This week our topic was A Morning with Grandpa by Sylvia Liu. We selected this book in preparation for Grandparents Day which is celebrated on 3rd of October. The book discusses Grandpa Gong Gong and his Granddaughter Mei Mei who are spending a morning together doing Tai Chi and Yoga. They learn different movements and breathing techniques from each other whilst having a lot of fun. This was a great book to start conversations around the things we enjoy doing with our Grandparents and the Fledglings enjoyed sharing experiences of all the fun they've had with their Grandparents too.
We were inspired by our topic book and decided to extended the activities to our Outdoor Learning Day where the children explored Tai Chi and Yoga poses. The children really enjoyed this activity and it encouraged them to do exercises that they might not often do or had never done before which supported the development of their hand eye coordination and physical development. It also generated a discussion about where Tai Chi and Yoga come from and the children were keen to name the different countries they been to or heard of.
We continued the fun on our Outdoor Learning Day by taking part in a letter hunt. The children were tasked with searching around our natural environment for hidden letters. The Fledglings loved this activity and once all the the Anima Phonics cards were found we focused on practising our letter recognition and hearing the different sounds.
Throughout the week we extended the children’s interest in letters and sounds through various activities. On our messy table the children had the challenge of searching for letters hidden in cornflour and water and on our Mark-Making table they enjoyed colouring in different letters and phonetic words which were supported by pictures. These activities provide continuous exposure to letters and sounds which contributes to the children’s Literacy development and communication and language skills. It also offered a great opportunity for the children to discuss letters and sounds, to think of new words that begin with certain sounds and to ask questions about them.
Another popular activity was our Loose Parts table where the children created lots of amazing transient art. They used their imagination, combined with their own experiences, to create playgrounds, beaches and patterns. This also worked to strengthen the children's fine motor skills which will help them later with their writing abilities.
Throughout the week the children painted portraits of their Grandparents and recorded short videos describing their favourite things to do with them. They also created lovely cards, drawing their favourite experiences with their Grandparents on the front.
In Science we used the topic of Grandparents to learn about the human life cycle. The children sequenced the stages of growing up and ageing and we introduced new words such 'teenager' and 'elderly'and discussed what they meant. This generated lots of conversation amongst the children relating to themselves as being babies and having different family members of different ages.
