Here are more of our bakers busy making gingerbread just before Christmas. The children are becoming increasingly confident to be involved in food technology as their knowledge and understanding of the processes and health and hygiene rules develop.
With a small group of Rainbow Room children showing an interest in volcanoes, they decided to investigate a little more to see what they could find out. We looked at videos and photos of volcanoes on the internet and visited the school library to see what we could find out. The children who did the initial investigation were then able to share their findings with the rest of the children and soon lots of them were interested, even playing imaginatively in the construction area to depict an erupting volcano.
The next stage of learning was to move outdoors to create volcanoes using papier mache and then, once dry, they were painted to make them look more realistic. By this time nearly all the children were involved and excited about their volcanoes so we decided it was time to create our own volcanoes based on two different sets of materials (Coke and mints/vinegar and bicarbonate of soda). The children showed themselves to be super scientists, observing and comparing closely the difference between each eruption. The experiment was carried out several times and everyone was very excited to discuss their observations.
Once the experiment was completed, the children used pooters to empty their volcanoes and they turned their papier mache creation into a snowy village for their animals and Duplo figures so the children’s hard work was put to good use. It can be surprising what develops from a few children asking about a volcano but we think that these children led a super learning activity.
Baking is always a very popular activity and these children did a great job of practising their chopping, measuring, counting and mixing skills to make an apple cake. The smell was wonderful and everyone who tried it said that it tasted delicious too. As you can see, some of the children further developed their skills in Technologies by taking photos of their work. Â Great effort everyone!
When Yvonne and Louise, from the Health Improvement Team, visited us last month for an informal taster and information session, they left some healthy recipes for us to try so this little group decided to experiment with the flapjack recipe.
Careful counting and measuring help to develop the children’s skills in Numeracy and Mathematics while their discussions, observation and use of the oven develop learning in Sciences and Technologies. The end result of some fun learning was a delicious smell which was matched by a gorgeous tasting session. Thank you to Yvonne and Louise for a super healthy recipe. This is one that we may use again.
The Rainbow Room children were recently lucky to enjoy the fun science activities that those in the Raindrop Room had experienced. Miss Ash, a Science teacher at Annan Academy, brought her STEM Ambassadors to support our children to engage in a range of experiments. It was unfortunate that so many missed this opportunity, due to illness, but those who participated had a fun learning experience and were encouraged to understand that they too can be scientists.
We would like to say a huge ‘thank you’ to Miss Ash and her STEM Ambassadors for their time and patience. We hope that we can continue to enjoy shared experiences in the future to inspire our children to see science a possible future career.
Our children have become increasingly independent in the preparation of their own snack and are developing so many skills in this area. Recently they were able to make their own choices of topping for a mini pizza which was such a fun learning activity and provided a very tasty, warm snack on a chilly day. As you can imagine, the smell in Nursery was delicious and everybody was very keen to take part in the snack preparation.
The children in the Rainbow Room have been making chocolate shapes to sell as a little enterprise project. Initially a group of children went shopping to buy the ingredients, helping them to understand the purpose of money. Back at Nursery, discussions about what would happen when we put chocolate in the microwave then the fridge provided the opportunity to develop the children’s science learning and they also used numeracy skills to count the squares of chocolate when preparing their chocolate shapes. Of course there was also the opportunity for a little tasting as some of the children enjoyed the age old tradition of “cleaning” the bowl at the end.
We can certainly recommend the chocolate shapes to anyone who has a little money to spare – at 50p a bag we think that they are a tasty buy so watch out for the children’s basket of shapes in Nursery.
Miss Ash, a Science teacher at Annan Academy, recently brought Senior and Junior STEM Ambassadors to engage our children in a range of fun activities. This opportunity allowed our pupils to access different people from the community and to see for themselves that both boys and girls can become scientists. Some of the secondary pupils had been in our Nursery themselves as pupils so it was helpful to build an understanding that this can be an aspiration for them all in the future.
As you can see, everyone loved participating in all the experiments so we would like to say a huge ‘thank you’ to Miss Ash and all her STEM Ambassadors for their time and patience. We are looking forward to your return visit soon when you will be visiting the Rainbow Room where you will no doubt inspire those children to develop their learning in this area.
A very exciting ice bowl arrived in the Rainbow Room this week and there was lots of discussion and interest in it when it appeared on a table. Photos were taken by the children and they examined it closely to see what was frozen inside it. We captured some of the children’s comments as they felt the ice bowl and talked about how it was created. This activity certainly engaged the children to think about freezing and melting.
Euan: it’s water turned into ice.
Maja: there’s a pompom.
Danielle: there’s a star. It’s melting now.
Jackson: it’s hot inside. That’s why it’s melting.
Zack: ice is water.
Berrie: there’s Lego in the ice. It will take time to get it because it’s frozen.
Tom: you use ice for drinks, it’s made of water.
Arthur: ice is water that’s frozen. There’s stuff inside so we can see if it sticks.
Isaac: it’s cold. It’s made of water.
Jackson: it’s smaller when we put water on it – it’s melting.
Emmie: it’s ice. Water has to be put in the cold to make it.
Children are often intrigued by the minibeasts they see outdoors as part of their play and finding a worm can arouse great curiosity. Some of the children in the Rainbow Room talked about where worms live and how we could find them. They wondered how many might live in their garden so decided to do a little survey. As you can see, they were enthusiastic to do lots of digging to find worms and developed their Maths skills by measuring them to find the shortest and longest and then counted them each day to record on a graph. What great little investigative scientists they were and it was great to see how gentle all the children were with the worms that they found.
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