Let’s have a shake shake shaking Friday🎉


This morning the children got creative, designing their own shakers!

We looked around the nursery for some noisy and quiet resources choosing for ourselves  the shakers we wanted to make.


We used Pom poms, shells, sprinkles, beads (as we have lots of different allergies at nursery)

We had a try out to discover if we had to change our quantities, if we were happy with the volume of our shakers


We had a sing song to practice our shakers singing Baa baa Black Sheep and Twinkle twinkle Little Star, we were so noisy that Bookbug decided to join us 🥰

You can make your own shakers at home with anything noisy and anything that can be sealed so you can shake shake shake it all day😁

 

 

Spooky Scones

Today in the home room we have been super busy making spooky scones. Firstly we gathered all the ingredients needed, we then followed our recipe to create our amazing colourful scones.

We measured out the amount of flour, milk and the rest of the ingredients.

“I need to put in a little more flour”

We then added in our food colouring of choice and mixed it all together. Once it was the right consistency we used the rolling pins and cutters.

“My scone is going to is going to be green”

The children then had lots of fun decorating their spooky scones using raisins.

”My one has a happy face”

“My scone has a shocked face”

Brilliantly decorated by the children and now time to go into the oven. Once they were ready the children bagged them up to take home.

“Oooo spooky”

”Mines is funny”

What animals can you hear?

Today in the noisy quiet room the children took part in a listening activity. Following our current interest of ‘the farm’ we tested our knowledge of what animal sounds we could identify. These included farm animals and other animals in the wider world.   


Using an animal sounds CD and matching picture cards we got to work. First we looked at the animal card and identified the animal. Then together we made the sound we thought it would make. Next we listed to the animal sound on the CD to see if we were correct.  We all used our voices to make some really good animal sounds.

Once we were more familiar with the animal sounds we decided to challenge ourselves a little more.   This time we played the sound first and then selected what animal it was from the cards displayed. We worked together as a team to identify all the animals displayed.

“I think it’s a guinea pig”

“Cow”

“It’s a big rooster”

“That’s a turkey, it’s like a chicken”

Everyone did a fantastic job using their listening and talking skills to develop their knowledge of animal sounds. Well done everyone!

Home Sweet Home

Today in the studio the children were exploring different materials to build and create models with using their imagination and natural curiosity.

Firstly the children noticed that we had some new material in our junk modelling area that was gifted to us by a parent at the nursery…

We discussed how the materials felt and the different patterns on them.

  

”This is a big one, its white”

”There is lots to chose from, some of them are bumpy”

”This ones really soft, like a carpet”

Then, the children decided that they wanted to use the material, along with the boxes in our junk modelling area, to create houses!

The children used different shapes and sizes of boxes to create their model houses, they decided that they wanted to use the various pieces of material to create curtains for their houses whilst discussing shapes and sizes of windows and doors.

”I had to use cellotape and be careful with the scissors to cut it”

”The house number is a 1 and a 5”

Two of our children even worked so hard together to create their house, and it was so big, they could even use it for role play!

Creative feelings.

Today the children had fun exploring and experimenting with loose parts to create different faces in the playdough, using their problem solving skills to show different facial features!

“look, happy!”

“Use the pipe cleaner for a mouth. You can make it all bendy”

We have been exploring our emotion pebbles in the playdough area too, and talking about different emotions we feel and why. We discussed what different emotions we feel, and what makes us feel that way…

“I’m scared of the dark”

”I feel tired after I go to soft play”

“I feel sad when my papa Alec’s office is full of toys!”

“I need to do eyelashes”

”I feel sleepy when my mummy reads me a story. Like this…”

“It’s a shocked face”

The children were able to reflect on times they have felt different emotions, and had lots of conversations with their peers about their feelings. They helped each other choose different resources to convey their ideas and worked really well as a team. Great work everybody 🤩👍

 

 

We’re going on a leaf hunt 🍁🍂

This morning we read the story of We’re Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steve Metzger. We started by discussing what we know about the season of Autumn.

”The leaves fall down off the trees.”

”They changed colour.”

Then we all sat beautifully and listened to the story. We learned that leaves on different types of trees will turn different colours. We particularly liked the picture of the red leaves from the oak tree.

After listening to the story, we recreated the story by acting out the different parts.

We collected leaves at every stop on the way…..

…then we used them to jump and play!

What wonderful Autumn fun!! 🍂

The Leaf Man

In the garden today the children asked what can we do with the rest of the leaves we collected on Mondays nature walk.
we looked out”The Leaf Man” book to inspire our children’s creativity.

We decided to use glue and paper to stick our own leaf man pictures, developing our fine motor skills.

We visited the Studio Room to collect all the items we needed

We reread the story when more of our friends came to join us.

We picked from a variety of natural materials, the items we would ant to create our leaf man

The children talked about the different sizes and shapes of the leaves .

“my leaf is so big”

“my leaf looks like a flower”

Why not have fun collecting Autumn  leaves on your next Autumn walk.

Patterns and Positioning

This week in the Discovery Room we have continued to explore our interest in shapes and loose parts.

We have selected from a wide range of loose parts to create our beautiful pieces of transient art. This sparked lots of interesting conversations where we shared our views on which loose parts are our favourites! Most of us decided we like buttons the best!


”I made a cat. The lollipop sticks are the whiskers. The triangle blocks are the ears.”

”I made a T for my name”

”I made a wee mouse.”

To add a little challenge and further extend our shape knowledge, we decided to use loose parts to see if we could continue a simple pattern, and create our own.

“Cork, circle, cork, circle”.

”cork, button, cork, button”. “The cork and the button look the same shape. They are circles.”

A number of us are demonstrating an interest in the schema of positioning.  We have demonstrated this through arranging objects, lining up items and sorting items into different boxes.  This helps us develop our concentration, be able to recognise differences and similarities in objects and to explore patterns and problem solving.


“Look I used a shell, then a cork, shell, cork, shell, cork, shell, cork. I putted a button on the top. Blue, green, blue, green. I putted a cork on top of the corks. It’s so high.”

Loose parts are a great way to developer creative, problem solving and numeracy skills.  Why not have a look and see what loose parts you can find at home.  We would love to see your wonderful creations!

Pretty Pinecones

Today  the children were interested exploring the pine cones, sticks and wooden trees. We had a discussion about what we could do with them and decided we could give them some colour by weaving and twirling using ribbon, pipe cleaners, wool and felt.

It was lovely watching the children explore different weaving options and discover different methods and techniques. The children loved mixing up the wool, pipe cleaners and felt to weave and twirl round their chosen object.

“mine is like a rainbow”

“Look it’s pretty now”

“I love pink”

”I am making one for all my family”

The children used  both their hands to grasp the pine cone and using pincer grip to weave the material. They manipulated the different materials in lots of different ways building their muscle strength and dexterity  and developing their hand and eye co-ordination.

There was lots of patience and concentration and the children shared their ideas throughout and spoke about what they were doing.

Autumn Walk!

Today we enjoyed the lovely mild weather and headed off on an Autumn walk. As soon as we left Cart Mill the children were delighted to spot a tree full of birds! There were so many and there was beautiful singing and chirping coming from them all.

“Look at the hundreds of birds!”      “They are saying cheep cheep!”

We carried on our walk and had great fun collecting leaves. We looked for different shapes, sizes and colours of leaves.

”I’ve found a yellow one!”    “Look a pretty red one!”

As we came to the bridge down at the river there was a very muddy patch blocking our path! The children thought and assessed whether they could jump over the mud!

Of course they made it over! We were very proud of ourselves! We heard there were conkers fallen off a big tree further down the road so we went to investigate. We were not disappointed! We found lots of conkers and some berries too!

”We don’t eat these berries as they are poisonous sure they are?”

There were so many piles of leaves under the trees that we couldn’t resist throwing them up in the air to make leaf showers! We had great fun doing this!

The children spotted some wild life whilst out walking! We were super excited to see a little squirrel running up a tree, we spotted a snail and a wiggly worm too!

“The worm feels all cold and squishy!”

The children enjoyed their walk back listening to the sound of the river! At the top of the path one of the children found what they called a cave! It looked like a cave and we all had a peak inside!

Once back in Cartmill we enjoyed sorting our findings into piles of different coloured leaves and conkers!

We had to take some of the conkers out of their shells!

Finally we looked at our leaf wheel which shows us all the different leaves you find. We successfully matched some of the leaves we found to the leaves on the wheel! Great job children!

We then washed our hands and had snack! What a busy fun morning!