The theme of Hospitals has really caught the imagination of the Magpies group in particular, with more of the children being drawn into the role play game being started up by last week’s players. The new children to the game bring their own ideas and style of play to the scene as it develops with some being in charge of the ongoing construction of the building as treatments carry on, adding extra rooms or kitchens for making the patient’s food or another putting themselves in charge of gathering resources. Twigs and long pieces of grass are touched and stroked with great care to the patient’s skin to analyse what seems to be the trouble or provide pain relief and leaves are carefully applied as plasters.
On our visits to the walled garden, we have witnessed some truly beautiful blossom displays, smelling the beautiful, sweet aroma wafting on the breeze and watching as bumble bees have started making an appearance once again. This has prompted the children to voice their questions, “Where have they been?”, “What are they doing?”, “Where do they live?”, as they gather around to watch the fuzzy beastie friends wiggle in and out and around the flowers. Our British nature encyclopaedia has provided ample opportunity for children to find a quiet spot and leaf through the pages, spotting birds and bugs that they recognise or trying to find their favourites, “That’s a grasshopper! They can jump SO one million high!”. We have drawn our favourite bugs and made our attempts at sounding out the letters in their names.
With the crazy winds this week we took the fun indoors and took part in a variety of focus activities; practicing our aim with beanbag throwing games, using mats and blankets to create a spaceship, taking turns to operate the buttons to take us to all sorts of exciting places. Karen led an activity using paper plates to cut out the centre so that the children could decorate the hoops and play at a game of hoopla as they tried to throw them onto a peg. The children loved throwing these Frisbees and began throwing them into the air, laughing as they zoomed in unpredictable directions. Some of these colourful circles became crowns and hats too as their play naturally evolved into something new based around this toy they had created.
We have played guessing games, taking turns to describe animals or dinosaurs and trying to guess what they might be with some of the children impersonating their choice and acting out the animals as a further clue.
Number recognition and counting games have been popular this week as well as our colourful letter matching cards to help the children construct three and four letter words. For our younger friends, simply having these activities to play and interact with will help build their familiarity with the shapes of the letters and numbers so that their learning can begin through their play and interest.
Next week is Shakespeare week so it will be fun to see if we can interest the children in putting on some performances or plays! In the meantime, we hope you all have lovely weekends!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham