Tag Archives: Curriculum

Chinese New Year 2017

Chinese New Year is an important Chinese festival celebrated at the turn of the traditional lunisolar Chinese calendar. 

Here are a some photos of our children enjoying a Chinese themed snack consisting of noodles rice crispy seaweed lychees and green tea! The children worked really hard to handle the chop sticks which caused a lot of hilarity! Children improved hand skills and hand eye coordination using the chop sticks and also when pouring their own Chinese Green Tea from the beautiful Chinese tea pot. 

The children were inspired by the Chinese New Year decorations, newspaper and calendar and used the items to begin putting their own ideas and thoughts on paper….some children had a go at writing some Chinese characters and we all practised saying ‘Kung Hei Fat Choi’.

Izzy Bizzy Children!

Here are a few photo’s of our very busy Izzy Mair children!

World Book Day

Next week will see the start of literacy week within the family centre. Our playrooms are always a literacy rich environment for children however next week we will be doing even more to help support children’s developing literacy skills.

On Thursday we will be hosting  a ‘Very Healthy Hungry Caterpillar’ snack for our children – using all the healthy snack elements form the story! Have you spotted the learning wall as it begins to emerge? Feel free to come and add your comments as you see children’s ideas and learning develop.

On Friday we ask that your child comes to nursery dressed as their favourite story book character……there will be an assembly on Friday afternoon.

Not A Box!

For any parent wondering who our visitor in the foyer is……..or why?

Miss McNeill has used the book ‘Not a Box’ to support children’s developing knowledge across the curriculum.

Based at the creative arts area over the past few weeks Miss McNeill has incorporated curricular areas literacy, numeracy, health & well being and expressive arts into children’s learning……

Literacy: Extending book knowledge  through discussing the title, author, illustrator of the book  ‘It’s Not a Box’ which was used to develop the context for learning. Encouraging children to develop an interest in print, texts and pictures. Recognising words, understanding print is meaningful and can convey as message. Understanding positional and comparative language, giving a personal response.

Numeracy: Describing and ordering in simple mathematical language ‘first, next, last’, touch counting items required, following and giving instructions using: in front, behind, beside, under, in, out, on top of, next to. Describing position, identifying and naming 3D shapes and objects. Describing length using long/longer, short/shorter and height using tall/taller and small/smaller. Solving problems and evaluating solutions.

Health and Wellbeing: Expressing thoughts and abilities, communicating with growing confidence within a group of friends. Recognising mistakes can provide opportunities for learning and working as a team – co-operating with others. Demonstrating how to tackle a ‘problem’. Taking responsibility.

Expressive Arts: Gaining confidence to explore and experiment with materials. Using tools and equipment to develop control of fine movement of fingers and hands. Selecting own materials. Use 3 dimensional form to convey thoughts and feeling and the experience of having a piece of work being ‘exhibited’.

And you thought it was just a box………………..

Can you think of any other skills your child may have developed through recycling junk!?

Creative Pirate Play, Learning and Development

Our BA Childhood Studies student has been working in room CARA and developing children’s creative skills.

Through observations and interactions with the children, it became clear that the children were very interested in pirates. To increase the children’s engagement and enjoyment, pirate themed learning experiences were planned to help develop their creative skills.

The learning activities covered different curricula areas such as literacy, numeracy and expressive arts.

Have a look at the different activities the children carried out within nursery from creating treasure maps to building pirate ships, exploring pirate treasure in the sandpit and “walk the plank” water play.