The Chicks topic book this week was Some Dogs Do by Jez Alborough. All dogs can walk and jump and run, but dogs don’t fly, it can’t be done, or can it!? This is an enchanting story all bout a dog that can fly!
When Sid the dog sets off for school one day, a happy feeling overcomes him and he is excited to tell his school friends that he can fly, but none of his friends believe him because dogs can’t fly. This makes Sid very sad and all his happiness disappears right in front of his eyes. Back at home Sid’s Dad tries to make Sid feel better and his unhappiness is dispersed when a secret is revealed: you see dogs really can fly!!
The Chicks thoroughly enjoyed this story and found out that if you believe, magic can happen!
The story opened up lots of conversations about the different things we like doing and things we hope to do in the future. These conversations inspired the Chicks to paint pictures in Art of the activities they like doing and all of their favourite things. The Chicks painted purple turtles, a sheep eating grass, Spider-Man, lots of rainbows, racing cars and many more fantastic creations. It was so lovely to see the children’s imagination come to life through their creativity.
This week it was raining while we were exploring our Outdoor Learning Environment, so the children took shelter under the mud kitchen and decided to cook up a range of delicious foods for us all to enjoy. They looked at the cookbooks in the mud kitchen gain inspiration and to help explain the different ingredients needed for their recipes. The Chicks made a banquet of fish pie, strawberry cake, and chicken noodle soup.
When the Chicks were making the soup, they realised they needed some water, and after some quick thinking, they agreed that they could collect the rainwater. The children gathered up the pots and pans and placed them outside the mud kitchen. The Chicks then agreed that the pots would need to be out in the rain for a long time for them to fill them completely but luckily the water that they did collect was enough to finish making their soup!
In Maths, we created a caterpillar number line, taking inspiration from the caterpillars that arrived at the nursery last week. Some of the Chicks used coloured circles and the others used paint to make their caterpillars. When they finished the Chicks counted how many circles they stuck down and some of the older Pink Chicks were able to write the numbers directly onto the circles.
A highlight of the week however was when the Yellow and Orange Chicks went on an environmental walk to the Common to listen out for sounds around them. They focused hard and managed to hear aeroplanes, helicopters, children cheering, dogs barking and lots of moving vehicles. This activity is one of the games we play with the Chicks in preparation for learning to hear the first letter sounds in words. Before coming back to Nursery, the children sang a few of their favourite nursery songs and their all-time favourite is ‘Sleeping Bunnies’.