We are continuing to develop our outdoor learning environments in both nursery gardens. After consulting with the children we have developed an action plan. We have tried to source free loose parts, such as logs, pieces of wood, tyres and pots and pans to name a few. We also asked the parents and carers if they could assist us. Matthew and Aaron’s dad helped to dig a path- we hope to create a sensory walkway 🤗 and Patrick’s mum created an amazing Teepee for the children to explore. We would like to thank both parents for helping us, it was very much appreciated by staff and children alike. 👍

Role play is good for developing children’s curiosity, communications and imagination. It allows them to get into character and  act out real life situations. The boys and girls in the nursery love role play. We have some children who are away to be big brothers and sisters and they have been practicing their skills with the baby dolls in nursery. Aaron and Aimee in particular have been feeding and changing the babies. Smith and Kai have been role playing the snack routine with Smith playing the role of the adult and pouring out the “cuppa tea”. Ava has been taking “group time” and can usually be found in the story corner with the boardmaker , a story and a few of her friends. On close listening you can here her asking the same questions the ladies do when we take group. The children also like to dress up and this term we have had some interesting clothes to dress up in. We have dresses, blazers and some lovely hats and scarfs. Role play is so much fun and is so important for a child’s development.

In nursery we spend part of each day exploring our outdoor environment with our peers. We are developing many skills physically as well as socially and emotionally. We are learning to move our bodies in a range of ways, forwards, backwards and sideways to name a few. When we tackle a new challenge we are learning to risk assess and keep ourselves safe. We are learning to show respect for others’ personal space when playing among them, and collaborating with friends when sharing resources and devising tasks, such as creating an obstacle course or working together in the mud kitchen. We are continually learning through play🤗

Our ABC and beyond book for the term is “The Gruffalo” by Julia Donaldson. We are now on week 5 and the children are developing a good understanding of the story. They can identify characters and describe the features of the Gruffalo e.g. his orange eyes and black tongue. We have created our own Gruffalo using brown paint and natural materials which we collected again on our woodland walk. He is now proudly displayed on our ABC and beyond wall. Please feel free to have a look and read all about the sparkle words and topics which the children have learned in relation to the story.

This term we will be looking at all the different woodland animals. Our first two animals that we looked at were the squirrel and the fox. Whilst on our visit to the menzieshill library we discovered some interesting stories that contained foxes and squirrels. After reading our tales and being inspired by all we have learnt the children used a combination of paint and natural materials, which we had collected on our nature walk,  to create wonderful squirrels and foxes. The finished products can be viewed on our topic wall. Well done everyone.

We now have a tinker table in nursery. We are investigating the inside of a computer using real tools. Tinker tables enable children to explore real world objects and develop creative role- play ideas and situations. This week our children have been car mechanics, inventors and wizards.😀

In the 2’s room we use a range of resources to mark make, such as chalk and crayons and more unusual objects such as sticks, mud and fir cones. We can make marks with many everyday items. Mark making is our way of making sense of our world. This may just look like lines or dots, but to us we are creating pirates, mountains and super heroes. 🤗

It has been a busy few weeks in the 2-3 room with new starts and our returners all getting back into the routine of nursery life. During our first 3 weeks we having been reading our book of the term, “The Gruffalo”. Activities involved with this book have included singing the Gruffalo song (a lot!!) and creating our “deep dark wood”. We are also going to explore other woodland creatures over the next few weeks. We have had our first stay and play session which was well attended by parents and grandparents, thank you all. We are exploring different musical instruments this term. We all enjoyed our first, the banjo. Everyone loved playing the banjo and watching videos of the banjo being played very fast. Part of our new nursery routine has been the introduction of proper crockery for snack. The children have adapted very well to this and will all now independently collect there own cup and plate as well as tidying up and washing their dishes once finished. As you can see this is only a snippet of the activities going on with the remainder of term looking to be just as fun packed.