Book of the week
Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler.
Synopsis
The 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.
Weekly Activities
After reading ‘Room on the Broom’, we explained that we will be making our own magic wands which we'll then use to make a magic potion in a 'cauldron'. We encouraged each child to find a stick about the length of their arm or shorter. We helped wind double-sided tape around one end of the stick; the child collected natural items (magical things) and stuck them on their wand or they used ribbon to wrap around the stick, fastened it at each end and used double sided tape to stick brightly coloured sparkles around it.
After finishing our wands we all helped to create a magic spell by collecting natural materials from around the nursery and dropping them into the 'cauldron'. We also used food colouring to dye some rice and powdered paint which all went into the mixture. We stirred the mixture around with our large broomstick or individual wands and said our magic words: iggety, ziggety, zaggety, ZOOM! We asked each child what their ingredients were and what their spell would do (many of these involved turning various family members into different animals!).
Aims and Objectives
Explore natural materials
Use their imagination as they consider what they can do with different materials
Explore and respond to different natural phenomena in their setting
Explore different materials and tools
Develop manipulation and control
Home Activity
Make you own magic potions at home...
When potion making with you child, it's a good idea to have some ideas of names for the ingredients to encourage them to use their imagination and simply because it's more fun. Here are a few examples to get you started:-
Dragon scales – small pieces of bark
Fairy needles – pine needles
Rabbit droppings – raisins
Ground eye of newt – a mysterious spice at the back of the cupboard!
Witches’ fingernails – pistachio shells
Ground magical mountain rocks – flour
Dried earwax – toasted coconut
Magical spring water – tap water
Liquid lizard guts – green paint
Dragon’s blood – red paint
Liquid sun – yellow paint
The light – white paint
Liquid sky – blue paint
Lavender, sage, rosemary – themselves
Leaves – themselves
Once everything is assembled, let them mix the ingredients in any way they choose and encourage them to explain what they are doing, as they are doing it. Lastly, don't forget your cauldron to mix in (e.g. a bucket or bowl). Then get mixing, get messy and have loads of magical fun!
Don't forget to upload your magic potions to Tapestry so we can show their friends what they made.
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