Activities

Walk to a bench

One of the children drew a map a few weeks ago of a journey she makes with her grandmother to a special bench. The map showed how to get there and what she did once they got to the bench – had a snack and a chat. We dediced to re-visit the map and use it to take a small group of children to find the special bench. The children followed the map and found the bench. They had to walk carefully with the grown-ups along the footpaths, talking about what they saw along the way and how they needed to be careful when crossing roads to ‘stop, look and listen’ and hold a grown-ups hand. They then re-traced their steps back to the Pre-school. This simple activity helps children recognise the places they live and visit and helps them make sense of their world. By using a map, they can see that we can use tools to find our way – for most children, it will be by Sat Nav – but a map really helps with a sense of place.

Making pizzas

The children got to make pizzas from scratch this week. First of all they needed to make the dough. They used a recipe to see what ingredients they needed to make the dough and then used scales to measure out the correct amount of each one, watching as the numbers went up. as more ingredients were added. They noticed how the flour changed from dry and fine to damp and squidgy when water was added. The teacher talked about how adding yeast to the flour and water caused a chemical reaction and by putting the dough in a warm space to rest, the yeast could react with the sugars in the flour and rise. Once the dough had had a chance to rise, the children noticed how it had increased in size before they split the dough into equal parts so each child could create their own individual pizza; spreading tomato puree, adding grated cheese and chopped peppers (after chopping the peppers themselves). They then waited patiently as the delicious aroma of cooking pizza filled the air. Yummy!

As always, there are photos on our website, www.anthonyroperpreschool.co.uk, and Facebook page.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Pre-school Team