Dough glorious dough

It's sensory week this week at Sunnyside. The little learners are going to be involved in lots of activities which will require them to use their sense of smell and touch. Activities such as these provide wonderful opportunities for the little learners to extend their language and vocabulary. With careful questioning from the grown ups the little learners will be encouraged to  participate in conversation that will help them think about and develop ideas. 

Today the little learners did just that with flour and water. Following on from last week's marathon cooking activities, the little learners freely explored some of the ingredients and equipment they used last week. By the end of the morning, the setting looked as if a light dusting of snow had fallen, but by the end of the day when the snow had been mixed with an awful lot of water and had formed into very sticky lumps, it's hard to describe what that looked like! When Mrs Crayon started her day she was 5 feet 6 inches in her shoes, however by home time she was standing at 5ft 9" thanks to all the dough stuck to her soles and heels! The important thing is, the activity promoted much discussion and conversation among the little learners. They talked about their own cooking experiences at home, their favourite foods as well as their least favourite. The grown ups role during the activity was very much to encourage the little learners to describe how the mixture felt to them and to make predictions about what might happen as they changed it by adding  more flour and water. Mrs Crayon also wondered if any of them had any handy tips for removing a tonne of dough from the bottom of her shoes!!! She had one suggestion which was to use a bit of Lego. It worked rather well! 

"I'm making tarte au citron with a creme anglaise."
"Mine just feels like poo!"