Successful Learners – Page 47 – Hecklegirth Nursery

Play Dough Cooks

There was lots of learning happening recently when the children helped to make play dough. They were learning the importance of reading a recipe so that they know how much of each ingredient to use – there was good number recognition by some for this part of the task. Then they took turns to help count the number of spoons of each ingredient as they put it into the bowl and there was careful measuring to make sure we had just the right amount of water. As you can see, there was lots of super concentration and it was no surprise that the play dough turned out well. It’s true what they say that some things seem better when you make them yourselves and this play dough was certainly very popular so well done to the counters and mixers.

Hard Workers

Two families have left comments on photos of the children looking busy in Nursery:

“Noah looks very busy with his graph!”

The children certainly took the graph seriously as they knew that this would help to decide what plants we bought. Good concentration in that photo Noah!

“Good girl Ameila, she learning how to clean.”

Lots of children worked hard and made a good job of preparing the wood for the fairy garden. Let’s hope that the fairies like their new home once it’s ready for them.

Happy Learning

Two of our families have left comments on our recent posts. Enid’s family liked our first graph:

“What a fun way to learn about graphs, fantastic idea.”

We wanted to make sure that everyone had a chance to give their opinion on the plants we chose and the children were able to see clearly from the graph which choices were most popular so hopefully their first experience of a graph was meaningful for them.

Vinnie seems to be really proud of his recent certificate:

“Vinnie was so happy with his reward he showed it to everyone who came to the house…..even the milk man!”

We love that story Vinnie. I hope the milkman was as impressed as we are with your achievement.

Our First Graph

Once we had the planter decorated by our keen painters, we had to decide which type of plants we wanted for our garden. We talked about different scents and colours to help us make our decisions. Some thought a lavender plant would smell nice while others preferred mint or orange and lemon. To make it fair we all voted for which type of plants we would like in our new planter. Everyone contributed to our graph and we learned how to work out the winner from looking at the height of the columns. Super work boys and girls! If you would like to see their graph we have put it on the entrance door to Nursery.

Happy Days

Callum’s family enjoyed the recent photo of him investigating in Nursery:

“Aw when I saw this I was laughing. What a boy! Good to see that he’s learning.”

Ava’s family has been looking at our photos too:

“Ava loves drawing it’s her favourite thing to do at nursery. She likes to draw rainbows and butterflies 😊 “

Thank you both for taking the time to leave a comment. There’s no doubt that Ava spends a lot of happy times at the drawing table. It’s lovely to see how confident the children are becoming in their new environment already.

Children At Play

Thank you very much to all those who have returned their forms. We really appreciate it and will be able to share more photos here once we have the blog permission forms.
Please remember to check your child’s tray on a daily basis for their work and our letters. A copy of our first newsletter is there now so it would be great if you could collect it the next time you are in Nursery. We would like to share a few more photos of the children at play.

Morning Outdoor Learning

The morning children have been as enthusiastic in their outdoor learning as the afternoon children so we would like to share a little gallery of their play in the summer sunshine.

Outdoor Learning

“Building the Curriculum 2: active learning in the early years, 2007” says ‘All aspects of the curriculum can be explored outside. The sights, sounds and smells of the outdoors, the closeness to nature, the excitement most children feel, the wonder and curiosity all serve to enhance and stimulate learning.’

Our outdoor area is certainly popular all year round, regardless of weather, but when the sunshine comes out, nearly all children choose to spend most of their Nursery session in the garden exploring a range of activities. As you can see, the children demonstrate great imagination and teamwork in the play they create. Dens are built, gross and fine motor skills are developed, a fantastic range of meals is created in the mud kitchen and, of course, there are always jobs to do like watering the plants and painting the house. We hope that you enjoy this little gallery of the afternoon children busy learning in the summer sunshine.

Butterfly News

Thom’s family had an interesting update on the butterflies that we released:

“Thom was very excited to see the butterfly still sitting on the flower when we returned to pick up Sophie at 3pm!”

That is surprising. Just as well we decided to go back in to Nursery after a while or we could have had a long wait. Perhaps they were just very happy where we left them?