The children were very excited to have a visit from a published author this week. He taught us a few of his poems and the children really enjoyed the time he spent with us.
This week we have been learning about Chinese New Year. The children listened to the story of The Great Race and found out which year they were born. If they are 4 they were born in the year of the tiger and 5 year olds were born in the year of the ox. This year is the year of the sheep.
We changed our role play area in to a Chinese restaurant. One of the children kindly brought in some pictures of food which we have used for our menus.
We learnt about the lucky red envelopes that the children find money inside and another child brought in a red envelope and a fortune cookie for us to look at. Several of the children had been to see the lion dance at the weekend and were keen to share their knowledge!
We all had a little try of the fortune cookie and we made some of our own to give to our friends.
Red and gold are the colours used to celebrate Chinese New Year so we used them in our play dough. Initially the children made fortune cookies and lucky dumplings with the dough and this lead to lots of discussions about celebrations in their homes and the cake.
The red and gold theme continued in the water tray with red noodles and gold Pom poms. The children were given chopsticks to manipulate the noodles. They had a great time and there were noodles everywhere!
The children also looked at some Chinese buildings and used reclaimed materials to make their interpretations of them.
The children also wrote their names using Chinese symbols and made Chinese drums. We have also been making and eating Chinese food and have been performing dragon dances and ribbon dances. Check back next week to see the images. As always thanks for reading and commenting.