds and frogs looked like and were also able to link our monkey puzzle story from last week to the butterfly lifecycle this week. Some favourite activities were creating frog art using the fly swats which is a great way to support and develop gross and fine motor skills and hand eye coordination. We also enjoyed finding Mr funny bones’ bones and matching them to his Skeleton and as always washing the babies which is such a simple activity, but seemingly loved by all of our children.
Stories of the week this week were:
Monkey puzzle - which we revisited by request of the children
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
10 Wriggly wiggly caterpillars
