Some of our beanstalk.
Planting, Growing and Jack and the Beanstalk
We read different versions of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk , discussion and camoparing the stories. We planted runner beans in nursery this week in plastic bottles. We had some beans to try at snack. we made pictures of beans at art. We have been introducing and reinforcing the language of weight and measure by weighing bags of gold coins, comparing height of each other, beanstalks etc. We have been counting the giants gold coins and playing with real money. We listened to a CD called sticky kids where we have to pretend to be different beans.
We also disscussed what a plant needs to grow. We discovered plants need mud (soil), seeds, pot, water and light.
Fun In The Sun
Tadpoles
Before the Spring holidays Mrs Hughes brought in frogs spawn from her pond. we thought it looked like jelly with black dots. There was hundres of eggs. After a few weeks the little dots began to wriggle and little tadpoles hatched out. They are tiny, black and wriggle there tail as the move about. We use magnifying glasses to watch them swim and eat in their tank. We have been reading lots of different books about tadpoles and frogs.
At the art we have been painting pictures of frogs spawn, tadpoles, lilly pads, frogs and a pond to make into a wall display .
We have an interest table all about the life cycle of a frog set up too.
We have being singing songs about frogs too.
Group Teddies
The boys and girls will each have a turn to take their group soft toys home overnight along with a diary.
Meet;
Hoppy (Yellow Group)
Fluffy (Red Group)
Spotty (Blue Group)
Ocean (Green Group)
Noodles (Orange group)
Each bear come with instructions:
Hello,
My name is!
I am very cuddly and friendly. I love going on adventures, visiting new places and meeting new people. I get very tired after a busy day at nursery and playing with my friends. At bedtime I like to have a story and a big hug before I go to sleep.
Can you draw or write about our adventures in my diary so we can show your friends? Please remember to bring me back to nursery so that someone else can take me home.
Love from
Some examples of different activities your child can do with their groups cuddly toy are;
play a game
have tea together
play outside
go to the park
go to a club (dancing, swimming , football etc)
visit family
have a sleepover
We would like your child to draw a picture of something they have done with the teddy and an adult to to help write a sentence or two about the picture.
Thank you for your continuing support with this.
Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes
Over the last few weeks during group time we have been focusing on the following stories Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Hickory Dickory Dock, The Three Billy Goats Gruff and Mr Wolf’s Pancakes; reading, discussing and completing activities relating to them.
For Cinderella we read a few varieties of the story discussing what was similar and different. We looked at our shoes describing them e.g. size, colour, Velcro, laces etc. We took turns to talk and listen. We assessed our self-help skills by taking off and putting on our shoes (we all managed this). We talked about the chores we helped our family with. Mr Wolf’s Pancakes, we read the story, discussed all the familar characters we met in the story. We had to predict what would happen at the end of the story. We made our own frying pans and pancakes to toss. We sang songs and rhymes from the story. We played the game What’s the time Mr wolf? Hickory Dickory Dock; we said the rhyme adding our own rhyming verses. We made clocks, discussing time, clock face, hands, numbers, etc. We talked about our daily routine and worked with a learning partner to put our day in order. We talked about when we would use clocks, timers, watches, calendars etc. The Three Billy Goats Gruff; We read the story through talking about the pictures. We then re-told the story using puppets and repeating the refains from the story. “Who’s that trip trapping over my bridge?” We discussed sizes small, medium and big. We measured ourselves to see who was the tallest and smallest in our groups. We also used the measure worms to arrange by size. Little Red Riding Hood; We read the story, discussing what was happening. We re-told the story using puppets. We read different versions of the same story, discussing the differences and similarities. We identified our own name and found the initial letter of our names. We played the game what’s the time Mr Wolf.The Gingerbread Man
We have been reading different version of the Gingerbread Man stories and talked about the characters in the books. We learned the rhyme that was in all the books “Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man.” We acted out the story during our group time, wearing headbands with pictures of the characters. We chased the Gingerbread Man, while repeating the rhyme. We all joined in and enjoyed taking part. We drew and decorated pictures of the Gingerbread Man with crayons and buttons. We have been reading other stories that the Gingerbread man pops up in. We also had Gingerbread man biscuits for snack. They were yummy!!
We made our own books to share at home with our families. We had to sequence the story in the correct order.
We made a wall display, painting and printing the characters. We mixed flour into the paint to make it thicker to look more like biscuits for the wall display. We talked about what we could remember about the story to add to the display.
We are developing and extending our remembering, understanding and applying skills through the stories.
We are developing and extending our fine and gross motor skills and hand eye coordination through the art work we created.
We are learning the importance of working together and co-operating with other.
Planning and Building a Model
We have been extending our knowledge and understanding of planning and building models at the Art Area. We started by either drawing a plan of our model or gathering all the resources we would like to use to build a model.
We discussed all the different parts to our model. Next we had to decide which resources would be best to use for our planned model. We could choose items such as boxes, cardboard tubes, yogurt pots, buttons, lolli-sticks, small sticks, pom-poms, coloured shapes, googly eyes, paper etc.
We discussed all the different parts to our model. Next we had to decide which resources would be best to use for our planned model. We could choose items such as boxes, cardboard tubes, yogurt pots, buttons, lolli-sticks, small sticks, pom-poms, coloured shapes, googly eyes, paper etc.
Once we gathered all the resources we thought we would need we looked at our plans to decide where to start building our model. We could add to the resources and adapt our plans as needed.
We had to compare our models and plans throughout the process to make sure they looked the same.
Model building is good for hand eye coordination, fine motor skills – using skills like cutting with scissors, gluing and painting – and of course for developing the imagination. Their creations have the potential to become anything they wish!
The skills the children are developing and extending are:
Communication Language and Literacy
Their vocabulary is extended with new experiences, language development can be facilitated through interaction, planning process and communication and literacy will be encouraged through making marks and develop handwriting skills.
Personal Social and Emotional Development
by the opportunities to develop creativity without pressure of making an end product. This increases children’s well-being and self-esteem.
Creative Development
by providing opportunities to explore a range of media and materials.
Problem Solving, Numeracy and Reasoning
by providing opportunities for children to explore space and shape. They can explore patterns, compare and measure. They can decide what materials work best together, how best to stick materials e.g. glue, glue sticks, sellotape etc.
Knowledge and Understanding of the World
by opportunities to explore and investigate such as showing curiosity in the materials.
Physical Development
by encouraging the children to become aware of movement and space. This activity encourages both gross and fine motor skills as well hand-eye co-ordination
Winter and Polar Animals
We have been exploring Winter and Polar Animals. We have an igloo and dressing up clothes in our imaginiative area. We could dress up as polar bears or snowflakes. We made a fishing game with fish and magnets and tried to catch as many as we could.
Chinese New Year
Happy New Year
新年快乐 Xīnnián kuàilè
We have been celebrating the Chinese New Year, the past few days in nursery. We helped Mrs Thomson decorate lots of boxes with paint, strips of crepe paper, tissue paper, gitter etc to make into a dragon.
We tried writing some Chinese calligraphy.
At group time on Thursday we tried eating different food with chopsticks. It was very hard!!!!!
We talked about the Chinese dragon and choose one of the designs to colour in. this gave our fine motor skills a really good work out!!
Here is a link to the cbeebies webpage which tells the chinese new year story. You can copy and paste the link into your web browser.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/lets-celebrate/stories
