July and there is an air of Change in the air; the weather is finally looking up, the school year is finishing, the babies are growing into toddlers, older children are changing schools to Year 'R', Juniors and High school, new faces have joined us... so 'Change' is the theme of this month.
Change
–
What is 'change' and why/how/when does it happen? We
will look at life cycles; our own and other living things, how we can
change resources eg. cooking – baking, boiling, chilling and
freezing!, playdough and colours, dress up for the changing seasons
and other lengthier cyclical and weather changes inc. school uniform, fastening practice and drama, play with the 'babies' and
recognise our own development as well as the treasure basket
filled with open ended resources to challenge our creativity – what
will you make today? And lastly the music box – can you change how
your voices or the instrument sound like or make your own? This is
all along with the myriad of reference books, posters and stories we
can include under this topic! We've had some books lent to us by a client as well as going to the library for titles that look at various aspects of change, not just growing older and starting school, including some dual-language.
This week we have looked at consumables eg. ice and baking ingredients; how they change state, what we can create with them - both in terms of creativity as well as consumables. We have even used ice sticks to draw on the pavement ;) as well as playing with a flour and glitter mix - adding water, shaving foam and so on - made jelly, soup and baked bread.
Next week is a short week as I'm off for training, but we will look at changing colour - revisiting colour mixing with playdough, making hand spinning wheels, using the colour changing pens and Crayola colour explosion. I quite fancy doing some bubble printing too if time.
Then we will look at life cycles; watching the caterpillars we have - waiting for them to change into butterfly's, other animals - chickens at the allotments and look at life cycles in books, weather and the changing of the seasons, plants - both at the allotment and quick growing seeds like cress, our own and how we have grown/changed - past, present and future concepts...
Then we will take a look at sound - can we manipulate the sounds we make ourselves, with instruments and rhythms? This week will be disrupted by the end of the academic year, so many of our activities have to be quick elements of creativity and exploration between a chaotic schedule. My charges have different Pre-schools and Primary schools; a lot of coordination will be required for the week ;)
Finally we will take a look at the history of our environment; a local 'living' museum, how our own homes have changed - some have moved recently - and how the town has changed over time with another visit to a town centre museum which tracks the redevelopment process.
A busy month ahead - but will anything change for us a group? Only time will tell...
