Ducklings Exploring Winter

This week in Ducklings we continued our exploration of winter and began our Christmas festivities. We started with our Nativity performance, where the children have been practising their lines and songs to retell the story of Christmas and the birth of Jesus. This gave them plenty of opportunities to build confidence, practise speaking and listening and enjoy performing together.

In the classroom, the children took part in Santa beard trimming, frozen musical statues and lots of Christmas crafts. Our writing experiences included letters to Santa and the beginning of our Christmas cards for our special people. These activities helped the children develop their early writing and fine motor skills while also encouraging them to think about the people who are important to them.

Outdoors, our water area became home to a huddle of penguins, along with glitter and foam to make the experience even more exciting. There was a lot of discussion about floating and sinking, how to look after the penguins and the adventures they imagined them having. This kind of talk is great for building vocabulary, problem-solving and early scientific thinking.

In the water kitchen, the children explored elf juice and hot chocolate foam. Our little baristas used wonderful vocabulary as they shared, took turns, poured, scooped and measured out their ingredients. This supported early maths language, capacity awareness and cooperative play.

The home corner was full of babies named Jesus and the children created their own journeys to Bethlehem. Their imaginative play really showed how they are making sense of the stories and celebrations we have been exploring together.

Christmas Jumper Day was a big hit and many of the children enjoyed using our class Christmas accessories to decorate themselves from head to toe.

It has been a busy and magical week, and we are sure next week will be even busier as the festive excitement continues.