Construction indoors has been extremely popular big towers turned into giant towers.

Outdoors saw tea parties, with real coffee, tea and hot chocolate.

 

The children became extremely excited after finding a number of insects in the nursery garden.

”I’m going to call her flower”

A little ladybug landed on a little ladybug group child.

”I’m collecting slaters…. I have 10”

Under the log slices were the best bug houses.

Clay modelling with sticks, stones and leaves proved popular.

We reused the left over sweetcorn from lunch. There was lots of conversations, filling and emptying and sweetcorn castles.

Margaret got her daily exercise in with many many wheelbarrow rides.

Duck duck goose before lunch

“Chilling in the sunshine”

Mark making with chalk

Painting curtains

Boys designing their house before the big build

Constructing tracks for cars. “We need to make a bridge”

The green frogs and red ladybug groups had the opportunity to visit and explore our local woodland area.

Firstly the children helped to set up a safe boundary before we could begin exploring. The big reg Xs give a clear visual to stop anyone going outside of the safe boundaries.

Marion explained what the possible risks are while up in the woods, broken glass, dog poo, jaggy nettles and brambles. The children are aware of how to keep them selves safe.

The children experienced:

Den building

Hammock chilling

Bug hunting

Bird watching

Picnic time

 

Kirsty brought in treasures from her weekend walks on the beach. The children cleaned the shells and added them to our loose parts area.

Some of the children have shown an interest in construction

The children used wooden blocks and planks to explore trajectory. They catapulted poms poms and foam bricks. They used team work to work out the design problems.

Child M named the contraption “the mega super smash up”

Getting photograph ready. Time to get our pose on.

There is always time for a game of dominoes. The children were learning to subitise : recognise a pattern of numbers without counting the dots.

 

Technology to help us draw

Writing our names.

 

 

 

 

 

The Orangutans and the Lions explored the woods

The orangutans modelled with clay

Investigating with magnifying glasses.

Den building

Hammock fun

We made clay Tree trolls

 

Tea party preparations 🧁 

Most of the children helped to make vanilla cupcakes with Margaret in preparation for our student Teri’s last day in the chestnut room.

There was even a clean up crew on hand happy to help wipe down surfaces, wash and dry the dishes used.

Spontaneous Science

Some of the children noticed that a piece of our very popular Aloe Vera plant had broken. Instead of throwing it away we placed it onto our light box to explore its properties clearly. Magnifying glasses helped to see each part in more detail. 

“It’s really cool”

The shed salon ✂️ 💅

This week our shed spontaneously became a hair, nail and makeup salon. Firstly the children used sticks and drawing pencils as pretend styling tools. As their interest grew we added real salon tools; hairdryer, straighteners, brushes, combs, mirrors and accessories.

The children’s use of accurate language and correct hand movements with each tool demonstrates the children’s extensive knowledge of the role of a hairdresser/beautician.

“Ssshhh was a hair”

Out of the salon the beautification continued into planting.

Exploring the differences in size, shape and colour between seeds.

Counting seeds and being gentle.

Bring on the spring sunshine to help our seeds grow big and strong.

Tea party time

 

C’mon and join the conga

We are going to be planting from seed over the next few weeks.  We hope to plant some flowers, herbs and vegetables that the children can help to care for and watch grow from a seed to something edible,something we can use in our play daily or something we can enjoy looking at that will help to brighten or garden!

To help develop our garden area any donations of seeds, plants, pots/planters, gardening tools or compost would be greatly appreciated or anything else you have lying around that you think would help to enhance our garden area for the children.

Also please could you save any yoghurt pots and send them our way for us to plant our sunflowers.

Thankyou in advance

Team Chestnut!

 

 

Catriona our modern apprentice took small groups of children for some football drill practice. They had to be good listeners and follow Coach Catriona’s rules.

2 of the boys recognised letters from within their names on the outside of the football

Catriona gave simple instructions. The children listened well and were able to dribble their ball and place it on a specific coloured cone when instructed to do so.

“Good footballer pose”

 

“Balance your ball on the cone”

“little kicks”

Scoring goals

listening to instructions

“can we do it again”

“That was fun”

“I’m good at football” I’m Messi”

 

More play dough making

We had lots of help preparing snack

The children took care using a knife to cut the bananas for their friends.

Feelings wheels

The children assembled their own emotion wheel. They had the opportunity to talk about each colour monster and associated feelings. The children can now access their wheels anytime throughout the session.

 

 

Loose parts indoors 

The children have been accessing our newly developed loose part area regularly. They have also helped tidy every item correctly. This allows the children experiences to sort and match items within a variety of size, shape, colour or by purpose.

Caring for our newly planted Heathers.

There was lots of buzz around the mobile phones and laptops. Some of the boys and girls  took telephone food order. “Can I have macaroni “ “do you have chocolate cake “

Spider hunting

We found lots of tiny baby spiders, then one of the boys found a big spider. Discussion turned to families, brothers, sisters and Mums and Dads. “This is the daddy spider and they are his babies”

Story telling

The children have been independently accessing our library and story corner. They have read to each other quietly.

Supporting our friends 

Some of the older preschool children helped our smaller children build their confidence balancing on the logs.

Outdoors was all about balancing, jumping and stepping. Building confidence and strength navigating large obstacles. The new logs have proven popular.

Loose part play has involved using large stones, the children independently named the rocks and called them baby rocks.

 

World Book Day

World book day for the chestnut room was all about pants. 

We began our day with Claire Freedman’s Aliens in underpants save the world. Conversation and interest soon turned to what our favourite pants would look like.

The children designed their very own underpants. We displayed them proudly from the ceiling in the playroom.

There was lots of discussions over pattern, colour and style. There was also an interest in space and planets.

 

step by step play dough station 

There was a buzz of excitement around our newly developed play dough station. The children now have the opportunity to make their own play dough.

Flour first

Then salt

Mixing time 

Add paint water and mix

Play with our play dough

wash our bowls