Butterfly Newsletter
16th February - 27th March
This 1/2 term our theme is
The Little Mermaid
We have transformed our theme room into a 'under the sea' world , where the children will be able
to explore sea creatures, play in the mermaid lagoon, create sounds of the seas as well as
exploring our little treasure troves and caverns.
We have set up a story telling area with characters from the story- Ariel, Prince Eric, Flounder and
Sebastian with costumes to dress up in.
The children will also be having fun creating their own costumes, story props and sea creatures
which we will be adding to the room each week.
We will be re telling our own version of the story 'The little Mermaid' in weekly parts, which the
children will be able to take part in and hopefully we will be filming this and posting it on our
Facebook page so that you can watch it at home.
Week 1- King Triton's choir.
This week we will be playing musical instruments in King Tritons Mer Kingdom choir, as we re tell
part one of our story.
We will be creating fish pictures using a variety of different tools and techniques and using these
fish to sing the first verse of our 'in the sea song' .
The children will be exploring our new theme room and playing our hidden treasures game.
In the physical room we will be creating wavy water dances to 'under the sea' using dancing voiles
ribbons and streamers and in the garden we will be taking part in a sinking and floating
experiment.
We will also be playing a rhyming game, matching the pictures of sea creatures to the musical
instruments they play, e.g, the carp plays the harp and the newt plays the flute.
Week 2 - "whosits and wotsits galore."
We will be having fun exploring our gadgets, gizmos and thingamabobs this week in our under
sea treasure chest- discovering lots of unusual human objects, finding out what the different
objects are and what they are used for. We will be playing a game with Scuttle the seagull, using
our imaginations to create our own silly names for the objects and thinking of different ideas for
their uses.
You may wish to bring in unusual objects from home to add to our treasure chest.( which already
holds a tea strainer, a garlic crush, a cork screw, a candelabra, a sand timer and a spirit level)
In the messy room we will be creating Sebastian the lobster for our song props ( adding pasta
shells, split peas and lentils to our paint to create a hard shell texture )and we will be exploring all
the different shapes and patterns on the sea shells we find.
Week 3- 'part of your world'
This week in our story Ariel rescues Prince Eric and she falls in love with him.
We will be creating mermaid tails to wear, and in the messy room we will be painting little
mermaids using paints and a variety of sparkly and shimmery materials to use for verse 3 of our
song.
Outdoors( on land) we will be holding a sandcastle building challenge- creating and decorating
sand castles with shells, pebbles and pretty mermaid treasures and trinkets.
"Wish I could walk, wish I could run, wish I could play all day in the sun....."
We will be singing along to 'part of your world' and playing our human legs game. We will be
learning lots of action words and following theses actions, as well of thinking of our own action
words that we can use our legs for.( discussing the importance of exercise and healthy eating to
make our bodies happy and strong)
On Thursday 5th March- it is World Book Day.
You may come dressed up as your favourite story book character.
We will be giving out free book tokens.
Week 4- 'All I want is your voice'.
In our story this week we meet Ursula the sea witch and we will be having fun mixing and creating
magic potions to make Ariel human.
We will be recording our singing voices and creating little seashell pendants to wear, as well as
threading tiny shell beads to create pretty bracelets for our Mummy's and Grandmas this week( for
special Mothers Day gifts)
This week we are also introduced to Flotsam and Jetsom, the sea eels ( which we will be painting for our song props, using paint mixed with foam ) and in the garden we will be discovering
different real sea creatures that we will be buying from the fishmongers .We will be touching the
fish and exploring the different textures, observing scales, gills, fins and teeth before having a go at
painting the fish to create scale prints.
If any parents or carers do not wish their child to be taking part in this activity please inform staff,
thank you.
Week 5- 'Kiss the girl.'
In the garden this week we will be learning all about rhyme and alliteration as we play in our role
play sea restaurant- creating culinary dishes, such as slimy seaweed soup, lobster linguine and
crunchy crab cupcakes.
We will be playing in our role play palace and helping to create a boat to play in for Eric and Ariels
romantic boat trip to music.
In the messy room we will be creating a variety of sea creatures, such as crabs, turtles and jelly
fish to add to our 'in the sea' song.
We will also be creating our 'captured sea in a bottle' to bring home for a little keepsake if you
could bring in a small clear plastic lidded bottle please.
Week 6- Ariel and Prince Eric's wedding.
This week we will be telling the final part of our story, which ends happily ever after!
We will be making our own little mermaid story books, writing all about our favourite part of the
story.We will be creating 3d sea creatures in the messy room using floam, wet sand, dough and a
junk boxes - and in the garden we will be creating giant collages on the ground using a variety of
large materials.
We will be decorating King Triton crowns to wear and each child will get to sit in King Tritons
special throne, where they will be awarded their 'clever clams' ( as we recognise and reward each
child's achievements over the last 1/2 term)
I hope you are excited- it's going to be a fun filled 1/2 term.