Week Commencing 23rd January - Westmeston

Physical Development – Moving and Handling

We had a very stretchy and bendy week with lots of movement and writing practice!

On Monday we played party games. We played musical bumps, musical statues and musical

chairs! It was very cold so we had to keep moving to keep warm. It was very foggy and icy all day so we dressed up warmly when we played outside.

This week we learned how people in China (and here) will be celebrating the Chinese New Year. We had a Chinese Takeaway role play area. While pretending to eat noodles we practised using our

tripod grip to handle tweezers. We also tried to pick up buttons with chop sticks! This was all good practise for us to learn how to hold a pencil properly. Some of us used scissors to make lanterns, we printed with potatoes and we had a go at Chinese writing using cotton buds dipped in paint! Perfect!

We made a Chinese dragon with a big scary head that

some of us helped to paint. We all had the opportunity to do some dragon dancing to Chinese music and our own instruments. We watched a video of people celebrating Chinese New Year and loved the music and the colours – mainly red! We learned a lot about the Chinese culture.

In the woods on Wednesday we followed a trail round the trees, over logs, under branches, up banks and down slopes. We found labels along the way with our names on. We then played relay races in teams

pretending that we were foxes or rabbits. The rabbits won the best of three races! We saw a heron and two robins nearby and enjoyed watching them quietly.

On Friday we did more Chinese writing outside on a big sheet. We had to stretch and use really big movements with a paintbrush. It looked very authentic! We played outside for most of the day and went for a lovely walk.

We have all been practising putting our coats on and doing up zips this week. We are also trying really hard to put our socks, hats and gloves back into our bags when we are not using them.

Lots of us went home with a little red envelope containing a chocolate coin which is a traditional good luck gift in China (the red envelope, not the chocolate coin!) We all had a lovely week and can’t wait for next week which will focus on Literacy – Reading.