Successful Learners – Page 21 – Hecklegirth Nursery

Food Portraits

Our young artists in the Rainbow Room have been looking at the work of the artist Arcimboldo who was famous for creating imaginative portraits made of food amongst other things. The children have shown imagination and creativity to make their own portraits on slate in the style of Arcimboldo and developed their technology skills by taking photos of their work themselves. We loved their artwork and photography so much that we have made a display in the school for everyone to see. Great work children!

Word Of The Week

In the Rainbow Room ‘reflect’ is “Word of the Week” whereas the Raindrop Room is focussing on the word ‘team’.

Science Wizards

Our children have become very interested in doing experiments this year and one of their favourites was when they were science wizards, making a fizzy potion. They listened carefully to instructions as they measured vinegar and washing-up liquid in to a jar. As with all good potion mixing, they children had to give it a good stir and a few magic words before adding baking soda to produce an exciting fizzy fountain. As you can imagine, we had to try this out several times and used different quantities of ingredients each time, including some food colouring, to observe what happened. Science is such fun!

Growing Seeds

As we begun our learning about growing and to talk about the changing seasons at the end of last term, the children in the Rainbow Room planted cress seeds. They showed great care with their seeds and many showed good knowledge of what they needed to do to make them grow. The good thing about cress is that it grows very quickly so we soon had a little box to taste with our snack and, of course, we all know that things you make yourself always taste better.

Planting Seeds

Before the holidays the Raindrop Room planted sunflower seeds and learned about how to help them grow. The seeds seemed to germinate very quickly and have all gone home now in their little pots so we look forward to hearing about some super sunflowers or even seeing a photo once they begin to grow. Fingers crossed that they can be planted outdoors and turn into a lovely burst of sunshine in a corner of everyone’s garden.

We Can Make Plastic

We have some enthusiastic little scientists in our Nursery who are always keen to try out experiments, making predictions about what might happen and observing the results of their experiments.
Here some of the children were making plastic. They warmed milk in the microwave, added vinegar and stirred the ingredients until they started to clump together. The children then strained their material and used paper towels to press the liquid out and discovered that they had made plastic. This experiment caused great excitement and was tried out several times to check that it worked each time. The children even moulded the plastic into different shapes which successfully held together. As well as developing their understanding of science, the children developed their numeracy skills as they measured ingredients and read numbers to set the dial on the microwave. Everyone loved this fun learning experience.

Bubble Making

We all know that most children love bubbles but to make your own is great fun too. These children in the Raindrop Room experimented with different quantities of materials to produce their own bubbles using warm water and a bar of soap which was grated. Once it was whizzed up by an adult and mixed by the children, their ingredients turned into thick foam full of bubbles which provided endless fun.

Measuring Sugar

Just as the children in the Rainbow Room learned about the food triangle and which type of foods help to keep us healthy, those in the Raindrop Room investigated how much sugar was in different types of foods. They found out about checking packaging to check which ingredients are in food and they then measured the amount of sugar there was in each example that they looked at. Once the sugar was on the scales, the children seemed quite surprised at the amount each item had and they were able to compare different foods. Hopefully the children are now beginning to develop an understanding that sugar is not only in sweets as they tended to believe initially.

Build A Nest

At the end of term the children in the Rainbow Room were learning about birds building nests and we looked at photos of what they use to build homes for their new chicks. Some children then used a range of materials to create their own little decorative nests to take home for the Easter holiday. As you can see, each nest that was produced was individual and unique to each child. Great work boys and girls – we are sure that they must look lovely in your homes.

More Tractor Fun

As promised, here are photos of some of the children from the Rainbow Room enjoying the tractor visit kindly arranged by Fern’s Daddy. What happy smiles everyone had that day!