Sunday 21 June 2015

Father's Day 2015


It is always so much harder to think of ideas that he men may like for father's day but we all though they would be appreciative of some biscuits and the children love any opportunity to do some baking so we decided upon gingerbread men and stars. 


Baking is such a great activity for the children's development in so many ways including:

Personal, social and emotional development: The children took it in turns to help with the various tasks such as weighing out ingredients, pouring them in and stirring.
Physical Development: We learnt about hygiene through washing our hands and utilised a number of tools to cut and stir.
Communication & Language: The children talked about the textures and smells encountered and followed instructions.
Literacy: We looked at a simple recipe to help us.
Mathematics: The children counted out the spoonfuls of spices and looked at the numbers on the scales as they weighed out their ingredients.
Understanding the World: We smelt the spices and discussed father's day.
Expressive art and design: The children finished up with painting fathers day cards.


The children had a great time baking although I slightly underestimated the power of the oven so some of the stars were a little crispy, sorry dads!



The children also wanted to make some cards for the dads so we used some of their paintings to create letters to spell the word 'dad'. The youngest child, currently 12 months, also participated through doing a lovely handspring painting that we turned into a card.



Happy Fathers Day to all the daddies, we hope you like the gifts!

Thursday 11 June 2015

Dartmoor Zoo


This morning we went on a visit to Dartmoor Zoo. The children had a great time looking at the animals. 

It was so quiet they were able to run around as they please in the large amount of woodland at the site. The children listened quietly to the otters and tried to impersonate the noises that they made!


The children, even our 12 month old, particularly enjoyed the comical meerkats who were darting about when they saw the children coming! They were not so keen on the large lion though, even though he was sleeping!


At the end they had a long play in the lovely natural climbing area at the site. After a lovely morning they were all shattered. 

Thursday 4 June 2015

Outdoor Learning


This week we have seen a positive change in the weather - it is almost summer! I am a great believer in the value of outdoor learning for a child and we have taken full advantage of being outdoors this week.


We have spent a lot of time in our garden where the children are particularly keen to play with the water resources. They have enhanced their numeracy through playing with various sizes of measuring jugs and working out how to transport water from one container to another using a variety of pots and pipes.


We have visited our local National Trust venue, Saltram House and taken a walk to the estuary. The children talked about aspects of the gruffalo, discussing where same and owl may be living as well as learning about several of the plant including the stinging nettle! 


We have also played in several parks which has enabled a great deal of social play as well as enhancing physical ability and general self-confidence. What a lovely week we have had with the added benefit of lots of fresh air!