Monthly Archives: October 2023

Expressive Arts, Literacy, Outdoor Learning

Muddy Masterpiece

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Today in our mud kitchen we were busy using some new tools to aid us with our muddy masterpiece.
But first before we start, we used our independence skills to locate our welly boots from the shed and our puddle suit from the trolly. We put them on ourselves but Emma was on hand to help us if it got a bit tricky.

Now that we are suited and booted it was time for messy fun. We collected our mud and used some of our new tools. We used the rolling pin to roll out the mud to make mud pancakes.

We used the wooden masher, to mash up our mud and make it like mud pies.

We found a little worm who had sneaked into  in our mud, but we put him back home again. We didn’t think he would want to be in our mud pie.

We mixed it up and added in some leaves, water and grass and finally it was ready to be served.

We had such fun in the mud kitchen today, exploring our creative thinking, drama skills, and gross and fine motor skills.
After such a wet weekend it left lots of muddy puddles we couldn’t  pass by the opportunity to jump in them.

I wonder what we will create in our mud kitchen tomorrow?

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Exploding Paint Rockets 🚀

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Today we have continued celebrating space week in nursery. Space week runs from the 4th of October, the date that Sputnik was launched in 1957, until the 10th of October, the date of the signing of the Outer Space Treaty in 1967.

In the garden we have been creating the constellations using the gem blocks,

enjoying lots of space related stories,

and, the most exciting part, making exploding space rockets!

Using old photo spool canisters, we filled them with powder paint, water and a piece of alka seltzer tablet. (Only the adults touched the tablets!) Then we gave them a shake and waited, at a safe distance, to watch them explode.

We made up three cannisters at a time with different coloured paints and made predictions about which one we thought would explode first.

Each pop, bang and whizz brought great excitement. Just look at the faces!

UNCRC article 31- Each child has the right to play and take part in a wide range of artistic abilities.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Space week with Bookbug 👨‍🚀👨‍🚀👨‍🚀

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Anyone want to come to Bookbug? The girls went round the whole nursery inviting everyone to join us….

As this week is space week this was our theme, we investigated our space mat with the children identifying ‘the moon’ We sang “Hallo” to Bookbug and had a little cuddle

We sang, danced and joined in with the song 5 little people in a flying saucer which went on for a little while as we had 15 people in our flying saucer…


We bounced twinkle twinkle little star on our Lycra and tried to bounce them into space, working together singing as we went.

We finished off  by enjoying our story ‘Goodnight Spaceman’ before singing goodbye to Bookbug.

We investigated numeracy, developed our literacy skills, worked together with our friends and enjoyed our visit from Bookbug!

If this is something you would enjoy with your child, Bookbug will be visiting us again tomorrow at 9.00 and 4.30 you would be very welcome to come along 😁

Article 28 You have the right to a good quality education.

Literacy

Shapes in the clay!

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Following on from Maths Week Scotland last week the children have continued to show an interest in shapes! Today in the clay area we were identifying 2D and 3D shapes.

“That’s a square and that’s a triangle!”

The children were using the 3D shapes as stampers in the clay. They were developing their shape knowledge and understood that one side of a 3D shape made a 2D shape in the clay when they stamped it!

“I’ve made a square, tap, tap on the top!”

Some children chose to wrap their shapes in the clay which turned the clay into 3D shapes! They enjoyed getting their friends to unwrap the shapes to find out what was hiding in the clay!

Having already rolled out the clay, using the rolling pin handle as a stamper, some children noticed it made circles in the clay! Great shape detectives!

“Look, lots of little circles!”

Some of our younger children just really enjoyed building with the clay and the 3D shapes whilst developing their fine motor skills.

“It’s a castle for a Princess!”

The children really enjoyed learning about different shapes whilst having great fun with the clay!

Expressive Arts

Today We Were Puffy Painting 🎨

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Today the children decided they would like to try making puffy paint which was a lovely sensory experience for them. Puffy paint is unique because it dries raised with a three dimensional texture. Working with the puffy paint requires a level of precision and control, helping improve their fine motor skills. The children were able to squeeze, spread, mix and decorate using their hand eye coordination. The children were loved this arty experience. The ingredients we used were.

PVA glue, shaving foam and paint.

“I’m making my puffy paint pink so I’m only putting a little red in”


“I’m making mine yellow, I’m only putting a little glue in”


“It feels like slime, and is so soft” Mmm the shaving foam smells nice”

“I’m going to paint a rainbow with all the colours I made” “I need to mix everything in”

Some of the children enjoyed mark making in the foam. “It’s wet and sticky” “ look at my hand prints they are blue”  “ I wrote an A in the foam because it’s at the start of my name”

We are going to look at other types of paint we can make, who knows what we will come up with!