Category Archives: Expressive Arts

Volcano Fun!

Over the past few weeks, the children have been investigating dinosaurs and where they lived.

After using different reference books the children decided that the dinosaurs must have lived with a volcano.

We used the internet to investigate what makes volcanos erupt.

We decided to make our own volcano using a plastic bottle and paper mache. We used bicarbonate of soda, washing up liquid and vinegar to make lava.

“Can you make dinosaur land?” Sorley

“Look at the lava, it looks hot and dangerous.” Fraser

“The dinosaurs lived along time ago, they are now extinct.” Zachary

“Will it explode?” Scott “No it will erupt, because the lava gets very hot, you know.” Maria

    

Remote Learning- Sunflowers and other plants

Mrs Brown writes-
I have been keeping a close watch on my sunflowers since I planted my seeds and I am delighted with how much they are growing. I had to replant them into bigger plant pots and I have now planted them in a sunny part of my garden near a wall for protection from the wind. Every few weeks I measure their height. In the beginning I  used a ruler to measure their height but now they have grown a bit taller I need to use a measuring tape. I  record their height on a growth chart.
Perhaps you have been measuring the height of your sunflowers. Are they taller than Mrs Brown’s? We would love to see how tall they have grown.
While in my garden I  got a bit annoyed because I spotted some weeds growing. Then I remembered weeds are just wild flowers growing in the wrong place and I recalled the fun I had as a child with wild flowers …..

Buttercups As a child I loved picking buttercups and holding them under the chin of friends and families. If you could see yellow under their chin it meant they liked butter. Why not try it to see if your family like butter.

Daisies Everyone loves making daisy chains. Not only are they very pretty, making daisy chains is great for hand eye co-ordination and fine motor skills.

Dandelions Although dandelions make me a bit cross when they grow on my lawn, they really are fascinating. You can see their life cycle over a short period of time as they change from yellow flowers to dandelion clocks with their fairy-like seeds. As a child  I liked to pick the yellow flowers and flick their heads off, saying, “Mary, Queen of Scots, got her head chopped off!” (although we all know what they say about picking dandelions…) I also recall counting “one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock…..“ as I blew the seeds into the air and watched them fly away in the wind, ready to find a new place to grow.

I love this transient art idea ‘borrowed’ from Carlibar nursery, for making a dande lion picture. Why not try making a picture with items you find in your garden.

Designing our new nursery

We are very excited about the building work going on for our new nursery. We have been looking at the plans and created our own 3D model of our new centre.

I made the grass for the playground. I made furniture for outside too.
I cut the grass and glued the grass on.
I am painting the walls.
This is the outside walls we are painting.
We added classrooms and a sand pit.

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

We love to hear stories and we have been listening to one of our favourites read to us by the author. Michael Rosen is the author of “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” and we can join in with the actions as he reads this story.

We loved this story so much we decided to make props and puppets to retell it. We made a big bear puppet and some long swishy grass.

I wonder what else we will need to make to tell this story?

Roads, runways, routes and ramps

In the construction area we have been working together to develop the area. We used small construction resources to build vehicles and used the large blocks to create roads and ramps.  We added a runway for aeroplanes and have created more roads using tape.  As we play, we are exploring forces using ramps and gutters to create slopes and we are learning about direction using arrows.