Week beginning 13.03.23

This week the children have been exploring a range of activities relating to STEM in celebration of STEM week 🧪 🖥 👷‍♀️ 🧮

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science,_technology,_engineering,_and_mathematics

Exploring soil 🍃

As we have been focusing on the Jungle, we began looking at the jungle floor layers and their purpose. We looked at the soil specifically and how it give plant life nutrients and then we created our own terrariums to show the different layers and how it looks. We created these using various glass containers. We will be looking at these on a daily basis to discover if there is any insect life or new plant life 🐜 

Science!
The name comes from the Latin terra (“earth”) + atrium (a place or receptacle) Like an aquarium for plants and earth instead of fish and water.

We later planted some vegetable seeds and herbs in the garden after really enjoying our terrarium building 🌱

We also had a special visitor in the ECC this week. Dr Kelly and Miss Thomson are parents within the centre who specialises in science. They prepared a fantastic experience for us which included learning about bugs/insects. We explored mean bugs and superhero bugs, to understand which bugs help us and which we should avoid. We got to use special microscopes from the university and explored different samples. The children throughly enjoyed this experience and we thank Dr Kelly and Miss Thomson for their involvement and help in STEM week ⭐️ 

We ended our week with our STEM awards ceremony where everyone was recognised for their part during the week 👏 💫

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In relation to STEM week, everyone had the opportunity to participate in our outdoor challenge 🧱 The children were set the challenge of using multiple resources to create a tower of height. They then had to use various measuring objects to calculate who had created the tallest tower before recording their findings on our whiteboard. The children discussed numbers, sizes and ordering of numerals. The winner of the highest tower was awarded a special certificate for their achievement 😊

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend and take care,

Lisa 😊

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This week the children have been exploring a range of celebrations and traditions. On Monday we celebrated Chinese New Year by using our ICT promethean board to investigate the cultural celebration and it’s purpose 🐉 The children were provided with opportunities to explore some other traditions including a dragon dance/parade and making Chinese lanterns in our creative area      🔥🕯️

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 𝗕𝘂𝗿𝗻’𝘀 𝗗𝗮𝘆 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

All children have been practicing to learn and recite our burns poem ‘Ma hawf sookit sweetie’ 🍭Well done to you all for your hard work and effort 💫 We celebrated Robert Burns day on 25th January by listening to some Scottish music and exploring Scotland flags in our creative area. We also had the opportunity to taste some Haggis, neeps and tatties at lunch with a surprise visit from ‘Supertattie’ himself 🙊🦸🏼‍♂️🥔

𝔹𝕚𝕣𝕕 𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 🐦

27.01.23 is the first day of RSPB National bird watch weekend 🦅 Some children enjoyed looking for birds using binoculars in our garden and the surrounding areas. Others also created their own binoculars to explore and investigate. The children used a tally chart to record their sightings and will be exploring this further next week.

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Outdoors this week the children have been exploring the Artic and other habitats 🧊 We have been investigating the animals that live within the artic and the effects of climate change and how this may affect their living conditions 🐻‍❄️ The children have been using ICT and technology to research and find out information relating to this.

Have a great weekend and take care,

Lisa 😊

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This week the children have been enjoying some new loose parts materials in the home corner 🪵🪨🧱 They have been inventing recipes using the resources available, helping to develop creative skills by encouraging use of imagination and experimenting freely.

Some of the children also enjoyed creating ‘puffy’ paint monsters 😈

How do you make puffy paint? 🎨  Please find below a link with an example of how to make puffy paint at home ✨

How to Make Puffy Paint

𝕊𝕋𝔼𝕄

(𝕊cience, 𝕋echnology, 𝔼ngineering, 𝕄athematics)

All children were provided with the opportunity to participate in two STEM experiments this week 🧪 We discussed the autumnal changes that is currently taking place, including the changes in leaves as well as the changes in weather. The children explored a wind tunnel experiment and a rain cloud experiment and enjoyed the process 🔬

We have also been exploring ICT this week and using the iPad to explore online activities beneficial to children’s learning 💻

Links to the curriculum;

Science, Technology, Expressive Arts

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Outdoors this week the children have been discussing the changes between day and night ☀️ 🌚 As the clocks changed last week, we have been discussing the time sequences that take place throughout the day and events that we link to our wider world 🌎

Some children have been exploring our outdoor water tray where they have been measuring using funnels to create Dragons brew 🐉 This encourages development of imaginative skills through story telling and role play.

Links to the curriculum;

Expressive arts, Science, Maths and Numeracy

Have a lovely weekend and if you are celebrating bonfire night please stay safe 🔥

ℕ𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕞𝕓𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕠𝕡 𝕥𝕚𝕡 🗯

🐻 🧸
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As it is the 1st of November, it’s time to introduce our rhyme of the month. This month our rhyme is ‘Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear’ 🧸

Can you please practice the rhyme at home 🏡

We would love for you to send us a video of you practicing with the actions 🕺Why not include your favourite teddy bear ☺️🧸 🕺

Please ask a grown up to video your rhyme and email it to: lisa.mathieson@eastayrshire.org.uk

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Well done to everyone that took part in last month’s challenge and created a rain shaker ☔️ They we’re all fantastic 👏

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Indoors this week, the children have been super busy learning all about farm animals 🐱🐹🐰🐴🐖🐓🐑 They have enjoyed exploring our wooden farm resources & animals and discussed their favourite animals throughout 🤎

We have also been using books and the promethean board to investigate where milk comes from as well as fruit and vegetables 🥗🥕🌽

All children have been provided with multiple opportunities to explore shapes and numbers throughout the play room and have been developing their imaginations through small world play  🔵🟥

*Our library also started back up this week 📚 Please return all books on a Wednesday to allow us rotation on a weekly basis 📖

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Outdoors this week the children have been following a new photo stick system 📸 The system allows the children to find their picture stick and take it outdoors, helping to keep themselves safe. This allows staff to monitor which children are indoors and outdoors, which is valuable in the event of an emergency.

Most children have also been exploring our new sand pit 👏 This has been a great success and all children have loved being creative with the sand and it’s resources. Some children have also helped to revamp our outdoor surroundings as we are continually trying to better our resources and the area 🌿🍂

Have a great weekend 🤩