We went conkers mad last week! We practised our fine motor skills by pushing a conker around with a pen and used conkers to make patterns over squiggly lines and big patterns on the carpet. We also counted conkers and made soup with conkers, as well as dried oranges and pine cones.
We made delicious carrot cake too!!

Last week, we talked about animal patterns - we used describing words such as, scaly, patchy, stripy. The Bear Cubs painted tiger patterns using a downward painting stroke and the Big Bears continued giraffe and tiger patterns using the paintbrush in different ways.
The Bear Cubs sorted and matched colours indoors and outdoors and everyone enjoyed a delicious fresh fruit tart - still thinking about fruits and their benefits.
All children talked about Kexborough as a village and we said if it was similar or different to the village where Handa lived in the story.

Last week we read a book called 'Handa's Surprise' - about a girl who takes a basket of fruit for her friend. We tried some fruits, perhaps some more unusual: pomegranate, lemon, avocado, pineapple, mango, blueberries, melon. The melon and mango seemed popular! We talked about the seeds inside the fruits - some seeds are small and some fruits have one large seed called a stone.
The book is set in Africa so we practised some Art skills to make sunsets. The Bear Cubs practised using crayons on their side to rub across the paper then stick silhouettes on top. The Big Bears learnt how to use watercolour paints to make a sunset wash. The results were great!
We also read Little Red Riding Hood because in that story a little girl takes a basket of food too. We talked about what foods we would take to a friend - we remembered about being healthy but treats too.
In construction, the children made homes for the wild animals. I was really impressed how a group of children spent all afternoon building and adding more detail to their building.
Finally, one of our big bears had been to Cawthorne Park at the weekend and collected autumn treasures. She showed us how to do a leaf rubbing!
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