The Squirrels have had a great week back after the half term and have been enjoying the sunshine. To make the most of the good weather we have been spending lots of time in our Outdoor Learning Environment as well as on our Community Walks and of course on our Outdoor Learning Day.
This week's Community Walk was literacy based, and the Squirrels' challenge was to look for letters and words in our local environment. We found that words are everywhere! We found examples on storm drains, vehicles, signs, shops and labels. Once they had found an example of a word, the children said letter sounds or read simple words to demonstrate their understanding.
There has been lots of water play in the Outdoor Learning Environment this week where the children have been practising their control over tools and equipment. The Squirrels used to tools to pour, transfer, brush, scrub, wipe and splash with the water and a particularly popular activist was washing and scrubbing the babies!
We have been preparing for Sports Day this week, making our relay races and practising our fun races. On our Outdoor Learning Day, we used the space to practise our fun races, remembering to listen to instructions as well as working our muscles to move in a variety of ways but best of all, having fun!
During Free Play the children worked together to move large branches and logs around the area. They had to give each other directions of where to place the branches, using words, such as 'left', 'right', 'forwards', 'backwards', always making sure to take care of their surroundings to avoid any objects.
Our second activity was leaf printing. We went on a walk around the area with the intention of collecting three or four different leaves. We kept our eyes peeled to search for a range of different sizes and colours so that we could create a variety of prints. We looked at the top and underneath of the leaves, feeling the veins and observing all the of their different properties. Miss Chantelle explained that to achieve the best print we needed to paint on the underside of the leaves, carefully placing them on our paper and gently smoothing the leaves out to achieve a good print. Once all our leaves were placed we carefully peeled them off to reveal beautiful patterns and lines.
