Castlehill Early years centre

Wimbledon Week!

It’s been a super busy, fun and active week!

We celebrated the beginning of the Wimbledon tennis tournament by setting up our very own tennis court outside. Lots of gross motor skills on show..

The children have also been developing a mini beast station in the garden. Not only did we find spiders, beetles and worms but we also spotted a frog!

It’s very important to us that we encourage the children to develop their self help skills and our focus this week was supporting them to put on their own puddle suits and wellington boots. We have seen fantastic progress with this!

The children had a brilliant experience baking scones to coincide with our Wimbledon tea party which we held on Friday. The children were exposed to mathematical concepts such as weighing, measuring and counting.

Our tea party was a huge success…The best part was the ice cream and strawberries!

This week we have created a sensory tent to help enhance creativity and imagination.

The sensory tent has helped to create a safe and calming environment that provides sensory experiences, it helps the children to regulate their emotions, focus their attention, and engage their senses.

Our children have loved exploring the different toys, sounds and textures that we have placed within the tent as well as just having an area where they can relax with their friends enjoying stories and songs in a cosy environment.

The children have been showing an interest in posting (enveloping schema) recently. We created our own post box to extend this experience. The children then used paper and pencils to write or make marks on their own letters before posting them into the post box.

This week in the Art area we have been exploring shapes.

We have been using paint and collage to fill in the shape outlines of squares, circles, rectangles and triangles.

We have also looked at learning about new shapes such as hearts, stars and some trickier ones such as octagons and hexagons.

We have been working hard practicing matching the shapes to their shadowed backgrounds.

This week in the house corner, the children have been exploring our new layout.

The children have enjoyed using our playdough to bake cakes and cookies. We have been feeding our babies and pushing them in our prams around the room, ‘going to the shops’.

The children enjoyed a sensory experience, using orange flavoured jelly and yellow peppers.

Using their senses touch, taste and smell they expressed there thoughts and feelings.

We’ve had a fantastic week being creative in our snack area! 2 very special and exciting experiences for the children to be involved in!

After one of our children came to nursery and told us he had “a mango smoothie for my breakfast” , we started talking about healthy things to eat. We all decided to make our own smoothies at nursery. We made a shopping list of all the healthy fruit we could use “apples, bananas, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries”.

We prepared the fruit by cutting it into pieces and then put them in the smoothie maker “it’s so noisy”.

We also used a cook book to choose something we could make for snack. We made some ‘Sunflower Foccacia bread’. We followed the recipe and prepared the dough then prepared the peppers and tomatoes for the top. We had the bread at snack time and it was YUMMY!!

 

 

In the book corner we have been re-telling popular stories using puppets and other visuals. ‘The Three Little Pigs’ and ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ have been strong favourites. The children enjoyed exploring different characters and portraying different events in their own ways.

This week in our Stem area we have been exploring minibeasts and we decided to create a ‘Worm hotel’ . We used a bottle and filled it with sand and soil. We then went outside and went on a worm hunt! We found lots of worms outside hiding under tyres and logs. We added our worms to the hotel and we are now keeping them in a dark space and bringing them out every couple of days to see what ‘tunnels’ they have been making.

In our Stem area we have also been using some ‘real tools’. The children have been introduced to a screwdriver with screws and a hammer with nails. We used wood cuttings to screw and tap into and the children have been learning about how to stay safe by using gloves and safety goggles as well as holding the tools appropriately. “I can’t wait to tell my mummy you let me use REAL tools”

 

We got super busy with boxes this week. A provocation was set up for the children to explore, including boxes of different sizes and types and baskets with materials of different textures such as ribbons and a large roll of sellotape.

The children were invited to be creative with the materials using their imagination to share thoughts to develop ideas and problem solve ways to connect models . As the week went on children asked for new materials to add to their constructions.

We also celebrated the Coronation of King Charles. The children enjoyed a royal snack of their own choosing and also made crowns! We aim to celebrate as many festivals/special occasions as possible throughout the year to enhance the children’s knowledge of what goes on around the world and this was no exception!

This week we took literacy to the tuff tray.

We put out Duplo and Humpty Dumpty puppets.

This was to encourage the children to retell the nursery rhyme using verbal and non-verbal communication.

The children did show good communication skills, sharing their thoughts and feelings and retelling the nursery rhyme in their own way.

We have been enjoying exploring the loose parts in the garden. We have been using the guttering and wooden planks to construct bridges for our cars to drive down. We have also been exploring different patterns by using our car tyres to make different tracks in the mud and with paint.

We have been exploring spring season. We enjoyed using a variety of leaves, flowers and twigs and different colours of paint to create beautiful pictures. Printmaking allows children to explore visual art while also developing their fine motor skills, hand eye coordination and creativity.

We also created our own little pond in the Panda room using water, paint, leaves, flowers and twigs. We spoke about all the animals who we may find in a pond such as frogs, fish, ducks, etc. Water play can support the development of children’s gross and fine motor skills, hand eye coordination and physical strength through pouring, splashing and squeezing.

In the Art area we have been looking a little closer at patterns. We have play dough stampers that leave spots and striped imprints in the dough, pipe cleaners that allow us to create stripes and buttons that look spotty when grouped together.

We have discovered that spots can be large polka dots or small and dotty, and that stripes can be thick or thin.

We have also spent time looking at the stripy and spotty clothing that we wear and have some on display to help the children identify which is which.

 

This week we have been making egg free cookies. Baking is a great way to help learn some math skills. There is a lot of counting and measuring involved in baking, which allows the children to practice these skills. We did this by counting out the number of ingredients we used or how many spoons of each we needed. Baking helps promote language development, so I talked to the children about what we were doing and I used descriptive words such as sifting, mixing , and whipping to expand their vocabulary. We were also working on our fine motor skills by mixing, kneading, pouring and rolling which helps to develop our control, and strength.

Best of all we had a tasty snack to take home at the end.

The children continue to develop their knowledge and understanding of plants and flowers. We have created a little flower display in our home corner with the children selecting different images using ICT. We then spoke about the different parts of a flower extending our vocabulary Stem, Roots, Petals, Leaves and Seeds. This sparked an interest in exploring different seeds, while having snack we looked at the different sizes and shapes that the seeds can come in. The children then set up their own garden and planted sunflowers and strawberries.

In our curiosity cube we are having a visual stimulus, this large seed has allowed the children to investigate and use their imagination. Children use the post it notes to mark make their thought (with support if needed.) We are excited to learn and research about our mystery item.

 

We have been enjoying the lovely sunshine this week at nursery, and we have had some of our snacks outside like a picnic. We have had a range of juicy fruit and summer berries like strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Throughout the day we have also been drinking lots of water to keep hydrated. We have learnt about how to stay healthy in the sun and how too look after our bodies. We know that it’s important to wear suncream to protect our skin, drink lots of water so we don’t get sore heads, eat lots of fruit to stay healthy and also to get exercise to keep our bodies moving.

The children have been learning a bit about Eid Al-fitr this week by watching some short videos on CBeebies. We have been learning that Eid is celebrated by Muslims at the end of a month of fasting and reflection. People celebrate Eid by spending time with family and friends and decorate their house with tinsel. Muslims greet one another by saying, ‘Eid Mubarak’ which means ‘blessed festival’. The Eid festival is celebrated on the rising of the new moon. The nursery was decorated with tinsel on Friday for Eid. We have been reading a book about Eid with the Mr Men in it called Mr Men Little Miss Happy Eid. The children have been designing their own Henna mehndi patterns on hands drawn on paper.

During snack time, we had lots and lots of oranges so we decided to make some fresh orange juice! The children helped to cut the oranges and then we twisted and squeezed the oranges on the juicer. We needed to twist and squeeze LOTS of oranges but when we were finished we tasted our delicious orange juice and it was “very sweet” and “it makes my cheeks tickle”.

In the garden this week we found a ladybird which led to great discussions about ladybirds. We spoke about being very gentle with the ladybird. We found a book about ladybirds which told us what ladybirds eat and how many legs they have. The ladybird fell onto the ground and so it didn’t get squashed one child gently held the ladybird and put it into the planter for safety.

Inside I put on a ladybird game with numbers on top marks for the children to play, where they took turns in matching the ladybird with the correct number of spots to the correct number of the leaf.

The children have been really enjoying the mud kitchen this week, making mud pies and mud cakes. The children have been developing their gross motor skills by digging in the mud, fetching water from puddles and stirring their mixtures using different sized spoons.

The children have been building on good team work skills during water play. They were making a water tower using guttering and using containers to catch the water falling down. They were also bathing the babies outside using soapy water and sponges.

The children have had the chalk out mark making on the ground, talking about their pictures they were creating and different colours they were using.

During the nice weather we have had our big sand pit open using all our sand toys making sandcastles, digger tracks and footprints. What a busy week! Happy weekend, all!

It’s Easter week and we have had lots of creative fun…painting sticking exploring and creating in play .

We have had messy play and outdoor egg hunts which was tricky at first as some eggs were high up in branches and some hiding behind beautiful daffodils.

We have used a variety of mark making tools and resources like sellotape,staplers glue and spreaders to

SMALL WORLD

In the small world area children are able to use their imagination using props and toys. It encourages children to explore different concepts and engage in role play play based activities. This week the children have been exploring families and the story ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’.

MUSIC

Singing songs and rhymes together is a great way to develop their language and communication skills in a fun and engaging way. This week the children have been singing ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and ‘five little people in a flying saucer’ using visuals.

 

The house corner was transformed in to “Mario’s Cafe” (named after the upcoming Mario movie) Children demonstrated and improved  their independence and fine motor skills throughout. The children worked together to wash and cut different vegetables to make soups and salads for the cafe. We discussed the importance of washing our hands and our fruits and vegetables and wore aprons to protect our clothes. In groups the children worked fantastically together sharing resources and ideas for the cafe. Independently setting the table and serving the food. I supported to make a menu that included prices to add numeracy and money in the learning.

We also made Easter eggs using a combination of shaving foam and paint!

Children also demonstrated their creative skills through gluing ,sticking and cutting used a variety materials and decorating their own Easter egg pictures.

Wishing you all a lovely Easter and a very happy long weekend!

Literacy

The children have been showing a real interest in dinosaurs.  We set up a provocation of dinosaurs in their natural setting,their name cards,non fiction books and puzzles.

The children enjoyed exploring the dinosaurs,they made up their own stories in imaginative play. They surprised us by looking at the names of the individual dinosaurs and finding the letters from their own names there!  How clever are our wee friends!

The children enjoyed the problem solving tasks involved in the matching game where they have to match the same species of animal and during this time they have to negotiate and share resources…not alway an easy thing to do when you are small.

All in all we are all more informed about dinosaurs and their habitat.

We have been learning about symmetry. Over the last couple of weeks we have been making symmetrical pictures on our light board “a Picachu”, symmetrical paintings, symmetrical robots with wooden blocks and symmetrical drawings. We have been focussing on how the word symmetrical means ‘the same on both sides’. Can the children see anything symmetrical at home?

 

Snack area

At the snack area this week we were talking about Fairtrade and our trip to the co-op to buy some Fairtrade products. This led onto this week talking about money. The children were talking about items we buy with money such as toys, apples, bananas, cake and shoes. The children were exploring real coins this week talking about the different numbers on each of the coins. Some of the children were able to identify some of the different coins when asked where is the 5p. Another couple of children were able to use two or three coins added together to make an amount for example, 70p – they used a 50p and a 20p together. We talked about the £1 being the same as 100p.

The children had access to a healthy snack morning and afternoon where they follow they follow the visual instructions for example 2 pieces of apple, 3 pieces of banana and 1 cracker.

Water area

At the water area this week the children have been exploring the deep sea theme as we talked about the different types of animals that live in the sea. We have been running different experiments with the bubbles, such as creating bubbles and watching the bubbles expand. We used tools such as funnels and recycled milk bottles as the children conducted experiments of separating the bubbles from the water.

To celebrate water week the children engaged in discussion of the different parts of the world that water exists and what animals live in the water. We also talked about the importance of saving water and the purpose of water.