All the fun of the circus!

This week the Dexter classroom has been turned into a circus. The children instigated this theme and planned out what they would need, before setting it all up. The children cooperated to create a large scale programme booklet by drawing pictures and adding captions of the part they planned to play, or something they thought would be at the circus. A lot of design work went into creating ice cream sellers' trays, complete with candy floss, sweets and other treats; a healthy tuck shop sprung up in the home corner and posters were made to advertise produce and prices; adverting posters were made and tickets sold; tiger and reindeer training took place in the big top and planes were built to fly over the crowd.

As well as all this, we have had the privilege of learning about birds of prey from our resident expert (one of this week's focus children) who had worked at home with his family to create a tape measure showing the wing spans of some of the largest birds we have seen. The children were fascinated (as were the adults) and we very quickly began comparing our arm spans with each other, and then against the wing span of the birds. It took two and a half children to reach the same span length as a stellar sea eagle!

Throughout this excitement, the children have been applying their ever growing knowledge and understanding of number and phonics, as well as developing communication and interaction skills as they work together.

I wonder where next week will take us?