Garden fun
We've had some maintenance to the garden replacing the climbing frames (from general wear and tear) and fixing some other bits throughout the garden including the hand pump to our natural water pump.
The children have really enjoyed having the pump back; they are able to push and pull the handle to pump the water out supporting their physical development, they work together with their peers to help each other fill up their containers and negotiate how they will get it back down to where they want it and they develop their maths skills by calculating how much water they will need to fill their container or bucket.
Last week the children were very excited to help dig up the potatoes they had planted earlier on in the year from our garden, we then used these potatoes to cook our yummy lunch- we had them mashed, as jacket potatoes and potato wedges.
Getting Creative
There has been a strong interest in getting creative with different tools and materials; they have engaged in large scale painting outside which helps to support not only their gross motor skills but in turn their fine motor skills. Some children have collected leaves from the garden and used these to paint with or make rubbings with crayons, whilst other children have shown interest in developing their pencil grip using pencil crayons from the 'free choice' trolley.
