Monday
The week began with our gymnastics session with Hannah. Today, the children did different activities - circuit training! - to support them in learning to do hand stands. Some of our children showed amazing body control. Keep it up, kids! Our story focus this week is 'The Gingerbread Man' - we read the book after registration, then the children could retell the tale (or develop it) at our small world table using props and puppets. The children also made their own gingerbread men today, which helped them to develop a whole variety of skills: turn taking, teamwork, independence, hygiene, weighing and measuring.
Tuesday
The children were very busy making their Father's Day cards today (we hope you liked them!). We also continued our focus on 'The Gingerbread Man', with more children having fun retelling the tale using the props and puppets and, in our maths area, using the Numicon shapes to match the numbers on the gingerbread men. And, of course, there was lots of excitement about tomorrow's trip to Drusillas!
Wednesday
The sun shone brilliantly today (hooray!) on a terrific day out at Drusillas. After a fun coach trip, the children assembled at Drusilla's learning classrooms for their 'Animal Encounter' session - this involved meeting (and, if you were brave, stroking) a fat-tailed gerbil, a Madagascan hissing cockroach, an ENORMOUS millipede and a chinchilla. The children were braver than the adults, in most cases! Afterwards, there was plenty of time to visit the other animals before descending on the playground and splash pad for serious fun. There were lots of tired and happy children on the coach home, as well as tired and happy grown-ups.
Thursday
Unsurprisingly, the talk at registration this morning was all about yesterday's trip to Drusillas - what we saw and what our favourite animals were (giant anteater, OBVIOUSLY). In our craft area, the children were decorating secret stones (which is quite addictive, so don't be surprised if your child asks to do it at home!). Later, as part of our focus on developing the children's physical activity, we re-enacted the Gingerbread Man story using different actions: wading through water, jumping away from the dog, and so on.
Friday
Now the children are thoroughly familiar with the Gingerbread Man tale, we decided to subvert it by reading them the hilarious story of 'The Stinky Cheese Man' which had the children in stitches! On the carpet, we had a construction focus with the children building things with magnetic shapes, wooden blocks and linking shapes; elsewhere, children were playing memory games with Wendy. And, of course, we continued painting our secret stones because you can never have too many!
