The children have continued to look at and discuss mini-beasts this week. We went on a mini-beast hunt, there was a variety of mini-beasts in a black tray and the children had their own sheet with pictures of mini beasts on it. The children had to look at the mini beast on the sheet and when they found a matching mini-beast on the black tray they had to tick it off on the sheet. We have also been on a snail hunt this week. Due to the wet weather we were able to find lots of snails. There were some on the leaves of the bushes high up and some on the ground hiding in little crevices, the children were fascinated by these. The snails were put in a black tray so that the children could closely observe them slither around and see the trails they left behind. There were different sized snails so the children were able to compare them and an adult was able to talk about size. Some of the children were very brave and picked a snail up, remembering that they had to be very careful and others just watched them. We have also had a go at moving in different ways e.g. flapping like a butterfly, slithering like a snail and dancing like a bee to music. This helped develop the children’s gross motor skills and it was also lots of fun.
Our story this week was a firm favourite, ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. The children really enjoy this book. As with all reading activities, it is cross curricular. It introduces the life cycle of a butterfly and also supports the labelling and describing of different foods. It also gives us a chance to look at number and quantity; for example, counting using one to one correspondence, using fingers to represent a quantity and recognising small amounts without counting.
