International day/ Chinese New year!

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a great half term holiday!

 We had a very full week of exciting games and activities before the break and I want to say a big thank you to all the parents for making such an effort to get involved with dressing the children up and bringing in food, etc. 

Everyone looked adorable and we had a fantastic spread of food for International day. I was so impressed and the class were really excited to try all the new and interesting  dishes!

 Here are a few of the pictures I forgot to add to last week's blog of the class making  some beautiful Valentine's crafts for Mummy and Daddy! 

So, we started our week of festivities with some chinese new year crafts...We talked about some Chinese traditions and made lucky red lanterns and gongs to scare away bad spirits!

                           

  The class enjoyed using chopsticks for our chineses tea party and we had a chance to try making some chinese dumplings and noodles!

We also began to learn about Native American life and culture. The class were fascinated by the idea of catching their own food and we talked about how important and respected nature and wildlife were to the tribes.We watched a traditional Cherokee eagle dance and made dream catchers to keep away bad dreams "like spiderwebs!" according to Ploen!

painting our dream catchers....

 next the tricky part!

   

 We looked at some different totem pole designs and talked about the different faces and animals we could see. Some of the class liked the idea of using animals to represent different skills they would like to have... some suggestions were "fast like a reindeer!" "strong like a dinosaur!" and "flying really high in the sky like an eagle"

 making our own totem poles....

We learnt that the Native Americans lived in homes which they built themselves and they had to cook their food on a big fire in front of their teepees. They had no electricity, which means.... no TV or computers  I'm not sure the class believed me about this :)

 Ploen built her own teepee condo, while Kana opted for a rocket!

 Some eagle dancing!


On Chinese New Year we all watched the dragon dance and everyone enjoyed the shows by the other year groups. We even braved the firecrackers without a tear! 

more food!

 Hello!

 Its been a busy week of fun and exploration in Nursery. We have been re engaging with the story of the hungry caterpillar and practising our sequencing and fine motor skills by selecting which fruit the caterpillar ate and attempting to put them in order... threading the fruit onto the 'caterpillar' took a bit of  practice for some but everyone had a good go!

  

  With all that threading our little hands made light work of  giving our egg carton caterpillars legs too. Not sure if all of them could walk by the end but they looked great! :)

 We've been continuing our class graph activity and everyone is getting good at understanding the questions and where to put their names. After half term, we will start focusing on name recognition in more detail. Some of the class can pick out their own names and some of their friends' around the classroom already!

 We are also beginning to count objects independently. This is tough to master but the class are really enjoying practising...

 Still on a food theme, Nursery loved singing "five fat sausages sizzling in the pan" and were very keen to cook up some bangers of their own....

 SunLee was the resident chef that day!

We planted the seeds from our tangerines a few weeks ago and have been diligently watering and caring for them but unfortunately no results. Our pineapple  top fared no better but, on throwing it away, we discovered something small sprouting underneath...

When asked what we needed to do to help it grow...WATER! but where to find it??

Arthur was the first to step up, trying to tip the liquid fom the water timer in. But that didn't work

 Some progress with the watering can but alas it was empty!

Luckily, Kana had the bright idea of getting some from the tub with a cup... Great job Kana!
 While this might seem obvious to us there are a lot of mental processes involved including critical thinking to select and find the correct materials from around the classroom and the confidence to apply their own ideas to a specific task... These activities require a lot of independent thought and by stepping back and letting individuals try out their own ideas, we can really help develop their confidence and reasoning ability.

 Arthur knew the plant needed light to grow and was determined to give it some! 

  Finally SunLee found the right kind of light! :)

Here are a few more pics form this week's activities...hope you like them!  Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions or comments on what we do in the classroom!

 And dont forget we have CNY celebrations tomorrow  and international day on Friday, please dont forget to dress up and bring a Native American themed snack for Fridays party. Thanks! :)