Tinga Tales – Tales from Africa
In Nursery we have been reading ‘Why Elephant has a Trunk’.
We created our own artwork inspired by the patterns and colours from African art and cloth. We had a go at weaving paper and also practised our cutting skills.
We also watched a video of African drumming. Mrs Grant goes to African drumming lessons so she taught us a simple rhythm.
The KS1 group really enjoyed toasting marshmallows and drinking hot chocolate. They listened sensibly about how to keep safe.
We sang songs around the fire and listened to the birds singing too. Three pairs of garden birds came to visit us, the most I’ve seen in the Forest School area. There were two blue tits and two other pairs that we haven’t identified yet.
To end the session we poured water on to the fire and made a wish.
The KS2 group were brilliant as well. They wanted to cook something else on the fire. It was a bit windy so we made a wind break using a tarpaulin and logs. Some children used peelers to peel bark off hazel sticks. We were going to use these to cook with but unfortunately it was still too windy for the children to enter the fire circle. Instead we wrapped the scone mixture in tin foil and cooked it in the embers of the fire. It got a bit burnt but the children said it still tasted delicious.
As the session came to an end it started to rain a little and a beautiful rainbow appeared.
The children experimented with using the paints to make different colours.
We made shades of brown to paint the Ark we had made for our Noah’s Ark display.
Purple mixed with white made a lovely shade of purple.
Red and white to make a lovely pink colour.
A lovely bright orange was made by mixing red and yellow.
Today the weather was perfect for a fire, dry and not windy. We talked about how to keep safe. We remembered how to kneel and what to do in an emergency. Then we all enjoyed toasting and eating marshmallows.
In Nursery we love using boxes and other items to make all sorts of different things.
Here are some of the things we have made this week:
This is a work in progress pirate.
A fabulous monster
An amazing submarine
A wonderful owl.
We have an Eco-Council in school. Their role is to help the school become more environmentally friendly.
Last term they helped run our ‘Switch Off Fortnight’ campaign, encouraging everyone to save energy and money by switching of lights and appliances when not in use. Over the two week campaign we managed to save 30kwh of electricity.
I am going to put one of the members in charge of updating the blog so watch this space for more news soon!
Mrs Grant
In Nursery we have been using the Numberblocks television series to help us with our number work. This week we made numberblocks one, two and three. We practised counting and using language like big/small and bigger/smaller.
This week we practised making waterproof dens with the tarpaulin so that if it does rain during our Forest School sessions we will have somewhere to stay warm and dry.
We were very glad to end the session with a drink of hot chocolate because it was so cold!
It was great to be back out in the Forest School area with the KS2 group. Despite it being a few weeks since our last session the children had remembered the rules and routines.
We played a few hide and seek type games to make sure we kept moving in the cold weather.
The children made their own choices for part of the session. It was great to see lots of team work and children being very focused on what they wanted to achieve. Some children decided to work alone but were just as determined to be able to complete what they had set out to do.
This den became the perfect place to sit and read a book 🙂
These children had a clear goal and with two others communicated well and worked as a team to achieve it.
Some children worked with me to use the bow saw to cut branches. This is a good mindfulness activity as the only thing you can think about is what is happening there and then 🙂 The children need to listen carefully and follow instructions. They also enjoy that there is an element of risk involved and feel a sense of achievement when they have cut through the branch.
This week in Nursery we have been reading Aliens love Underpants.
The children have really enjoyed the story, there have been lots of giggles when listening to what the cheeky aliens get up to.
The book is full of rhyming words and some children are starting to spot them.
The children have created colourful pairs of pants which we are going to put up on display soon so come and have a look.
Our family project this half term is for the children to make their own aliens. They can be made from any resources. They could be made from old cardboard boxes, playdough, scraps of fabric or anything else you can think of. We are looking forward to seeing them in school in a few weeks time.
