Chinese Dragon Dancing

We love to learn about different cultures and celebrations and this week we have been talking about Chinese New Year. Before the break we watched videos of how Chinese New Year was celebrated and the children decided that they would like to create their own dragon puppets, dragon stories and to do a dragon dance!

We worked together to paint our dragon. We have not painted something this large for a while and we learnt that we needed to use different techniques to when we paint on the easel.

When we had finished painting our dragon we added glitter and fabric. Then the children decided that they would like to make drums to play as we danced like we had seen in the video. Everyone had their own way to make their drums, then we tested them to listen to the sounds they made.

We were all so excited to do our dragon dance and finally it was time to take our giant dragon to the hall. We danced to the music and moved up and down in time to do our dragon dance.

We had so much fun the children decided that next week we would like to learn about music and dancing from different countries. Check back to see what we get up to!

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Singing at the City Hall

Today was our trip to The City Hall for our Singing Start project. We had a great time!

We set off from school and got the tram into town…

We got to the City Hall and had a look at the displays from the different schools. Then we joined in with lots of fun activities, like making our own instruments…

After lunch we all sat together to sing our songs with Martin and Luke…

We had a great day and all the children listened and joined in beautifully! A huge thank you to everyone who came, we hope you had a lovely time too.

A Singing Start Movie

Last term we were very lucky to have Martin Harwood come and sing songs with us as part of The Singing Start project. We learnt new songs, explored percussion, took turns being conductors and even made up our own songs. Click here to see what we got up to.

We even started an after school music club with children throughout school.

We had so much fun that we made a movie of what we did. Click here to watch it, we hope you enjoy it!

A Very Rainy Day

Well Monday was a very rainy day. It was so rainy in Sheffield that even some of the buses and trams stopped running! But in nursery we like to make the most of the wet weather. Our new outdoor suits and wellies mean we can go out whatever the weather and we did!

We had lots of fun painting outdoors. We tried different paints, chalks and crayons on paper then put them in the rain to see what would happen…

“It’s washing it away”

“It’s getting it clean”

“It’s making purple water down the yard”

“That one int, that one is still there”

 

We also made some sounds and music with the rain.

In a tuff spot we put different containers and let them fill up with water. We then hit them to listen to the different sounds they made…

Do you go out when it is rainy?

There’s lots of fun to be had in the rain. You can splash in puddles, sprinkle paint in puddles to make pictures, build shelters, put out pans and let them fill up with water and listen to the sounds, catch the rain etc… Just make sure you’ve got coats and wellies on!

Trip to see The Chimpanzees of Happy Town

This week we went on a very exciting trip to see The Chimpanzees of Happy Town at The Crucible Theatre.

We had been getting ready by reading the story and learning all the songs and actions.

Click here to watch the songs and actions again with Polly!

We got the tram to the theatre. It was very exciting because it was some children’s first trip on the tram!

We loved seeing all the different instruments and joining in with the story…

How can you continue learning at home?

You could look for other books by Giles Andrea at the library, some of our favourites are Giraffes Can’t Dance, The Lion who wanted to Love, Rumble in the Jungle and Commotion in the Ocean

You could click on the link above to see Polly singing the songs and teaching us the actions again

You could talk to your child about what they remember about the story or ask them to draw a picture from the story, some children have already brought some in!

You could go and see the family performance at The Crucible in March, click here to find out more

 

Martin the Music Man

 

For the next 10 weeks Martin the Music Man will be coming into nursery every Monday afternoon to sing songs and play instruments with us.

We sing nursery rhymes, silly songs and we even make up our own songs! We have lots of fun joining in with the actions and playing instruments together.

We have been singing …

• Incy Wincy Spider
• The Wheels on the Bus
• Twinkle, twinkle, little star
• Wind the Bobbin up
• Baa Baa Black sheep (and Baa Baa Yellow Sheep!)
• Mr Clickety Cane

We sang funny versions of songs we knew as well like Twinkle, Twinkle, Chocolate Bar and Incy Wincy Spider in the Bath

Here is one of the new songs we learnt …

Tiny Tim 

I had a little turtle,

His name was Tiny Tim,

I put him in the Bath Tub,

To see if he could swim ,

He drank up all the water,

He ate up all the soap,

Tiny Tim was choking,

On the bubbles in his throat!

Bubble, bubble, bubble

Bubble, bubble, bubble,

Bubble, bubble, bubble.,

Bubble, bubble, POP!

 

We will also be running an after school club called ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’ click here to find out more!

 

Shake, Rattle and Roll

Yesterday we started our new after school music club – ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’. It is a club for parents and children to sing and join in with actions together. We sang lots of songs we knew and some new songs too.

 

Shake, Rattle and Roll is on every Monday, straight after school. All of Foundation Stage (Nursery and Reception) are invited and brothers, sisters and babies are very welcome too. If you would like to join please fill in your slip and hand it to your class teacher.

 

Sing a Story

In nursery we had a very exciting trip to The City Hall. We went to ‘Sing a Story’ from Music in the Round. We had been getting ready for our trip by learning the stories .. Little Rabbit Foo Foo, The Train Ride, Three Little Pigs and The Grand Old Duke of York.

We went to The City Hall and had a very exciting afternoon. We went down on the tram with all of our friends.

When we got to the City Hall there was an orchestra and we saw lots of interesting instruments we had never seen before. There were lots of songs and actions to join in with and there were even amazing actors who dressed up and acted out the stories. We were so happy that our grown-ups came with us too.

Thank you to everybody who came!

I’m Stick Man, I’m Stick Man, I’m Stick Man, that’s me!

Did you see Stick Man on TV on Christmas Day? Stick Man is a story by one of our favourite authors; Julia Donaldson. It is the story of Stick Man, a stick who goes on a lot of adventures on his way back to his family tree! Stick Man becomes a stick for a dog, an arm for a snowman, is weaved into a nest, is a flag for a sandcastle and even ends up on a fire!

We decided to do our own Stick-y activities, have a look what we have been up to…

Some of the children made their own Stick Men over the holidays and brought them to school…

We played with them in Stick Man’s forest…

Then we made some more Stick Men of our own….

We decided we would like our Stick Men to be musical and added keys and bells to make jingle sticks…

We used Stick Slime to make trees, sticks, branches and even letters…

We used the sticks with other natural materials to make transient art…

Then we added dough and plastecine to make stick structures…

Finally some of the children wanted to make bird’s nests like in the story…

What a busy week and what a lot of learning!

With all our Stick Man fun we learnt…

About different materials, we compared textures and talked about what we could see and feel exploring with our senses.

We planned our learning; building models, making transient art and building nests. We learnt to change our plans and ideas as we went along.

We learnt how to make and change sounds when we made our jingle sticks.

We learnt to retell the story remembering the parts that repeated – “I’m Stick Man, I’m Stick Man, I’m Stick Man, that’s me!”

We used the Stick Man forest to tell stories and learnt about other woodland animals.

 

How can you carry on learning at home?

 

Make your own Stick Man forest in your garden, what stories will you tell?

Use twigs and sticks to make your own stick family. Add old keys, bolts, washers or cutlery to turn them into music sticks!

Go on a nature walk to find twigs, pinecones and leaves to make your own nature art.

Turn other objects in your home into musical instruments a box and elastic bands can be a guitar, an empty tub can be a drum…