This week we focused on the fairy tale ‘The Princess and the Pea’.

We looked at the original story from authors like Ian Beck and Chloe Perkins and different versions such as ‘The Princess and the Peas’, by Carly Hart.

We had a creative week retelling and re-enacting the fairy tale with the story’s characters and enjoyed dressing up as kings and queens, princesses and princes in the castle.

In the letter room the ‘kitchen’ was very popular! Many meals were prepared and washed down with numerous cups of tea., ‘Polly put the kettle on…’!

On Thursday and Friday, we celebrated Lunar New Year. The children were introduced to some of the traditions celebrated throughout the 15-day festival and the origins of the Chinese zodiac animals. We had an action-packed time, creating dragon kites and retold the story of The Great Race using the small world animals. The children enjoyed splashing in the waterlily pond and playing in the panda sanctuary. We finished with a delicious feast of noodles and of course, fortune cookies!

Thank you to the parents who organised a lion dance in the playground upon arrival in the morning and gifted both morning and afternoon classes with Lunar New Year gifts.

A huge thank you also to the nursery parents in the morning class who came to share their traditions, stories and songs. The children swept, mopped and dusted before being treated to a lion dance, taking turns to both to direct the puppet and to pat him, then rolled, cut, filled and pressed playdough to make dumplings! Everyone went home with a mandarin and an envelope with a chocolate coin.