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  • Writer's pictureKeith

Weekly Activities - Wooden Mallet



Book of the week

 Little Rabbit Foo Foo by Michael Rosen and Arthur Robins.

 

Synopsis

 He's wild, he's wicked, he's Little Rabbit Foo Foo! In this story by Michael Rosen, author of We're Going on a Bear Hunt, the bully-boy bunny likes nothing better than to ride through the forest bopping everyone on the head. Wriggly worms, tigers, no one is safe. But here comes the Good Fairy – and she is not amused!

 

Weekly Activities

After reading our book of the week we explained to the children that this week we will be making our own wooden mallets, just like Little Rabbit Foo Foo uses in the story. We asked the children what they would need to find for the handle (a medium-sized thick stick). Before starting the activity we talked about tool safety: we will be sawing the wood and drilling a hole with an electric hand drill using a workbench in the designated tool area, we use a glove and an adult always helps us and we keep our hand that's not doing the sawing or drilling well away from the tools and rest it on the workbench to help steady ourselves. After sawing the wood to make the hammer head, some of the children chose to paint theirs. After they had dried, we used the drill to make a hole that we could insert the handle into. Afterwards we'd finished the activity, the children could use their mallets to hammer various things around the nursery.


We discussed how we can be safe when using our mallets: hold it with both hands, keep it low to the ground when tapping and most important… Do we bop our friends or animals on the head like Little Rabbit Foo Foo did? What would happen if we did?

We talked about Little Rabbit Foo Foo's behaviour: How does his behaviour affect others? How do you think the worms, tigers etc. felt? What can Little Rabbit Foo Foo do to change? How could we help Little Rabbit Foo Foo or our friends to make good choices?

 

Aims and Objectives

  •  Develop hand-eye co-ordination when using tools

  • Develop manipulation and control

  • Create with materials

  • Discuss how our behaviour (what we do and say) can affect others

  • Be imaginative and expressive

  • Re-enact a story

 

Home Activity

Fine motor skills require the development of both strength and coordination, so here is an activities that will help improve your child's fine motor skills and allow them to safely use their mallets...


Fruit and hammers

This activity involves pumpkins/watermelons/half melons, golf tees and a wooden mallet. Letting your child hammer the tees into your chosen fruit is brilliant for building hand-eye coordination.


If your child is struggling to get the tee in, tap the tees into the fruit with a large hammer beforehand to provide guide holes – this allows children to use their wooden hammers and still be able to get the tees into the fruit.


Alternatively, they could hammer coloured matchsticks into play dough.



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