Month: November 2023

Sunbeam Room

Home Corner: The last couple of weeks in the Home Corner, we have been exploring weight. We have explored different weight concepts such as heavy and light. We have explored weight through a variety of different experiences such as using the scales to determine which object was the heaviest and which was the lightest.

 

Story Corner: In the Story Corner over the past two weeks we have been continuing to explore our Story of the Month (The Gruffalo) through a variety of different activities and experiences. We used loose parts to create our own Gruffalo portraits in play-doh. We have also been exploring re-telling the story using a variety of props such as story spoons and stones. This has helped us to develop our knowledge of our story and the characters. We have also been developing our fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as we participated in an experience where we had to attach purple prickles to the Gruffalo’s back using paper clips. We have been exploring size in the Story Corner, focusing on height. We explored the Gruffalo characters and were organising them in order from tallest to smallest and vice versa.

Creative Area: Over the past two weeks, in the Creative Area we have been beginning to make some decorations for the Christmas season. We have developed our creative skills and used a variety of resources to decorate our own Christmas tree baubles and decorations.

STEM: In the STEM area, we have been exploring the properties of water through freezing it. We have been exploring liquids that freeze and liquids that don’t freeze and investigating why this is. We have also been exploring water turning into ice, and ice melting and turning back into water. We have explored what makes ice melt such as heat, salt, our body temperature. We have also been exploring colour mixing in the STEM area as we have been mixing different colours of paint to match colours in our environment such as people’s hair colours, the colours of our clothing etc.

Outdoors:  Out in the garden, we have been exploring the concepts of full and empty using different liquids and tools. We have discussed what these concepts mean and explored what each of these concepts looks like in practice. We filled some beakers up to the top to explore the concept of “full” and measured how much water it took to fill it. We developed our fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as we used pipettes to fill the beakers. We have also been moving the garden equipment around and made an obstacle course using the materials.

Forest Schools: The last couple of weeks at Forest Schools, we have been exploring the wildlife through bird watching. We made our own binoculars using cardboard tubes and then we drew pictures of the birds that we found. We have been feeding the birds over the last few weeks using homemade bird feeders.

Teaching Time with Mrs Smith: This week we have been exploring our new word aware words of the week which are “Exhausted” and “Hard” and were selected from our Talk 4 Writing story which is Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. We have also been exploring activities and experiences relating to this story such as porridge sensory play, we scooped and poured the porridge using a variety of tools. We discussed size as we scooped the porridge into different sized bowls, big, medium and small. We have also been exploring our Goldilocks and the 3 Bears story map and retelling the story using this resources, this has helped us to gain a better understanding of the story. We have been developing our numeracy skills this week as we have explored subitising using 5 frames and bear figures.

Daisy Room

In the Daisy room this week we have been exploring the Old McDonald song and story using props such as small world figures and puppets. We have been singing this song during our welcome times and reading the story book throughout the day. We have also been developing our gross motor skills, hand-eye coordination and reflexes as we have been practicing throwing and catching.

 

Children In Need: To celebrate Children in Need we participated in a dress up day where we wore something spotty, something yellow or our pyjamas. We explored a variety of Pudsey bear themed experiences and activities.

Book Week Scotland 2023: The week beginning 13th of November was Book Week Scotland. We celebrated this through a variety of book themed experiences and activities such as making Elmer patterns, Winnie the Witch potions and having a Tiger Who Came To Tea picnic. We also participated in a school wide competition where we decorated the nursery doors themed like books. The nursery children made amazing Gruffalo and Goldilocks and the 3 bears themed doors.

 

 

Sunbeam Room

Home Corner: This week in the Home Corner we have been developing our self help skills and independence as we have been cooking. We chopped up vegetables on Monday to make soup for our Guy Fawkes Night celebrations, Alison cooked this for us and we enjoyed a cup of vegetable soup during our celebrations. We also made some porridge as we have been interested in the 3 bears story this week, we were developing our numeracy skills as we explored weight whilst weighing out the ingredients. We also developed our imaginative skills as we role played a 3 bears picnic.

STEM: This week in the STEM area we have been exploring cause and effect as we have been participating in a variety of different experiments. We have watched as different ingredients have a variety of different effects on each other. We explored our senses as we added as variety of different scented ingredients, exploring our sense of smell.

Creative Area: This week in the Creative Area, we have been exploring making marks with paint and a variety of tools. We have been painting using sponges dipped in paint, we then printed these on to paper. We have also been developing our fine motor skills as we have been using forks to make marks using paint. We explored the way that different tools make different shaped and sized marks on the paper.

Story Corner: This week in the Story Corner, the children have been voting for our new Story of the Month, which is The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson. We have been exploring this story through a variety of different experiences such as role playing the story using puppets and figures. We have also decided on our Rhyme of The Week this week which is Incy Wincy Spider. The children have
been exploring this through role play experiences and an Incy Wincy numeracy game which explores positional language and the concepts of Backwards and Forwards.

Outdoors: This week in the garden, we have been developing our numeracy skills as we explored shapes and sizes when looking at leaves. We discussed the different shapes of the leaves, discovering that the majority of the leaves in the garden were circles and triangles. We have also been out in our local community as we went for a walk through The Glen to explore. We have shown an interest in the Goldilocks and the 3 bears story this week so we role played a 3 bears picnic while out in the woods, we told the story of the 3 bears and used props to support this.

Forest Schools: This week at Forest Schools we have been interested in the wildlife, especially the birds. We discussed that the birds become hungry when the seasons change and the weather becomes a bit colder, we decided to make some bird feeders to help the birds in the colder months. We used lard and bird seed to make bird feeders. Over the next few weeks we will be observing the different wildlife that comes to feed from our homemade feeders.

 

Diwali: This week we have been celebrating Diwali in the Sunbeam Room, we have been making Diwali lights using tin cans, making Diwali light sticks using sticks and sparkly pipe cleaners, making fireworks using forks dipped in paint and designing Mehndi patterns using ink and cotton buds.

Guy Fawkes: This week to celebrate Guy Fawkes Night, we had a nursery bonfire party out in the garden. The children built a fire using sticks, wood and tissue paper “fire”. The children also made homemade soup and bread to eat around the fire. We developed our numeracy skills as we weighed out all of our ingredients whilst making bread, and developed our fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as we mixed and kneaded the dough. We developed our fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as we chopped up the vegetables for the soup.

PATHS: This week was our introduction to the PATHS Programme which will be run weekly with a group of Pre-School children. The PATHS Programme supports all children to develop the fundamental social and emotional learning skills which will enable them to make positive choices throughout life.

Teaching Time with Mrs Smith: This week during the children’s teaching time, the children have been voting for their new Talk 4 Writing story which is Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. The children will be exploring this story in depth over the new few weeks. This week the children have been learning some actions to go along with the story which is the imitation stage of Talk 4 Writing. We have also developed our imaginative skills as we have been role playing the story using puppets. We have also been drawing our favourite parts of the story. We have been developing our letter and number formation and fine motor skills as we strengthened our fingers using bubble wrap.

Daisy Room: This week in the Daisy Room, we have been exploring the story of the 3 Little Pigs. We developed our listening skills as we listened well to the story and then we developed our creative skills as we were building houses for the 3 little pigs using bricks, sticks and straw. We developed our imaginative skills in the Home Corner as we were making birthday cakes for the baby doll using play-doh and feathers. We sang happy birthday to the baby and gave her some cake to eat.

Sunbeam Room: This week in the Sunbeam room, we have been celebrating Halloween. We have been going on walks in our community to see the Halloween decorations. We discussed being safe whilst out in the community and made sure we were safe when crossing the roads. We saw lots of very exciting decorations!

   

 

We have also been exploring some Halloween experiences throughout this week such as making potions, developing our curiosity as we explored the inside of a pumpkin, developing our creative skills as we were making skeletons using cotton buds and developing our fine motor skills as we have been rescuing Halloween characters from a giant spider web using tongs. We have also began celebrating Guy Fawkes night this week as we have been creating our own fireworks in a variety of creative ways such as printing using glue and glitter, and developing our scissor skills as we made sparklers using art straws and sparkly material.

We also had our nursery Halloween party this week where both the Sunbeam and Daisy room children came together to have a party. We participated in Halloween experiences such as dookin’ for apples, Halloween crafts, doughnuts on a string and lots of dancing and party games. We also had a lovely Halloween party snack with some spooky treats! We absolutely loved all of the children and staff’s costumes, you all looked amazing!

 

Forest Schools: During our Forest School sessions this week, we have been focusing on planting. The children developed their knowledge of living things and how to care for plants as we planted some daffodil bulbs in the Secret Garden. We developed our fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as we were digging the mud to make space for the bulbs. We can’t wait to see our bulbs grow into gorgeous yellow daffodils in the Spring! We have also been using our imaginations to make up some spooky stories to tell at the Secret Garden as we celebrate Halloween this week. Some of our stories were super spooky!

Daisy Room: This week in the Daisy Room, we have been exploring a variety of different Halloween themed experiences. This has included developing our curiosity and exploring our sense of touch as we were making spooky handprints using some neon green paint. We also explored some purple gloop and developed our curiosity as we discussed why the gloop “melted” in our hands, changing from a solid to a liquid. We have also developing our fine motor skills as we have been mark making using a variety of different tools, such as forks, potato mashers and spatulas. We explored the different sizes and shapes each of these tools made on the paper using the paint.