This week’s activity

As you wait outside for your children please take a minute to look at our allotment garden. You will notice that the flowers and vegetables are growing nicely. You should also notice our new addition – Chips the Scarecrow. The children worked collaboratively to design Chips. They thought about what body parts they needed; two arms, two legs, a tummy and a head. They then thought about what they could use to represent these and make the scarecrow 3D. They chose a long sleeve t-shirt for the body, some jogging bottoms for legs, socks for feet and hands and a plastic bag for his head. They then stuffed these body parts with straw until they filled out to make the 3D shape required. They decided that the scarecrow needed a face. They drew a happy face, which was then laminated to protect it from the rain. A hat was the final addition, to protect the scarecrow from the heat from the sun. They thought about what the scarecrow should be called. One of the children suggested ‘Chips’ as the socks have images of chips. They all agreed that this was a good name. Once they had constructed their scarecrow, they talked about why we need a scarecrow. One child suggested to scare the ants away because they eat all of our strawberries! Great idea. The teacher went on to explain that birds like to eat the fruit and berries that we are growing and the scarecrow would help protect our crops. They thought about how we could make the scarecrow stand up in the allotment and decided that a pole stuck in the ground would work. As the ground was very hard, they discovered that by adding water to the soil, they could soften it and in this way the pole could go deeper into the ground. To prevent it coming out as the ground dries, they need to occasionally give it a gentle push into the ground, again softening it with water. Think about all of the learning that has taken place during this activity!

There are photos on our website and Facebook page.

Thank you.

The Pre-school Team