Spring Term Week 4
The start of our week was a bit of a washout and our first fully wet days for a long time so we were all inside and undercover playing in our lovely shop and having a chill out zone with calm music in the Star room!
It was lovely to get back outside and we had a tidy up in our garden and set up lots of long car runs, using the steps and gutters and planks – rolling the cars along and working and playing together.
This week has been very special for one of our families who have been celebrating Chinese New Year so we have also been learning about this event, valuing the cultures of all our families is so wonderful and we have started to put the photos of your family around the world onto our big map so please keep sending them in. We have family pictures for Australia, China, New Zealand, USA and India so far! We will be making a UK version too after half term so will be adding to that display.
Our circle times have all been full of the wonderful colours of Chinese New Year, learning about the culture and the foods and the year of the Snake.
Star group – they have watched a video of a Chinese Dragon, dancing and moving and then made a dragon for their board in the Star room, they have painted snakes using bubble wrap, enjoyed sensory trays with foam and glitter getting very messy! The Stars have also made lanterns and sparkly firework and rocket pictures – really listening to the staff and taking in the learning – lots of skills have been on show – planning how to make a picture, using the resources on offer, taking time to make a creation, learning new vocabulary and hearing about and watching exciting videos of the dragon dancing.
Moon and Sun – have also had a week full of Chinese culture, they learnt all about how the Chinese New Year has an animal attached to each new year and we played lots of games to learn the animals and made some lovely snakes! The children learnt about Red being a lucky colour, learnt about the dragon being an important part of celebrations and we made our own big dragon and danced through the sun room to some Chinese music. We looked at the difference between Chinese symbols/writing and our letters and created badges with our age on in Chinese and painted some wonderful Chinese symbols.
The highlight of the week was our wonderful Chinese lunch! Delivered by the Golden Lion and it was delicious! The family also donated a beautiful new calendar and fortune cookies and other lovely pieces for our display which we will pack away today and have it all ready for next year’s celebrations!
We will keep our multicultural shop for next week as the children are playing really well and imaginatively so please do send in packaging for foods from around the world – if you have fajitas or Chinese or curry ready meal boxes!
Our focus for the next two weeks will be foods and life cycles and our garden and growth and change and being strong!