Playgroup - We're Going On a Bear Hunt

We're Going On a Bear Hunt is such a great book, we have used it a few times for playgroup and each time it is received with enthusiasm.  Today was no exception.  We had heaps of fun painting, gluing and hunting for bears!

After reading the story we headed off to prepare for our bear hunt while the big kids hid all the bears outside.

The children had fun re-enacting the story on our sensory bear hunt table. It had grass, a river with frozen fish, ducks and even a crocodile!  Some brown gloopy paint for mud, soft, fluffy shaving cream snow and a forest for our little people to traipse through.

There were bears to be found in the rice box along with lots of digging, pouring, sorting and even eating of the rice thanks to Nathanael!!!

We made pictures of bears hibernating in caves.

Of course, a bear hunt wouldn't be complete without a map to help find the bears!

And finally, some binoculars for those hard to find bears.

After all our hard work preparing, we headed outside to hunt some bears...........

Samuel, checking the map to find out where they are hidden.......

Now, where are those bears?

Quick, over there!!!!

We found the bears, then hid them and found them and hid them and..........................

Another great day of playgroup!!

Playgroup - Farm Style

This week was playgroup - farm style!  We began the day by bringing in one of our silkie chickens for the kids to have a cuddle of.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of this as I was too busy making sure she didn't get squished!!!

After story time we moved onto our craft activities.  We have a full house this term and it is loud, messy and lots of fun!!!  Here are some action photos of the morning.

Some muddy pig painting.

Cotton wool sheep, enjoyed by even the "big" kids!!

Paper plate chickens.

Our very popular mini farm world.

Nathanael, giving some loving to one of the piglets!

We also had play dough, beading, and lots of playtime!!

Some chalk drawing outside on the driveway.

We do our best to cater to all ages at our playgroup!!!

Playgroup, Volcano Style!

What child doesn't like making volcanoes?  Even better if they can get messy doing it.  well, that is exactly what we did for playgroup this week.  We made lots of volcanoes and used waay to much food colouring but everyone had lots of fun!!

Here is a look at some of what we got up to.

First we read some stories and looked at pictures of volcanoes and talked about what we knew about them.  Then we headed outside for a demonstration of an erupting volcano.  I used the elephant toothpaste recipe.  It wasn't as dramatic as I had hope but was still effective and the kids didn't mind.  My big kids want to try again with a stronger solution of Hydrogen Peroxide, but I figured with a bunch of 2 and 3 year olds running around playgroup probably wasn't the right time for that!!

After we had a play with the lava we headed inside to make our own volcanoes.

We cut out volcano shapes, glued them on and then squeezed yellow and red paint  on top.  Then we used straws to blow the paint around and give us an erupting effect!

We used trays of bicarb soda, coloured vinegar and syringes to make mini eruptions. This kept them all occupied for a very long time.  In fact, if this was all we did for playgroup the children would have been more than happy!!

And finally we made our own mini volcanoes.......

....then headed back outside with them to make them erupt again, and again, and again until we ran out of bi-carb soda, vinegar and food colouring!!!!  

Even the big kids couldn't resist getting involved with today's fun.