This week the Chicks' topic book was Goodnight Spaceman by Michelle Robinson and Mick East. This story is about two little space mad boys getting ready for bed and saying goodnight to their toy rockets, planets and launch pads. Before closing their eyes, the boys make a wish to fly to space. The boys’ wish comes true, and they are whisked away into space on an adventure beyond their wildest dreams! But first they need to put on their Astronaut suits, backpacks, helmets, gloves and boots. On the way home the boys say goodbye to all the planets before orbiting past the moon and returning to the beds before morning!
The book was a wonderful platform to continue our learning about Space and the children’ absolutely loved trying to guess what new planets and starts the boys in the book would see next!
In the Role Play Area the Chicks had great fun blasting up into space in their space rocket, taking it in turns to fly rocket. They made sure to get dressed in their Astronaut outfits before going up in to space to look for all of the planets, stars and the moon!
On Monday the Pink and Yellow Chicks went on their weekly learning walk to the Common and the children’s challenge was to find as many sticks as they could to build their own space rocket as a group. This was a great team building exercise for the children as they had to work together to make the rocket using the sticks they collected. We discussed the shape of a rocket and the children got to work. The children suggested that it would be good to have the big logs to sit on. The teachers helped the children with the logs and placed them in the middle of the rocket. Once our rocket was complete the Chicks buckled up and started singing, Zoom, zoom, zoom we’re going to the moon!
This activity inspired the children to make their own rockets back in the classroom, using the stickle bricks and the Duplo. The Chicks created a range of big, tall rockets and small rockets and this sparked a great conversation about how rockets orbit into space and the things they might see. We discussed which planets we would visit and how long it would take us to reach the moon. To extend the children’s interests we watched a real rocket launch on the iPad and the children were amazed and excited to see it blast into space.
During our Cookery activity the Chicks made delicious Moon Rock cookies to eat during Snack Time. The children took turns to mix all the ingredients together and once the dough was ready, we rolled it using our hands and moulded the dough into moon rocks. This activity was very good for developing the Chicks hand eye-coordination and fine motor skills. Once our cookies were cooked, we all enjoyed eating them – they were delicious!
On the Art table the children made a 3D rocket and made the Milky Way using lots of glue and glitter. While their pictures were drying the Chicks also coloured their very own Astronauts, using pastels before gluing pictures of themselves on to their Astronaut.
During Our literacy focus activity the Green and Orange Chicks focused on a new Anima sound, ‘o’. The children dipped the round jars and tubes into the paint and printed the letter ‘o’ onto the paper. While making the ‘o’ the children practiced sounding out the sound. We extended this activity the next day in our Messy tray and the Pink and Yellow Chicks had fun making and sounding out the letter ‘o’.
In Maths we focused on shapes, making rockets out of a range of 3D and 2D shapes. The Pink and Yellow Chicks made their own rockets out of the shapes, and the Green and Orange Chicks stuck windows and doors inside their rockets looking at circles, squares, rectangles and triangles.