By Joy Heels
Two years ago, when Suzanne bought the business side of the nursery, I had my doubts as to whether there would be enough children to sustain it, but I have been proved wrong as there are 26 children on roll this term making it full to capacity. Where do all the children come from?
This term our topic is ‘the weather’; the rain has certainly made an appearance,
along with the sodden ground and the mud and the sun on occasions, but no
snow as yet. The weather is a good subject for the children to talk about,
such as where they like to go when the sun is out and what protects them when
it rains or is very cold. Opposites come into it with words such as hot/cold,
big/small and black/white. Cotton wool snowmen, tinfoil rain and puddles,
felt and other materials for clouds and colourful sun and rainbows make up
their project book.The crafts include a rain shaker, kites, an extendable snowman (involves cutting) and a handprint sun.
We celebrated Chinese New Year with the dancing dragon (children underneath material and box for head, see photo) dancing to the music played on instruments by the other children, eating Chinese food at snack time (i.e. rice, noodles and prawn crackers) and trying to use chop sticks.
The children also made lotus blossom collage, a dancing dragon and red envelopes with rats on them (2008 is the year of the rat); the red envelopes are filled with pennies and are supposed to bring good luck. We would like to thank Pippa Hart who kindly let us borrow her Chinese lanterns and other decorations so that we could decorate the hall.