Our topic book for this week was Can you See a Little Bear? by James Mayhew and Jackie Morris. The story follows the search for a missing bear cub. We search in lots of different colourful settings to try and find him, including inside a theatre and a circus! This topic book was chosen to encourage the children to think about the concept of opposites and big and small as well as developing our language and knowledge of different colours.
Inspired by our topic book, during Art the children enjoyed free painting bears and their favourite animals from the book. They used lots of different colours and materials and we discussed what ‘big’ and ‘small’ animals we knew of. During Cookery we made ‘Bear’ Cookies and decorated them with raisins, encouraging the children to use their mathematical language to count the number of raisins they were using.
To extend our group discussions on animals, we set up an activity with magnifying glasses! The children had the opportunity to use the magnifying glasses to identify and search for different bugs. As well as refining the children's fine motor skills and hand eye coordination, this was a lovely activity to watch the children’s curiosity and excitement inform their observations and knowledge of the different insects! In another experiment, the children had to search for insects hidden in ice, using the plastic hammers to try and break the ice to retrieve the insects.
On our nature walk this week our focus was on observing the different trees in our outside environment. We looked at the different patterns on the bark and enjoyed feeling and discussing the different textures and colours. It was great to see the group using their wonderful team-working and communication skills to take turns identifying the different findings! The children enjoyed collecting natural materials such as sticks and leaves to create amazing pieces of transient art. Miss Barbara then attached a piece of paper onto the tree and as a group the children were able to take turns using crayons to make tree rubbings.