Book of the week: Mad About Minibeasts by Giles Andreae.
Synopsis: Children love the noisy sound words and looking at the colourful pictures, as they discover all sorts of minibeasts. From slithery snails and buzzing bees, to wriggly worms and munching caterpillars!
Each page introduces a different animal, with a short read-aloud rhyme.
Activities: Our main activity this week however was Tool Talk Week. As we regularly use a wide variety of hand tools at the nursery e.g. bow saw; hand saw; axe; potato peeler; fixed blade knife; loppers; secateurs, garden shears; hand drill; palm drill and screwdrivers etc, tool safety is of paramount importance so we decided to talk to the children about each tool that we use and showed them how to use each item safely and correctly (we also do this as a matter of routine before using each tool). We also talked about having the correct protective clothing when using each tool such as googles or safety gloves. We believe it's important that children learn how to respect and use real tools as they are more than capable given the opportunity (for further information on tool safety and storage at the nursery, please see our handbook: https://bit.ly/3j8L9Bs). Following on from this, we read our book of the week and let the children choose a minibeast to make for themselves using the various hand tools at their disposal.
Additional activities included creating mud minibeasts (some were done on the front gate), using magnets with various items to see which ones were magnetic, topping up the bird-feeder, a woodchip tea party and a minibeast/bug hunt with magnifying glasses.