How Quick Are You?

This week, we had some speed challenges. It began with Vicki and Heather racing to finish an illustration with suggestions and help from the children in using specific colours as requested by the artists. The result:-

The children then had a turn but did different activities. First was a race to see who could finish their puzzle first:-

Then the children raced against each other in pairs to transfer as many blocks from the yellow bucket to the up turned table at the other side of the room before the egg timer ran out. They then did the same activity in pairs. Everyone participated with great enthusiasm.
The action pictures are rather blurred because of the excellent speed and committment of the children!

Pairs

Teams

Pick up blocks from this yellow bucket ....

transfer them to this up turned table ...
then back to the other end again

two more children

... and the next two

Making Pasta - A Demonstration



Sam showed the children how the pasta
machine
 makes the dough very thin

MJ watched very carefully

No, not fish fillets!
This is the thin pasta dough which needs to dry before the next process

An attachment cuts the pasta dough into spaghetti

This attachment makes the pasta dough
into long strips



This is the finished product. It is a bit chunky because there was not
enough time to let it dry fully.
It tasted delicious though - the children ate the lot!

As well as making the pasta, the children used bought
pasta for this activity - taking turns to move it from
bowl to bowl with tweezers

These three shared the tools and persisted until
everything was sorted from the plastic bowl
to the smaller ones - well done!

Weird Foods

How many of these foods can you name? 

There were some that the children did not recognise in their original state like garlic. Some others that we looked at but did not photograph included fresh garlic, red pepper and other vegetables, pasta and herbs. The children touched, smelled and tasted as many of the foods as they were willing to, including those they did not recognise. We learnt a few facts about each one.

papaya

pomegranate

mango

pineapple

passion fruit or granadilla

 

kiwi fruit

fresh fig

ginger

mooli



A moolie as long as my arm! fancy that

Everyone else also wanted their arm measured
 against the moolie
 - what an amazing vegetable!

Feel the ginger ...

smell the ginger ....

not so great tasting when it's raw!

Children Number Line

All in a line now - in order 1 to 10 please

Army Style Exercises

A grown up casually sat or lay on either side of this blue blanket to anchor it to the floor while the children crawled through one at a time. After the first child was courageous enough to attempt this, most of the children were keen to try.This created many new wave hair styles which we all found most amusing!

Let's Make an Aquarium

Today the challenge was to create a realistic aquatic environment. This is the sequence of guidelines that were given to the childen:

1. What needs to go on the bottom? Look in the store rooom to see if you can find them. (bottle of small white stones)
2.  Can you find the underwater plants and put them in? Why is it good to have them there?
3.  Choose everything that belongs in water from this large selection of animals and put them into the aquarium.
4. Which animals and/or fish of those you have chosen also like to be out of the water?

As soon as the sun came out, we moved the activity to the larger water tray outside. More children then joined in.

Hopscotch

These tiles are especially made to fit together into a hopscotch format - if the numbers are followed correctly. The children worked together to figure it out and then enjoyed doing the activity.This combines maths with physical challenge and fun.

Could we do this again please?

What!!! Blue margarine!!! Toasted!!! Covered in sprinkles!!! How revolutionary!!!

...... next time could we please have a choice of colours to prove that whatever food colour we use - red, green, orange, red or even black - the taste stays the same?

Doesn't buttering bread require some skill and concentration!

Maisie

Bailey

Logan

Summer

Chloe

Leah

Scarlett