With Bonfire night at the end of the week pre-school enjoyed lots of mark-making, in readiness for writing skills. They read the story ‘Sparks in the Sky (Bonfire night)’ and watched a clip of a fireworks display. The children noticed the shapes and colours as well as the different sounds they could hear.
In their learning, their phonics knowledge helped them identify the different firework sounds they could hear. The children used their voices and bodies to make those sounds, and danced to the different firework actions. They also made their own firework show, with sparkling lights, and used loose parts to recreate firework shapes.
It is important for the children to practise and develop their fine motor skills. This week they challenged themselves to use scissors to cut strips to make their own sparklers. They exercised their arms by writing shapes in the air. It was great to use different coloured chalk to draw fireworks, then sort coloured shapes into the correct boxes. The children further explored their own mark-making by using a fork to make firework paint shapes on black paper.
Firework safety is important and the children discovered what they should do when they hold a sparkler. The children went outside and each took turns in holding real sparkler with an adult, before putting it into a bucket of water.
We finished the week with a leaf hunt in Forest school, with the children identifying the many shapes of the leaves that they could see. Another very busy week!