Chinese New Year Activities 31st Jan - 11th Feb

We have had 2 busy weeks of activities exploring the traditions and concepts to do with Chinese New Year celebration!!

2011 is the year of the rabbit so the older children carefully cut out rabbit ears and all ages were able to decorate them with red paint and gold glitter.

More precision and perseverance to create Chinese Lanterns. The activity may have been planned for the older children but the younger ones were keen to try for themselves and with adult support they practised their cutting too.

We learned that red and gold are the colours used to celebrate Chinese New Year. So we have done lots of free painting and collage making in those two colours.

Tanya brought in her Willow pattern plate and after hearing the story behind it, the children carefully painted their own paper plates, telling their own very imaginative stories.

We finished our celebrations by joining Tower class at Overbury school, sharing prawn crackers at snack time, taking part in their activities and running around in their playground.

Some of our Chinese New Year art is now displayed at nursery, make sure you take a look when you are next in the main playroom!!

Where there's a will, there's a way!!

The Chinese New Year began on Thursday February 3rd, at Grasshoppers we are doing two week's worth of activities to celebrate and learn more.

For snack on Thursday we had some prawn crackers, but the older children were only able to try them if they picked them up using the chopsticks!

As the photos illustrate , they all used their problem solving and fine motor skills and lots of

perseverance to secure the prize.

At tea time the After School club were issued with a similar test.They also rose to the challenge and soon got stuck in and really enjoyed their sweet and sour chicken, noodles and rice.

Kung Hei Fat Choi

From one and all!!!

Budding artists in lots of media!!

Last week the children really explored their creativity, choosing the resources and activity which helped them express themselves best.

On our walk the previous week we saw snowdrops. The children of all ages were able to do still life paintings of the tiny flowers, mixing blue and yellow to make their own green paint, then using rulers to paint stems and finger painting the blossoms.

As you can see they were very proud of their masterpieces!!

We took our art outside too, drawing inthe sand.

One of the

boys was able to fit all of the planets into his picture!

The home corner has been moving around the room lately!! and has been a space ship and last week, a castle.

Inside the castle the children have really enjoyed building for themselves. They made museums for their dinosaurs and photographed their own creations - David Bailey eat your heart out!!

Finally, back to painting.

Having talked about the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch (29th and 30th Jan) and spotting wagtails, pigeons and blackbirds in our garden, some of the children drew birds from one of our reference books. Then more colour mixing, then painting with spatulas, just like Van Gogh!!

A Frosty Walk - Fri 21st Jan

We had our waterproofs and lots of layers on and two of the youngest children were tucked up in the double buggy as we ALL went out on a frosty Friday morning.

We had a good run around an open field before really exploring our surroundings.

We found a hole at the edge of the field and with close examination, we worked out that it was a rabbit's home.

Then we found some berries which we decided the birds would need soon, with all the frosty weather making the ground too hard for them to find bugs and worms.

We counted the icicles hanging on the fence and the horses in the field.

In the church, we discovered lots of animal pictures on the kneelers, we found a beehive, a collie dog, a sheep and a cockerel, but we couldn't find the aeroplane we had seen on a previous visit anywhere.

In the churchyard we discovered that the snowdrops are already braving the cold weather, just like us!!!

Forest School - Wednesday 12th Jan

On Wednesday last week, having just received her certificate in the post Tanya, now a fully qualified Forest School leader planned a hedgerow walk.

It was pouring with rain, but we are not fair-weather Forest schoolers at Grasshoppers so all dressed in waterproofs, the older children headed out. When they got to the field they spent lots of time just having fun in the mud!!
But after fun in the muck the children showed how well they are coming to terms with the rules of Forest school allowing them to explore and appreciate their surroundings.



On Wednesday last week, having just received her certificate in the post, Tanya a fully qualified Forest School leader planned a hedgerow walk.

It was pouring with rain, but we are not fair-weather Forest schoolers at Grasshoppers so all dressed in waterproofs, the older children headed out. When they got to the field they spent lots of time just having fun in the mud!!

Exploring the garden redevelopment. (Wk. beg. 10th January 2011)

Having spent the previous week watching the diggers, the children had great fun using the newly tarmacked area of the garden last week.

The first time they went out there was lots of excited running around.

Later they found out what a good surface it is for riding their bikes and other wheeled toys on and for practising their balancing.

Yet more fun with diggers!

Children learn best when involved in something that interests them.

Their fascination with the diggers in the garden enabled us to work on their fine motor skills as they made a collage from pictures of construction machinery, clothing and materials.

Some of the older children took great care cutting out a digger.

The younger children were able to do some

snipping with adult help and enjoyed sticking on their pictures

to make the collage now displayed in the nursery hallway.

On Friday they produced some lovely still life paintings of....you guessed it .... diggers!!

Again even the youngest children took part, experimenting while

mixing prime colours and exploring the texture of the paint.

More diggers!! January 2011

This week we have had more work going on in the garden. We are having an area tarmaced for the children to use in all weathers, particularly for their ride-on toys.

The children have been very interested in the diggers and other

machinery in the garden,

so at group-time we showed and explained to them the long term plans.

They later enjoyed using their toy diggers and tractors for their painting.