Road safety training and The Leopard's Drum

We have had another lovely week at Our Lady's Nursery. On Monday we had a visit from Vivienne (Southwark council), she taught  the children all about how to stay safe when crossing the road. We went outside to practice on our road in the Nursery outdoor area. The children did really well and answered questions like 'Why do we need to be careful?' 'What are we looking for at the side of the road?' 'What vehicles are we listening for?'

The children decided to put all this into practice when they used road signs to stop bike traffic in the outdoor area.

The children have loved hearing the Asante tale The Leopard's Drum; Osebo the leopard has a fine drum, a huge drum, a magnificent drum. He won't share it with anyone, not even Nyame, the Sky-God. So Nyame offers a big reward to the animal that brings him the drum. All try but fail. But a very small tortoise succeeds and decides as a reward she would like a hard shell to protect her from careless animals treading on her- and that is how the tortoise got her shell. 

Source: Google Books. 

To follow on the theme we set up a small world play area with African animals and books about Africa, the children have loved making their own drums by fillings cups with dried pasta, lentils and tapioca. We also made African inspired masks.

The children have been developing their fine motor skills whilst making jam or honey sandwiches.

This week we added the finishing touches to our outside builder's role play area, we have added construction site signs, building plans and more bricks & tools for our budding builders to use.

Coming up next week: The children will be learning about Diwali- the festival of light and we will be going on our first trip! Don't forget we break up for half-term on Thursday 23rd October (Friday 24th is a Staff INSET day and the school will be closed to children).