Category: Daily Challenge

South America – Brazil and the Amazon Rainforest.

Today we are going to have a look at the Amazon Rainforest. It is the biggest rainforest in the world and runs through six countries. Over half of the Amazon Rainforest is in a country called Brazil.

This is the flag of Brazil.
Brazil is marked in red. Can you find Scotland on the map with your grown up? Which Country is bigger?
Have a look at these facts with your grown up. There are also different tribes who still live in the Amazon Rainforest.
Imagine how different there lives are to ours here in Scotland.

You can watch a little video about the Amazon here-https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JEsV5rqbVNQ

Challenge – Can you make a rain maker that sounds just like the rain falling in the Amazon Rainforest.

You will need a cardboard tube (kitchen roll, sweetie tube), small nails, drawing pins, tape to cover the ends, rice, beans/grains to fill it with. You can decorate your rain maker with paper, paint, wool, whatever you can find!

You need to put lots of small nails/ drawing pins in your tube, if you have a very solid tube you might need to ask for help from your grown up (you can use a hammer if needed). Remember they are sharp, use extra care like when you are at the woodwork bench at nursery. (If this is too tricky for the younger children, you can make the holes for them and then they can thread them in.)

– When all the nails are in you then have to sellotape up one end of the tube so no rice can escape! Then carefully pour about half a cup of rice into the other end. If you have a funnel at home they are really handy to help you pour! You can use dry beans, lentils etc too. Then seal up the other end.

The final step is to decorate your rain maker! Maybe you can make it colourful like the rainforest!

Slowly turn it up and down, can you hear the rain?

Celebrating Diversity Week!

At Cockenzie Nursery we love to learn about the world and all the people who live here. We celebrate different ethnic backgrounds, religions and cultures. This week we are going to explore the seven Continents of the world.

Our first stop is Australia all the way over on the other side of the world! The indigenous people of Australia are the Aboriginal people. They have many famous Aboriginal artists. One particular style of painting they do is dot painting. They often use very earthy colours in their paintings such as reds, oranges, browns and yellows. In the Hub this week we were exploring different Aboriginal paintings and creating our own.

This is the map of Australia it is very big!
This is the Australian flag.
Beautiful Aboriginal art.

Challenge – Can you make your own Aboriginal dot painting?
You will need some paper, paints and either cotton buds or the end of a paintbrush to make your dots.