The children have been enjoying spending time in the garden. The children have been looking after their daffodils that they planted in winter as they have started to blossom for spring. All of the children have taken it in turns to water our flowers with the watering cans to help them grow nice and strong for spring.

We have been loving this nice weather in the willow room ☀️. We have enjoyed having snack outside which the children were excited about as it is a change in our routine. It is making us super excited for the nice sunny weather.

We have been doing lots of activities in the garden. The children have enjoyed some water play in the sun. They have enjoyed playing with the boats and the ducks as they have used their imagination to create some pretend play with the toys. The children have also shown a great interest in the bikes. This is helping the children develop their motor skills as they are learning to move their legs a certain way and have even started to use the pedals. This is great for their physical development😀.

As part of our monthly planning the children have started to learn a little more about emotions and how we should treat our friends in nursery. The children are learning to recognise and copy some common emotions such as happy, sad, angry and tired. The children decided what faces they wanted to copy and were encourage to show their emotions. “I angry”- Child K. “Meee happy”- Child KJ.
The children are forming great relationships and are learning how to show empathy and be kind to each other. This helps their social and emotional development especially whilst learning to regulate these emotions 😀😡😞😴.

The children have been practicing their scissor skills this week. They have been encouraged to snip into paper, with some children using 2 hands to control the scissors and some now able to use 1 hand. They also cut up some old daffodil flowers to experience a different texture and purpose for the scissors. This is something you can do at home using safety scissors. You could encourage your child to snip at old newspapers or magazines or even leaflets.

The children have also been dressing up this week. We have supplied the role play corner with fabric material to encourage the children to use their imagination when playing. They have showed enjoyment of wearing various hats and some even attempted to walk in heels!

This week we have been exploring loose parts. We have been filling and emptying various containers such as teapots, bowls, baskets and purses. We have also been building towers with corks and transporting items around the room.

This week we have been exploring playdough using different shaped pasta. The children used the pasta to decorate the playdough by pressing it into to its soft texture and also used it to mark make by printing the shape into the dough. Using small pasta in play is a great way to develop a child’s fine motor skills as picking up and handling the small pieces help to strengthen the muscles in their fingers and hands, something required for writing skills later on.

Click on the link below to watch out pasta play.

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WORLD BOOK DAY

We celebrated World Book Day by exploring The Gruffalo story. This was read to the children every day this week and was explored in the tuff tray using woodland foliage and Gruffalo stone characters. This allowed the children to reenact parts of the story to help then to deepen their understanding of the book.

Pictures of the animals from the story were also placed around the room for the children to discover. Please click on the link below.

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We also made Gruffalo footprints using using paint and wellies!

And we even made some Gruffalo Crumble!

*No Gruffalos were harmed to make this crumble.

The children have been playing with some musical instruments this week to contribute to our planning. The children enjoyed making sounds with the different instruments whilst developing their social skills by sharing the instruments with each other. They learned that each instrument makes a different noise which helped them understand how to use each one.

The children were also making scones this week. Each child had a turn at measuring the ingredients to make our scone mixture. We then rubbed the mixture to make breadcrumbs and then put them into into balls, ready for the oven. The children were then given the choice to eat their scones at snack time. The children learned to be patient, take turns and they also learned how to follow good hygiene practice.

Have a lovely weekend everyone from the Willow Room😀

This week the children have been exploring the soft playdough with the hard texture of uncooked pasta. Many of the children inserted the pasta into the dough and started to sing or hum to the tune of “happy birthday”, lifting their creations to the ladies for them to “blow out the candles”.

Watch the video below to hear “Happy Birthday” being sung

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The children were also participating in vigorous energetic play inside while it was very windy outside. They used pom-poms as props while they danced to high tempo music. Everyone was very tired after getting all that energy out of their bodies! Please watch the video below:

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This week we have been making some Valentines sticky pictures to be displayed by our friends at Dunelm.

We have also continued to explore mark making. We have been drawing on foil using dry wipe pens. The children enjoyed drawing and then making the pen disappear with their fingers. Magic!

This week we have started to explore numeracy songs such as “3 Little Monkeys”, “3 Little Ducks” and “Green Speckled Frogs” to support the children with their emerging counting skills. The children have been learning the songs using stick puppets and will move on to act the the songs and their numeracy concepts out.

We have also started focusing on different schematic play opportunities within the room. The children have been using loose parts objects such as corks, curtain rings and shells to put into different sized containers. This will help develop their understanding of volume and size.  The children have also been participating in rotational schematic play using different sized and shaped balls. They have been rolling the large, small and spiked balls to explore how far and fast they go, as well as the direction they take.

With Burns day fast approaching on 25th January we will be listening to some Scottish music and Poems over the next few weeks within the ECC.   We have chosen a well known Scottish poem The Wee Rid Motor 🚘 that you can help your child to learn at home if they wish.

You can send us a wee short video of them reciting the poem and as part of our Burns Day Celebrations the children that wish to will have an opportunity to recite the poem for their friends within the ECC.

13-12-21 to 23-12-21

Christmas fun in the Willow room …

We made a reindeer and sleigh role play and had great fun pretending to be Santa

Snow world discovery trays

Christmas jumper collage

Christmas tree painting

Baking activities

Party time, games, treats and dancing.

Wishing all the children and families of the Willow room a wonderful  Christmas and Happy New Year

love from Lorna, Sarah, Rebecca and Heather

week beginning 6/12/21

We have started to get into the festive spirit this week with lots of Christmas related activities.

The children have been exploring tradition Christmas smells with play dough scented with ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg. They explored the dough with Christmas cookie cutters, some cinnamon sticks and dried oranges.

The children also explored winter typical weather. We had snow in the sensory tray which had some Arctic animals to play with.

We also had our Christmas parties this week. The children danced to Christmas songs, played party games, had a special snack and even had a snowball fight!