What a busy few weeks it has been. The children are showing interests in so many things. Firstly we looked at farms and animals, concentrating on the names of baby animals. We played a matching mum to baby game and used a lovely selection of books in the story corner to reinforce the language.  We had some great results at the play dough, cutting animal shapes and in the sand they have enjoyed playing with animals and tractors and making tyre tracks. The children have shown a huge interest in flowers and planting. We have had some super daffodil paintings from still life. All groups have been planting indoors and outdoors. We are now growing carrots, peas, beans, potatoes, onions, cress and sunflowers. We are now clearing our large tubs and topping up with compost. We are going to plant them up on our Rights and Respect Day at the end of May.

We tried an experiment with water and food colouring using carnations and celery. There were some interesting results. The red groups flowers turned red and the celery leaves turned brown. This caused some great conversations about colour mixing – red and green making brown. This interest has continued at the painting and gloop where the children are now mixing their own colours. We have had flowerpots and garden tools in the sand and watering cans and plant pots with holes in the water tray. They are also talking about blossom and bluebells. We now  have a very popular garden centre as our role play area. The children are using real coins, arranging and wrapping flowers, counting out money and plant pots etc, using technology – tills, strimmer, hedge trimmer, and lawn mower all battery operated! They are writing shopping lists and receipts, and learning about the roles people play. Will try and upload some photos. They have a super activity at the maths area matching two flowers the same and also putting them into order of size smallest to largest or largest to smallest.  There has also been a huge interest in frogs and tadpoles. We have enjoyed the tadpole eco-sack at group time and loved looking at real tadpoles that Rory brought in. They came from a friend’s pond and have now been returned. The children were mesmerised by them so thank you Rory. They have a good grasp now of the lifecycle of a frog and this is being reinforced at our jigsaw table with our life cycle and pond puzzles.

The children’s interest we are about to follow is Mini-beasts especially now we are out in the garden most days. There has already been a lot of worm hunting and some interest in dressing up in the ladybird and bee costumes. We will soon be looking at the butterfly lifecycle, as we will be ordering our caterpillars. We will watch them grow and then release them into our garden.

 As you can see there is so much happening along with transition visits to school. Nursery is so much fun and all children are becoming successful learners, effective contributors, responsible citizens and confident individuals.