Book of the week: Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson.
.
Synopsis: A story I'm sure you're all familiar with about how a witch and her cat fly happily over forests, rivers and mountains on their broomstick until a stormy wind blows away the witch's hat, bow and wand. Luckily, they are retrieved by a dog, a bird and a frog, who are all keen for a ride on the broom. It's a case of the more, the merrier, but the broomstick isn't used to such a heavy load and it's not long before . . . SNAP! It breaks in two! And with a greedy dragon looking for a snack, the witch's animal pals better think fast.
Main Activity: Our main activity this week was making magical potions! To start we gave the children a glass jar to mix their potions in (unfortunately we were running low on cauldrons this week). We then went on a scavenger hunt inside and outside the nursery to find our ingredients. These included discarded flowers, woodchip, leaves, shells, twigs and ferns. Once all the ingredients had been gathered it was time to mix the potions. We set out all the items on a tuff tray along with our special ingredient - water mixed with colourful food dyes. The children put their items into their jars and added the food dye mix (some children decided not to add the food dye). The potions needed a lid so we gave the children some squares of material, covered them over the jar lids and the children helped to tie some garden string around the lids to keep their potions safe.
Additional Activities:
Making broomsticks from large sticks cut to size with loppers and with ferns tied to the end
A long log and tyre obstacle course to help the children learn to balance and strengthen their gross motor skills
Making cardboard wheels and cogs and experimenting to see how they interlinked
Did some number work using holly leaves and branches
Using a fixed blade knife to whittle sticks