It seems like a long time ago but, after caring for them for a week, we recently released the butterflies that the children had observed so closely from being little caterpillars. Although they did not seem keen to leave us, Miss Kerr gave them a helping hand to settle on our willow and flowers in the nature area which gave everyone a chance to have a close look at our little butterflies before we waved them goodbye. I wonder where they are now?
Over the past few weeks we have followed the progress of our caterpillars as they have grown and formed their cocoons then finally we saw our beautiful butterflies emerging in their nets this week. It has been an exciting process for the children and some were ready with their cameras to capture images of the newly hatched butterflies who seem to be enjoying the oranges and sugary water we are feeding them. There is certainly no shortage of concerned children keeping a check on them every day.
A very interesting parcel appeared in Nursery recently and the children were excited to find that some little caterpillars had arrived to spend time with us. As we were already learning about life cycles, most of them have made good predictions about what might happen to our little visitors. We had a good look at them when they arrived and the children have been keen to follow their progress, checking their size most days. Everyone is looking forward to the next stage happening soon as they have grown quite big.
As we arrived back on the first day of term, about to learn about the signs of winter, the weather was kind enough to provide hard, frozen ground and lumps of ice in the Nursery garden. Those playing outdoors were very excited with their frozen finds which prompted great discussion about what would happen if we brought the ice indoors. There was no need to wait today for our ice cubes to form in the freezer for our indoor tray, as these super scientists brought their lumps of ice indoors to see if their predictions were true. Thank you Mr. Jack Frost for providing us with a great learning opportunity and to these boys and girls for super teamwork.
Mrs. Mahon, the Primary 2 teacher, enjoyed seeing the photos of the children who visited her classroom to make ice homes:
“Lovely seeing P2 working so nicely with our little visitors! Come back again soon!”
Thank you for inviting us and thank you to the Primary 2 children for looking after our little Nursery group – great teamwork everyone.
When Primary 2 wanted to put ice cube trays in our freezer recently, some of the Nursery children were curious about what they were going to do with them. A group of children was therefore invited to join Primary 2 when they collected the ice cubes for their activity. Our children worked well together with the older children when they talked about freezing and melting as they tried to make homes out of ice.
The children showed that they developed their learning from this visit to Primary 2 as you can see from some of the comments below.
Owen: we needed to build ice homes. You needed to stack them all.
Brogan: we had to get the ice out. It was very cold. It’s made of water.
Noah: we were making homes. They melted and made water.
Ethan: we went to the school. We made ice for them. We were having a feel of it. It felt freezing cold.
Thank you very much Mrs. Mahon and Primary 2 for inviting us to your class. We had lots of fun and were able to tell the other boys and girls what we had learned.
On a recent visit to discuss our outdoor environment, the local ranger brought us a great new base for making a fire and the afternoon boys and girls were the first to try it out. While some were intrigued to watch the ranger setting up the fire, others were busy indoors making bread. Lots of measuring and counting skills were needed to make sure we followed the recipe but, as you can see, our team of chefs showed super concentration to produce their dough. Once it was wound round sticks and the fire was ready, the children helped to cook their bread and they melted marshmallows on sticks which brought lots of discussion about the changes happening to them as they were cooked.
We were very impressed with the children’s super listening skills and discussion about staying safe near fire. They certainly deserved to taste the results of their hard work. Thank you very much to Duncan for his help- the children had a great learning experience.
Click then click again to make the photos bigger.
Some of you have been enjoying the photos of the children planting in their newly decorated planter:
“This looks fun! Gardening is one of Olivia’s favourite things to do with her daddy! She told me she was digging a huge hole to put a plant in!”
“Its nice to see Harvey settling in and enjoying doing some planting 🙂”
The children are taking their responsibilities very seriously and are looking after the new plants with great care so far.
After our graph work to help us choose which type of plants we wanted to buy, our plants arrived and the children tried to guess which scent each one had which was quite a challenge and produced lots of discussion. They helped to plant them all and have added some of the shells and stones that they decorated to the planter. We are encouraging the children to gently rub the leaves then smell their fingers to help work out which smell each plant has. We hope that you agree that this makes a useful addition to the garden. Why not have a walk round the sensory planter with your child and see if you can find the chocolate mint plant or the curry one? As you can see from the photos, one little boy has already been showing his Mummy what he has been busy with. The children are now thinking about how to look after their new plants and are very keen to help with the watering.
The Sunshine Room children have also had discussions about where our butterflies might have gone when we left them on the flowers. We would like to share their thoughts.
Lexi: to a nest.
Neve: to some sandcastles.
Wareeshah: to a flower for food.
Lucy: they might go to a shop – it might be a perfume shop.
Henley: they’ll go to get fruit from Tesco.
Mollie: if it rains a leaf roof would shelter them.
Gabriel: they go to a butterfly house made of flowers.
Harper: to butterfly world.
Tom: somewhere warm. Maybe in a hole in a tree.
Hannah: to a flower garden.
Courtney: in a shed.
Erica: to the beach.
Ellie: to a house.
Aoife: in a tree.
What lovely ideas the Sunshine children had. We hope that our butterflies are safe and happy.
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