During term one, we explored “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson. The children developed their interests through art and craft, contributing to a Gruffalo display and going on a Gruffalo hunt through the woods. The children had the opportunity to explore different patterns using colours and shapes when recreating the snake from the story at the art and craft area.
The children enjoyed playing outdoors with the Gruffalo costume, using the willow den as the woods.
Our story corner was transformed into the Gruffalo woods where the children were able to re-tell the story using costumes and puppets.
One of our parents very kindly bought us the Gruffalo characters.
One of our parents was kind enough to bring in her own ‘big brown mouse’ for the children to see. She told them how to care for the ‘mouse.’ We were also lucky enough to have a visit from a corn snake.
After our visits from the animals, we discussed the importance of washing our hands. We carried out our first scientific experiment to observe the changes unwashed hands can have on bread . One piece was put in a sealed bag using gloves, one piece was put in a sealed bag using clean, washed hands and the last piece was put in a bag after all of the children and staff had touched it.
After two weeks, the bread everyone had touched was very mouldy!!
In term one, we had lots of fun with Susie Adam, our dance teacher, who is with us on Wednesday mornings and Thursday afternoons. Susie teaches us some wonderful dance and exercise routines with an educational twist. She helps us to develop our gross motor skills, spacial awareness, turn taking, listening skills and much more.
At the end of term one, we found out what farmers do during harvest time. The children helped to collect apples, plums and vegetables from our Nursery garden. We all used our senses to explore these foods: we used our eyes to find out what they looked like, our fingers to find out what they felt like, our noses to find out what they smelled like and our tongues to find out what they tasted like!
