Childcare at Helen's

A great start to February this week. And as Tuesday marked the start of Chinese New Year we have been doing various activities to celebrate this. This year is the Year of the Tiger, so naturally we read one of our favourite stories - The Tiger who came to Tea.
We also painted some wonderful Chinese dragons and talked about the colours red and gold. We've watched and done Chinese dragon dancing, and eaten Chinese food. And of course, read lots of different dragon stories!
This week the weather has been very windy. We made the most of this by making wind spinners which the children decorated to their own designs before we cut them out. We took them out into the garden where the children watched delightedly as the wind made them spin around. They experimented with various ways of holding them and also noted how the wind stopped and started.
We ended the week with a fabulous visit to Meanwood Valley Urban Farm. We spotted our first snowdrops and talked about the signs of winter coming to a close and spring beginning. The children noticed some sheep and some wool caught on a fence. They investigated the wool, noticing the texture and also how the wind blew it away when they let it go. We also spotted some goats and ponies. The children had great fun in the playground, developing their climbing and balancing skills, before we all went into the cafe for a drink and some delicious carrot and banana cake!

My kids amaze me daily with their big vocabulary.

http://cinnamonssynonyms.blogspot.com/2014/07/3-ways-to-expand-childs-vocabulary.html

A great visit to one of our old favourites this week - Harlow Carr. The children followed a sensory trail sheet. There were lots of things to find, see, hear, touch, smell and taste. Taking off socks and shoes and running on the cool grass was one of the favourites ;-)
We also read all about the giant pumpkin that's being grown. We must go back and check on progress!

To continue our sensory exploration theme this week, this afternoon we had messy play out in the garden.
We used shaving foam and different food colourings and had great fun stirring and mixing. We noticed the scent from the shaving foam and watched how the colours mixed together and changed. We then explored the texture with our hands (and arms!).
We used paintbrushes and fingers to make marks in the foam, talking about shapes.
This activity was really wonderful and the children enjoyed it a lot!

On Thursday 6th July we read the story of The Gingerbread Man and also watched an animated version on the computer.
We then made our own gingerbread men. We talked about rolling the dough and why we needed to use flour. We also noticed the ginger scent from the dough. We pressed down really hard with our cutters to make our gingerbread men shapes, and found it funny when the gingerbread men got stuck in the cutters! When they were cooked we decorated them and counted how many we needed to take home so everyone could have one.

The children had a lovely time playing with the playdough. This was a fantastic sensory experience and one which they found great fun! They used cutters to cut dinosaur shapes, but once they realised they could make patterns with their fingers and mould the dough with their hands, they spent the rest of the time doing this. Excellent language development (new words e.g. dinosaur), physical development (developing those hand muscles, essential preparation for early writing skills) and mathematical development (shape and size comparisons).

We had a 'splashing' time in the rain and puddles at Golden Acre Park earlier this week. The children discovered the sounds and effects you can make from puddle splashing and experimented by running, jumping and walking. They noticed raindrops on the flowers and leaves and spotted a stream where they guessed where the water was coming from and where it was going. We counted jumps and talked about concepts such as big/small and up/down. They also had great fun playing hide-n-seek under a tree.

One of our favourite places to visit is Kirkstall Abbey. It's just a few miles down the road and offers endless opportunities for exploration and discovery.
These photos show the children having fun in muddy puddles and discovering how to make splashes by jumping. They had lots of opportunities to practice their physical development by climbing, crawling, running, jumping and balancing. They learned new words (e.g. crocus, shadow) and asked questions about the flowers and plants we discovered.
They enjoyed collecting leaves and sticks and they proudly showed each other their finds.
Being outside, observing the seasons and watching and finding evidence of new spring growth, helps to embed the learning and sparks an interest in the children's minds.
Later that day the children pointed out other crocuses in the school grounds.