This week’s activities

Woodworking

We have a ‘woodworking’ area available for the children to use, under close supervision, and this week the children have been enjoying using the real tools. This is only carried out with a small number of children at a time and they have to get a ‘woodwork’ badge to show the adult that they would like to get involved. The teacher explained the use for each of the tools. The first one they tried was hammering a nail into a piece of wood. They discussed how they needed to be careful with the hammer to ensure that they didn’t hit their hand as they knocked it onto the nail. This involved really precise fine motor skills but also gross motor skills to send enough force through their arm and into the hammer. They then explored our collection of screws. The teacher explained the various uses for screws and how you need a screwdriver to screw them into whatever surface they are going into. She also described that you can take screws out by unscrewing the screw the other way. Again, great for fine motor skills. One of the children wanted to try out the saw. The teacher explained how sharp a saw is, as it needs to be able to cut through wood. She demonstrated how to use it safely and the child then independently used the saw to cut through a piece of wood. Finally, they used some sandpaper to smooth down their wood, noticing that it took off the rough edges.

Making bird feeders and taking care of wildlife

We have bird feeders available in the garden so that the children can observe the birds that visit the garden. They decided that they needed a clean and freshen up before they topped them back up with new fat balls. This then led to them helping to make their own bird feeders. This is a simple activity that you can easily replicate at home. You only need toilet roll tubes, lard, bird seed and something to use as a hook to hang them in the tree. As you can imagine, we always have a plentiful supply of toilet roll tubes. We buy the cheapest lard we can and some bird seed (if you bulk buy this makes it cheaper). First of all they needed to soften the lard. They discovered that the warmth from their hands when they massaged the lard made it more pliable. This helps them understand how substances change when something is done to them (early science). They then used their hands to spread the lard on to the tube, seeing how it sticks to the cardboard (another learning opportunity to discuss why some things stick to surfaces and others don’t). Once the tube was covered in lard, they rolled the tube in the bird seed, again noticing how the seed stuck to the lard. Finally, they used pipe cleaners, that they needed to bend into shape, to form a hook so they could hang them from the tree. They thought about where to hang them so it would be as safe as possible for the birds and keep them away from predators. There are also lots of lovely new words that can be introduced during this activity.

Once they had finished making their bird feeders, they thought about what else the birds would need – water. The bird bath was freshened up after the winter and filled with nice clean water so that the birds had somewhere to drink and bathe.

There are photos on our website, www.anthonyroperpreschool.co.uk, and our Facebook page.

We hope you have a lovely weekend.

The Pre-school Team