Our topic this week was Rain! By Linda Ashman. In the story there is an old man who is very grumpy because it is raining. In contrast, the little boy in the story is excited that it is raining because he loves jumping in puddles and has a lovely rain hat with a frog on it. The boy notices the grumpy old man and made him smile and happy by sharing a cookie with him. The children adored this story and we used the message in the story to discuss how doing kind things makes others and ourselves much happier. The children had lots of good ideas of how we could brighten up other people's days. These included baking cakes and drawing pictures for their parents or sharing toys with their peers at nursery.
In Focus Time we used the story's focus on rain to discuss all of the different weather types. The children looked at non-fiction books about the weather to find out more and commented on what the different pictures were depicting. We used the books to help us identify and talk about the different weather types on our activity sheets. The Chicks marked their activity sheets with emoji stickers to voice their preferences. Snowy, sunny and the rainbow were their firm favourites, however some children also commented that they enjoyed watching the lightening in the sky!
To follow on from our teaching the week before half term, we extended the children’s understanding of sets by introducing them to ‘a pair’ of objects. We matched pairs of shoes, boots, socks and gloves before completing an activity sheet where the children dressed up paper dolls, making sure their boots and mittens matched.
We had lots of fun making clouds in jars on Friday where the children had to use their concentration and focus to use the pipettes to drip coloured water through a thick layer of shaving foam before patiently observing the raindrops falling through the water.
On Wednesday, the children baked healthy cookies and were introduced to a recipe card. We discussed how to read a recipe and commented on what the numbers tell us. We identified the different numerals on the card and learnt that these indicate quantities. Our recipe told us to measure out the ingredients in spoons and cups and we made sure we counted very carefully when adding the ingredients to the mixture.
The Chicks loved using the umbrellas in the rain in our Outdoor Learning Environment this week and listened to the sound and rhythm of the raindrops tapping on the fabric.
The Orange and Yellow Chicks busied themselves in their 345 shop, exploring the cash registers, dealing with money and scanning all of the different items before selling them. The Pink Chicks had lots of fun in the Post Office role play area. On Friday, they decided to post letters to their parents, putting Royal Mail to the test to see if it is as efficient as the Post Office service in the classroom. We loved our walk to the post box and the Chicks were excited to notice all of the flowers coming into bloom. The purple crocuses were our favourite! It was wonderful to observe the children’s sheer delight at these signs of Spring and we are looking forward to observing how many flowers pop up around 345 in the next few weeks.