Week Commencing March 22nd - Westmeston

This week our focus was on writing.

We found plenty of outdoor mark making opportunities, such as writing on the chalkboard, drawing on the car park area, colouring in the sunshine and writing with sticks in the tray of rainbow rice.

The children had just as much fun washing the chalk off the car park as they did drawing it on!

Throughout the week we have been looking at the book 'Beautiful Opps' by Barney Saltzberg. This is a wonderful book that allows children to see mistakes as opportunities to try something new. The children enjoyed the creative, colourful pictures and it's inspiring message to not let mistakes stop you from trying your best.

This week we noticed that some trees in the garden had been cut right back, but luckily they now make a great spot for a camp. We used the tarpaulin to make a tent again and set out the mud kitchen equipment. The children enjoyed role playing in the campsite, making cakes in the mud kitchen and pretending to sleep. They also discovered that the pots and pans make excellent musical instruments!

On Thursday, we spent some time searching on the woodland floor for interesting items to use in our Friday craft activity. It was lovely to discover natural treasures such as small flowers, interesting seeds, moss, lichen and leaf skeletons. We also found lots of black poplar tree catkins which look like fluffy pink worms. On Friday we looked at the poplar catkins more closely and the children learnt that these are the male seeds of the tree that allow new trees to grow. On our Friday walk we looked out for more catkins and, as well as finding more black poplar catkins, we also found some hazel catkins which are thinner and yellow in colour.

The woodland eggs that we made with our natural materials looked lovely. The children worked hard to choose items that they liked and stick them onto the eggs.

We had a lovely walk to the woods on Friday. The children enjoyed exploring and noticing the changes in nature as we move into the warmer weather. We wonder what changes we will notice in the woods on our walks after the Easter break.