This week our topic book was Cows in The Kitchen by June Cribbin. One day, Farmer Tom goes out to tend to his animals, only to find his fields are empty! In the story we follow Farmer Tom in his quest to search for and find all of his farmyard animals. He is in for a big surprise when he eventually finds them! The cows are in the kitchen, the sheep are on the sofa, the hens are in the hat stand, the pigs are in the pantry and the ducks are on the dresser. The story is a hilarious farmyard tale and the Chicks thoroughly enjoyed singing along to the rhymes and trying to guess where the animals could be hiding.
This topic book offered a great opportunity to extend our learning about animals and led to lots of great discussions about the different types of animals that live on the farm!
We took inspiration from this in our Art activity by experimenting with painting our own farmyard animals. The Chicks chose what farmyard animal they liked best from the book and then set to work with paintbrush in hand! There were lots of cows, sheep and pigs and it was amazing to see how detailed some of the paintings were.
The biggest highlight of the week however was our trip to ‘Deen City Farm’. The Chicks all had a wonderful morning feeding the cows, goats, and sheep. They listened to Farmer Ben’s instructions, and we were amazed to see how many of the children were brave enough feed the animals themselves, holding out their hands flat with the food ready for the animals. The children laughed and giggled as the animals tickled their hands.
The Chicks also had the opportunity to stroke the Bunny rabbits, Guinea pigs and a Ferret. We were so impressed by how sensible everyone was, waiting patiently and taking turns to stroke the animals and we are all very proud of their listening skills.
The Chicks all found it particularly funny when Farmer Ben folded the Ferret in half to show us how flexible they are! We finished the day by washing our hands and getting back on the Coach for our journey back to the nursery. It was such a brilliant, busy and fun filled morning that some of the Chicks fell asleep on the journey back to 345 Nursery.
The next day during Free Play there was lots of chatter amongst the Chicks about our trip to the Farm and it was wonderful to watch them incorporating their experiences into their play with the small world farm and the farmyard animals.
During our Focus Literacy activity the Chicks looked at the pictures taken while they were on the Farm and then drew pictures of their favourite animals. The Pink and Yellow Chicks then extended their writing skills by tracing over or copy writing the name of the animal they were drawing.
During our Maths Activity the Pink and Yellow Chicks sang the song ‘5 Little Ducks Went Swimming One Day' and with the small world duckling and Mummy duck, the children took one duck away and then counted how many were left. On their Activity Sheets the children stuck down the ducks on the ponds and counted how many were in the ponds. This was a fun way to continue our focus on animals whilst introducing the concept of adding and taking one away from a given number.