Over the last couple of weeks at Twechar EYC, we have begun our preparation for Christmas. We have been making lovely decorations for the playroom including pipe cleaner candy canes and a hand print Christmas tree.
We have also recently decorated our playroom Christmas tree, the children did such an amazing job decorating! We have also been making lovely things to sell at our Christmas Fayre (Friday 15th December) such as reindeer food, homemade baubles and hot chocolate cones. The little Twechar nursery elves have been working very hard to get everything organised for this special day.
STEM: In the STEM area, we have been exploring floating and sinking. We experimented to see which objects float and which sink, some of the outcomes really surprised us (Did you know… pipe cleaners actually sink!) .We have also been developing our fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination as we made some bracelets and necklaces using beads and pipe cleaners.
Creative Area: In the Creative area, we have been exploring transient art, we made some self portraits using loose parts as well as decorating some transient art Christmas trees and making some transient art snowmen. We have also been exploring collage materials as we made some lovely snowmen by cutting and sticking a variety of materials.
Story Corner: We have continued to explore ‘The Gruffalo’ by Julia Donaldson in the Story Corner for the last couple of weeks. We have been bringing the story to life through a variety of sensory experiences, exploring things like scrambled snake, roasted fox, owl ice cream and Gruffalo crumble. We developed our fine motor and scissor skills whilst exploring the scrambled snake as we used scissors to chop up the green spaghetti. We also developed our numeracy skills and explored weight as we measured out the Gruffalo crumble using a variety of different scales. We explored capacity using the roasted fox as we talked about full and empty whilst filling and emptying the tubs and containers. We also explored our sense of smell and touch as we made ‘owl ice cream’ using shaving foam.
Outdoors: We have been outdoors playing some group games such as ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ and Tig. We have developed our gross motor skills and built positive relationships whilst playing cooperatively. We have been practicing following instructions and have also developed our independence as we have been working on getting ourselves ready for the garden without any adult support. We also went for a walk to find ‘The Gruffalo’ and talked about where each of the characters live in the woods. We found the Fox’s underground house, the Owl’s treetop house and the Snake’s logpile house. We also read the Gruffalo story out in the Glen. We also collected some pinecones to make loose parts Christmas trees.
Forest Schools: We have been continuing to explore our local wildlife, specifically birds. We made some bird feeders using milk cartons and bird seeds to help take care of the local wildlife during the colder months. We have also enjoyed some warm hot chocolate whilst out at Forest Schools as it’s been getting colder recently.
Teaching Time with Mrs Smith: During teaching time with Mrs Smith, we have continued to explore our Talk 4 Writing story ‘Goldilocks and the 3 bears’ using story maps. We designed a group story map as well as creating our own individual story maps. We have also been developing our fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination using pegs and elastic bands. We have also been practicing writing our first names and have been working very hard at this. Our words of the week were ‘Tiny’ and ‘Creep’ and we have explored actions for these words, as well as using magnifying glasses to look at ‘tiny’ things.
Stay and Play: A huge thank you to all of our parents, carers and families who came to play with us during our Stay and Play sessions during the week of the 27th of November. We had so much fun showing you a day in the life of your children and absolutely loved having you.
St Andrews Day: We celebrated St Andrews as we made tartan patterns using transient art, weaving strips of paper and painting. We also made Scottish flags using transient art and collage materials. We enjoyed some Scottish shortbread and sang some traditional Scottish songs as well as showing off some of our ceilidh dance moves.
