Week commencing 5th June 2023 - Acorns 59

Welcome to this weeks blog post.

We hope you all had a wonderful half term break and that you are as excited for the next 6 weeks as we are.

We have lots of fun and exciting things planned for the children.

We are learning all about life on the farm.

This week we have introduced the project to the children, offering invitations for them to play with Farm based toys.

We have built farm sets, played animal matching games, read stories about farmers and their crops, painted and collaged some animals.

We have enjoyed songs and some traditional rhymes - Old MacDonald and 3 Blind Mice.

We played Sleepy Bunnies but instead of being rabbits the children chose different farm animals.

See the little lambs (insert animal) sleeping till its nearly noon,

Shall we try to wake them up with a merry tune,

Oh so still, are they ill ?

WAKE UP NOW

Baaa little lambs, baaaaa baaaa baaaa (animal sound)

X4

At snack & meal times we talked about the foods we were eating and where they come from.

The children have enjoyed matching up the animal or crop to the end product.

We know that eggs come from chickens, milk comes from cows, bread is made from wheat that is ground into flour.

We spoke about the meat that we eat and where it comes from too.

It was interesting to hear that although some of the children were able to label their lunch as chicken, they know it comes from a chicken but many didn't realise they were actually eating a chicken.

Chloe had a brilliant answer for our questions.

What do we get from a cow ? Dog Meat.

What do we get from a pig? Dog Meat.

What do we get from a lamb ? Dog Meat.

We touched upon the fact that some people choose not to eat animals and animal products.

We have several Vegetarians and Vegans at The Acorns.

We spoke about how farmers grow lots of crops - they don't just look after animals.

The grow corn, potatoes, carrots, leeks, fruits …

We have had soo much fun in the garden this week.

The sun has been shining and we have spent lots of time outside playing and exploring.

We have been learning about the weather each day and encouraging the children to self risk assess what they might need to keep themselves safe outside. It has been interesting to hear their thoughts.

“It’s a bit cloudy so the sun isn’t too hot”

“The sun can burn your skin if you don’t wear sun cream”

“I have a fancy hat today”

“My mummy got sun cream in my eyeball and it was so stingy”

“Do we need hats today?

We have made sure there have been shady spots to play in the garden and we have had water play each day to help keep us feeling cool.

When we went out to play in the afternoon, Mrs Franks had to change the water before we played - it had warmed up so much in the sun she was worried it would be too hot for us.

She was amazed the sun could warm it to such a high temperature.

Please bare this in mind when playing with water at home.

Please can we make sure that children come to The Acorns already wearing sun protection and we will reapply throughout the day.

Some of the children have brought in sun cream applicators called solar buddies – we think these are a great little invention and the children have been able to apply cream to their arms and legs independently and then staff can make sure all areas are covered sufficiently.

Here are a selection of photos from our garden times.