On Thursday we celebrated Africa Day.  The children enjoyed exploring and learning about different countries and cultures within Africa, cooking and listening to traditional stories.

for Africa Day, the babies explored the story of Handa’s Surprise. The babies had the chance to explore the fruit basket feeling the different textures of the fruit skins and scents from the fruits. The babies listened to the story of Handa’s Surprise and also enjoyed a music session listening to traditional African music!

To celebrate Africa day in the toddler room we explored and learned about African culture. We watched a short clip on the touch and tilt table enhancing our ict skills and helping us learn that we can access information through using ict resources. The clip showed us lots of different African instruments and how they are made from different types of wood. We then enjoyed dancing and moving to music. We then explored and African safari tuft tray where we listened to a book about a child’s day in Ethiopia. We also learned some new words and sounds through this book while enjoying role playing with the animals. For our final activity we took a trip to the local market to buy some Plantain. We were able to see lots of foods and materials from all over the world at the market. We bought some plantain at a stall then took it back to nursery. We helped peel the plantain and used children’s safety knives to chop. This gave us a great sense of independence and pride as we were able to do it all on our own with little support from adults. We assessed the safety risks of the knives and learned words like ”sharp” and “careful”. The plantain was then fried and once it was cooled we all enjoyed a taste. We all had a great day learning and exploring the different aspects of African culture while having fun and learning new skills. Great job toddlers!

This week we have been celebrating world Africa day in preschool with many different activities! We first learnt about Maasai Necklaces, and how people in Africa wear these traditional necklaces to show signs of bravery, peace and health. The children chose their own colours to represent African animals we would see in the safari, such as cheetahs, lions, zebra’s and giraffes. When our own necklaces were dry we then put them on and danced around the room having our very own African party, listening to African drumming and traditional African music. The children even made their own instruments to use at the party too and painted them. For the final part of our African themed activities, we explored making animal print artwork, using shaving foam and paint, by pressing down our paper into the foam and finally peeling it off to reveal the beautiful marbled effect it made on the paper. The children were fascinated by the effects it made and had so much fun exploring and learning all about Africa!