The children have been so busy in the art and craft areas lately that we now have super decorations everywhere. Have you noticed the recent addition of a Christmas tree in the corridor? Great cutting skills are evident from the girls and boys from the Raindrop Room on this piece of work. I wonder if they can find their own bauble?
The Nursery kitchens are such busy places with snack and lunch to prepare for every day but some of the children have also been busy making apple crumble recently. Here you can see lots of safe chopping, mashing and use of the microwave to develop the children’s skills as well as their knowledge of what happens to food when it is heated. Their apple crumble looked and smelled delicious and certainly went down well with most.
Our outdoor play regularly includes opportunities to sit around a fire where the children love to socialise and, of course, prepare something to eat. One of their favourites are these big marshmallows which are so very sticky once cooked but are certainly delicious. We are looking forward to lots more fires in our outdoor play again next year.
The snack area in Nursery provides many opportunities for learning across several areas of the curriculum. Here you can see the children finding out where various foods come from as they help to prepare snack. They love helping to find the different countries on the globe, seeing how far they are from Scotland and how big other countries are compared to ours.
Lots of learning happens in the snack area in Nursery and here you can see the children developing their fine motor skills as they prepare fruit, showing good control to chop safely. They then decided how to set out their snack in a way that looked appealing, be that as a face or a pattern that they created. Finally, as well as enjoying the tasty food that they had prepared, the children took photos of their snack themselves so that they could share their work with others after it was eaten up. Great work all round boys and girls.
Jasmin’s family has been looking at the photos of the castle that the children created:
“This was a fantastic idea, Jasmin really enjoys the role play corner and the different things it transforms in to.”
The children were certainly very involved in the planning and creation of their castle which, of course, makes it very popular.
There is so much learning happens in the snack area and recently the Rainbow Room used this area to focus on tasting different foods and recording their likes and dislikes on a graph, developing the children’s skills in Numeracy and Mathematics as well as Health and Wellbeing. The children tasted a range of fruit and then vegetables to find out the most popular as they recorded their preferred choices then learned how to understand their recordings.
Tucked away in a sheltered part of the garden is our performance area where the children can experiment with music using a range of instruments. They love to work together to create music and then step on the stage for their performance either as a band or individually. Here is a little snapshot of some of their experiences in our outdoor music area.
Click then click again on photos for a clearer view.
Some of the children have been developing their technologies skills as they learned how to safely use a hammer. They certainly experienced challenge as they had to follow instructions to stay safe, have an awareness of risk and show concentration and perseverance with this tricky activity. Hammering the nails into the wood and then positioning the elastic bands on their work developed the children’s motor skills and they experienced another area of technologies when they took their own photos of their work. There was a great sense of achievement after this activity and the children were very enthusiastic to try it again.
An important aspect of learning in Nursery happens in the snack area where children develop a wide range of skills. They develop self-help and social skills as well as fine motor control and independence when helping to prepare their own snack. Literacy and Numeracy are also part of the experience through talking and listening or, for example, counting the number of pieces of fruit on their plates. We hope that you enjoy these first photos of some of the children enjoying their learning in the snack area.
