April 8th, 2019

Welcome to our new blog, for our weekly roundup of what we've been doing at Mucky Pups.

We will aim to update this blog every Friday, so that we can get all the weeks worth of information ready for you to read over the weekend.  However, due to this being the first, and it's Monday, we'll make a start with what we did last week.

So here we go!

Last week we all spent a lot of time in the garden doing lots of things ready for growing.  Jean had the children out with spades and trowels, digging over the planter which contains our apple and pear tree.  In here, the weeds had gotten a little out of control, so it was time to dig them up.
We also dug over the ground at the bottom of the garden to sow some wild flower seed. 

Keeping in theme with digging, Hannah helped the children to plant some Funky Veg!  Soon, we hope to have some purple carrots, stripy tomatoes, and lemon seed cucumber!

We've also had some special visitors in our garden just recently, when four ducks landed on our field.  They seem to be quite at home there.  
We also have been bird watching a lot, and having to keep the bird feeders full.  We often enjoy some quiet time on the benches watching the birds come and feed.  The children get especially excited when the two robins come down, but we also get lots of blackbirds and bluetits.  Joe has been helpng the children identify the difference between a male and female blackbird by the male being black and the female brown, and we've been making use of our bird pictures outside to identify differnt birds that visit our garden.  
The children have also noticed lots of ladybirds recently, and this has sparked discussions of how to be careful when handling any of the creepy crawlies out there and where they like to live.  We often explore the bug house to look at the creatures that like the dark and damp.  Mainly woodlouse, which have been a favourite to watch, especially when we find them in some of the wood we use in our construction area.  

Inside, you may have noticed we've done a lot of baking.  We've made cakes and biscuits that they can take home.  We like to do lots of baking with the children because its a great activity to help with turn taking, measuring, and following instructions.  It help as well when they can see something they made, turn into something they can eat! 
We like to do the same with playdough, getting the children involved in making it themselves following instructions and allowing them to add different textures, smells and colours.

During our circle times this week we have been looking at Numbers, matching quantity and numerals, and also mark making, identifying shape and singing our finger song.
We have two groups for circle time, the Dalmations for the children who are going to school in September, and the younger children, the Chihuahuas.  The Chihuahuas have been singing the Tommy Thumb song before going to do some big mark making on a large roll of paper together.  We've been looking at drawing shapes, faces and zigzags to get used to making different marks. Doing it together helps encourage those who aren't usually interested in mark making (mainly boys).

We have also been really enjoying our music and movement with Sticky Kids, listening to instructions and following along with the different dances.  Lots of fun. 

All this, as well as lots of small world play, reading lots of stories, role play both inside and out, glueing, sticking, drawing, painting, just having lots of fun!

Hope you enjoyed reading through our week, and look forward to next week!