Week commencing 17th May 2021 - Lindfield.

Wow!

What a wonderful and busy week.

This week our focus has been on Maths – Space, Shape and Measure.

Within our continuous play provisions we provided many opportunities for the children to explore these areas.

We observed …

* Do the children use language of size?

*Do they anticipate time based events?

*Do they show an interest in shapes?

*Can they name shapes?

*Do they enjoy filling and emptying containers?

This week we also have been busy taking care of our Acorns pets.

We have tadpoles and caterpillars and we are enjoying watching them as they grow and develop.

Our tadpoles are much larger now and also they have become more active.

We fed them some lettuce, spinach and cauliflower leaves this week.

Our caterpillars have grown and we watched as they transformed. They have built cocoons around themselves and moved to the top of their pot where the hung for a few days.

Mrs Voller carefully moved them into their new net house where they will stay until they are ready to push out their cocoons. We are so excited to see them as butterflies!

We mimicked our tadpole pool indoors this week with fun water play.

Mrs Franks soaked some Chia Seeds in warm water and it looked and felt just like real frog spawn.

“It’s feels like jelly”

“It is gloopy”

We used pumpkin seeds as tadpoles and even had some frogs and lily pads.

We linked our maths theme by adding cups and bowls to encourage the children to pour and measure water.

We spoke about sinking and floating; we made estimations and grouped frog’s together.

“How many frogs can sit on this lily pad without it sinking … let’s find out.”

We also made some frog hand puppets.

Mrs Irwin shared a very special activity with us this week.

She had bought some whole trout for us to look at.

We talked about how trout swim in the rivers.

The children had fun touching the fish and looking inside its mouth, spreading the fins and opening the gills.

“HAHA, I touched its eyeball”

“I have never seen a real fish like this one before.”

The trout had tiny teeth which were spiky.

“It’s tongue is so small.”

“Does it have a heart inside?”

Mrs Iwrin cut the fish open for us to see inside and we were amazed to see the skeleton and tiny bones.

We enjoyed two lovely walks this week where we visited the local park.

On one walk we came across some wild garlic. The teachers suggested we pick some and bring it back to The Acorns to make Pesto.

Mrs Irwin had a lovely basil plant and we picked off the leaves.

We used the blender to whizz it all together with oil and seasonings.

During our circle time we talked about how tall we are and Miss Reay found a height chart.

We measured ourselves, guessed who was taller or who was smaller and made estimations about how tall me might grow by the time we are 3, 4, 5, 6 years old.

“Am I taller than Beth or is Beth taller than me?”

“I can go up on my tip-toes.”

We enjoyed shape puzzles, games and painting all week and had fun learning about some new 3D shapes.

We made some gluten free, dairy free brownies.

More weighing and measuring opportunities.

Cracking the eggs was our favourite part of the activity.

They were delicious !

We had a visit from one of the teachers from Lindfield Primary, she came to meet some of the children who will be moving on in September. It was very exciting. She was lovely and the the children really enjoyed having her visit for the morning. They chatted happily and told her all about their favourite things.

We also enjoyed lots of time in the garden this week - riding the bikes and trikes, going on the pirate ship and slide as well as making cakes and potions in the mud kitchen.