This week our topic book was Rabbityness by Jo Empson. The children absolutely adored the book which is all about a rabbit who enjoys doing ‘un-rabbity’ things. The rabbit loves painting and playing music and fills the forest with joy and colours. His friends were concerned for him when he suddenly disappeared. However, once they went to explore the hole where he lives they discovered that he had left behind some very special gifts for them, to help them discover their own ‘un-rabbity’ talents.
We took inspiration from the rabbit's wonderful artwork in the book and decided to focus our Art activity on colour. The Chicks painted their own rabbits and used stencils and rollers to create rabbit silhouettes with vivid colourful backgrounds. In Drama we played musical instruments and explored the different sounds, playing softly and loudly. We practiced tapping out rhythms and of course, sang ‘sleeping bunnies’!
On Wednesday, the Chicks made healthy carrot cakes and the Pink Chicks were very excited to pack these for their Outdoor Learning adventure the following day. They spent their morning on Wandsworth Common as our nursery was being used as a polling station. Following the children’s interest over the last few weeks in bees and worms we turned into minibeast detectives and set out on search for insects on the Common. The Chicks were ecstatic to find woodlice, snails, centipedes, earwigs, ants and even earthworms. It reminded us of the Superworm story by Julia Donaldson. Just like the rabbits in our topic books we danced, played music and used a large parachute to add some colour to the forest and the children had lots of fun pretending to sleep underneath it.
On Friday, the Green, Orange and Yellow chicks decorated rabbits with wool and used their focus and concentration to practise their cutting skills. The Pink Chicks played phonics Bingo and fed the toy rabbits with the letters and sounds instead of carrots. The bunny rabbits also took over our Role Play area and the children were busy preparing picnics for them, using natural materials such as pine cones, sticks, seashells and wooden logs.
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