Some of the children in the Rainbow Room have been investigating the inside of a pumpkin.
Leigha: it feels like slime. The seeds are sticky.
Danielle: it’s cold.
Emmie: it’s soft.
Isaac: there’s so much inside there.
Arthur: the seeds turn into pumpkins.
Euan: it feels like seaweed.
Lily: it’s soft.
Alex: it feels like slime.
One of the most popular experiments that the Rainbow Room children have enjoyed has been making slime and, in the true spirit of experiments, their efforts did not always work. They listened well to follow instructions then made their observations once they started playing with the slime and realised that they needed to make changes. Sometimes it was too runny, other times too crumbly so they tried a few different methods before they were happy with the end result. This was a great learning experience and the children proved themselves to be good little problem solvers as they tried to make their experiment work.
Learning to follow instructions, such as counting and measuring ingredients, is essential when following a recipe, and therefore baking helps to develop the children’s “Numeracy and Mathematics” and listening skills while prediction, observation and discussion about the potential changes to their ingredients, as they are mixed and baked, develop their learning in “Sciences”. These happy little bakers also learned to use the mixer and set the oven to develop their understanding in “Technologies” so this baking session provided so much learning in one activity. Best of all, of course, is the all important tasting session once the cakes are baked.
The children love simple science experiments and are learning to make predictions about what will happen then observe closely to see if they were correct. Here a small group carried out their experiment independently, putting raisins in lemonade to see if they would sink or float and were very excited to observe the changes they saw. As the bubbles of carbon dioxide stuck to the raisins they floated in the lemonade and the children were amazed when the some of the bubbles popped, causing the raisins to sink. They tested this little experiment several times before all the gas was used up and wanted to try out this experiment over and over again. What great little scientists they are!
The Rainbow Room visited the school nature area several times towards the end of term as part of their interest in animals as well as the changing season. As you can see, they all enjoyed listening to “Rumble in the Jungle” and then set off on a hunt to search for animals in the nature area which was very exciting.
After a tasty outdoor snack, the children talked about the signs around them that Autumn was on its way and gathered some evidence which they all shared in their discussion together about their findings.
Once back in Nursery, some of the children made super art work from their finds in our outdoor area which looks great displayed in the mud kitchen hanging from the shelter. Great teamwork and enthusiasm were evident from these children in this activity and we think that they must certainly have gone home tired that day.
STEM stands for science, technologies, engineering and mathematics which are all areas of learning in Nursery. If you take a look at the STEM displays in each room, you can get a taste of all the different activities the children enjoy which are developing their knowledge, understanding, curiosity, creativity and enthusiasm in these areas.
To help you understand how you can support these areas of your child’s learning at home, we have added a link on the right under “Useful Reading: STEM for Parents”. Click on the link for information from Education Scotland and have fun learning with your child.
Just like the children in the Rainbow Room, those in the Raindrop Room recently used the machine that uses UV light to show up germs. Although the children thought that they had washed their hands thoroughly they were amazed to see evidence to the contrary when putting their hands under the ‘magical’ light of our germ busting machine.
Sophie: I missed my nails. The light shows glitter bug gel.
Tilly: I need to wash my hands again. It’s still between my fingers.
Skye D.: I missed my wrist.
Paisley: I used soap to wash my hands. I missed the back.
Skye B.: the glitter’s on my hands. I need to wash my hands again.
Leighanna: I missed a bit so am going to try again. Wash your germs away or you’ll get ill.
Lola: it’s on my fingers. It’s not sore using that magic machine.
Noah: you can’t see all germs. I’ve missed my hand here.
Barclay: I’ve missed my finger.
Kara: I’ve cleaned them. I’ve washed the germs.
After learning about how to wash their hands properly, the children in the Rainbow Room were able to check how well they had cleaned them by looking at their hands in a special machine that uses UV light to show up germs. As you can imagine, some of the children were surprised that they still had germs showing up on their hands so hopefully everyone will be making an extra super effort with their hand washing from now on.
The children in the Raindrop Room were learning about the changing state of solids and liquids recently when they made jelly. As they had strawberry jelly, they decided to add some tasty strawberries to their little snack and, as you can see, the children who chopped them showed great concentration and super fine motor control when using the chopping knives. I wonder if we have any chefs of the future here?
Tilly’s family has been looking at the photos of the children making cookies:
“Wow! This looks lots of fun and great to see such wonderful team work going on! Tilly LOVES to bake! I hope the cookies tasted as good as they looked!”
The children did work well together and were very patient when taking turns. The cookies certainly went down very well once cooked so everyone must have made a job of them.
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