"... some orange?... here's a banana" "That's five" "Five pounds?" "Yes, five pounds". Food was chosen, money was handed over and bags packed. The children all thoroughly enjoyed setting up their own shop, offering a breadth of goods from frogs to pens, odd pieces of jigsaw and plenty of food from the play kitchen. The children practiced turn taking as they took on the role of operating the till and setting out the goods. Playing shops offered the children lots of opportunities to practice their collaboration and communication skills as they tried out the different roles of customer and shop keeper. Orders were written down, receipts created, and deals struck. The children chose to use a sand timer to help manage the turn taking and took care for everyone to have a go. The shop play continued outside as the mud kitchen became the new base of operations. Pinecones and leaves became the new offering for sale, wheelbarrows replaced baskets and were soon ferried round the garden transporting all sorts of treasure.
The sunshine had warmed the soil and lots of new flowers had opened, daffodils, narcissi and muscari were all in full bloom, with the tulips budded, nearly ready to open. Lots of minibeasts were out and about, and we enjoyed exploring under the tree stumps, examining the bug hotel and careful examination of the sensory garden gave us ladybirds, worms, and woodlouse, all busy in the sunshine.
Curiosity about the different living things we might see outside lead to further research back inside. We examined large photographic images of lots of different insects and tried to guess their names. Matching with small toy versions we practiced moving about like grasshoppers and worms, spiders, and butterflies. Counting legs and spots, admiring wings and stripes, the children stunned by the quantity of different types of butterfly, one for every colour of the rainbow. Symmetrical butterflies were created with paint and folding, ready to hang fluttering on the spring wall amongst other wonderful creations. We're looking forward to continuing our discovery of the butterfly lifecycle next week with the arrival of the hungry caterpillar.
Tracey's Xylophone was enjoyed by all this week as the children continued to explore the sounds of the notes and copying the rhythm with the beaters or clapping. Additional percussion instruments extended their play as they chose from a variety of sounds and beats to perform. There was plenty of leg stretching too, as we enjoyed lots of group time music and movement, flying to the moon, galloping on horses, walking backwards and even a game of stand up sit down, challenging our reflexes and checking our listening. Time is flying, this week our penultimate of the spring term, nearly ready for our Easter break.
