All posts by Miss Brown

Expressive Arts

Hallowe’en Art🎃

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Inspired by everyone’s Halloween costumes, the children decided they would like to create their own Hallowe’en art.

First of all the children picked their own materials to make their art, varying from black and orange coloured ribbon to Hallowe’en sequins and craft tissue paper in different shapes and sizes.

They then used scissors to cut the card to their preferred size and selected glue and glue spreaders.

“ I want black and orange card, they’re Hallowe’en colours”

”mines looks like a spooky Hallowe’en spider” đŸ•·

“I’m going to hang mine up like decorations”

The children have been very creative and have made fabulous pieces of Hallowe’en art.  Happy Hallowe’en everyone🎃


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Halloween sensory play

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Today we were exploring our senses and developing our motor skills in our Autumn/Halloween sensory tray. We are getting in the Halloween spirit. đŸ‘»đŸŽƒ

This is a great experience for our youngest children to get in and explore different sensations on their hands and develop their hand muscles . For our older children it’s a great way to develop their fine motor skills and writing skills as they can use their fingers or a tool such as a pencil, paint brush, or other item to draw, write letters, or form numbers in the sensory tray.


“I’m drawing a pumpkin in the orange rice”

We added some cornflakes, pasta, leaves, conkers and some spooky halloween characters. We then added paintbrushes and tweezers to see what we could do with them.

”see I can pick the conker up”

“I can get the skeleton”


“it feels hard and crunchy”

”It sounds like rain at night time”

The children then used the buckets as cauldrons and made their own  witches brew while telling spooky halloween jokes.

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Indoor bug hotel

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This morning the children were exploring the mini beasts in the Discovery room.

They used magnifying glasses to inspect the bugs closer and commented on the different colours, shapes and sizes they could see and then they compared them to the pictures of the bugs.

” This bug is that one because its green and has 4 wings”

The children came up with the idea to build a bug hotel with small and large blocks from our block/construction area.  They worked together as a team to pass each block down the production line until the bug hotel was finished.

They tried to fit inside the bug hotel with the bugs but it was too small, so they decided to build a big house for them to fit in.

” this is a big house it fit us in”

 

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3,2,1… GO!

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Today the children have been exploring distance and time using different resources from around the play room.

They collected cars of different shapes and sizes and created a race track to see which car would go the fastest.

They chose the long cardboard tubes to use as the track but realised that not all cars could fit, so they chose some different ramps and tubes to test them out.

“We need to get a bigger tube, the yellow car doesn’t fit”

We watched for the cars coming down the ramp, we tried to see if they would go back up but they kept rolling down again.


”3,2,1 GO!” The  children shouted as they raced the cars, which one made it to the finish line first?


”The purple was the fastest”

“That black one didn’t win because it was slow”

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Who is that in the mirror..

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Today the children have been very creative in the Discovery room. They have used loose parts in many different ways.

After discovering their own reflections in the mirror they decided to use some loose parts to recreate their features using the different pieces.

“

‘eyes and nose’

“that’s my face, I can use these stones for my eyes and this small one for my nose”

The children used the loose parts to sort and match by colour and practice their counting skills.

”blue like your eyes”

We counted together
 “1,2,3,4,5”

Loose parts are a great way for children to use their imagination and learn in lots of different ways.  They are able to arrange and rearrange, sort, match and create their own images focusing on the process instead of the end product.

Expressive Arts

Exploring the tinker table

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Today the children were exploring the different tools and wood at the tinker table and planned out what they were going to make and what tools they would need to make it.

“ I want to make a boat”

We discussed the safety rules we need to follow when using the tools and what we need to wear to keep our hands and eyes safe.

”We need to wear safety gloves”  “and goggles”


The children collected the things that they needed and got to work.

”I need some wood and a hammer and nails” “and some glue”

The nails are all different sizes so they had to measure against the wood to make sure the nail didn’t stick out the other end.

“I need different shapes of wood for my boat like the round bit for the sail, I need to glue it though because it’s too long”

“I want to use the hammer” “ This ones a bit tricky though”

They explored the different woods, some were softer than others.

The children are developing their hand eye co-ordination as they hammer the nails in to the wood.

“I want to saw this bit of wood”

When using the saw we mark on the wood with a pen which bit we would like to cut on so that it’s clearer to see the cut. Sawing takes large muscle movements when moving it back and forwards and develops Gross motor skills. “That was hard work”.

 

Expressive Arts, Technologies

Cart Mill Engineers

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Today the children have been very busy in the Construction area.

They used their team working skills to discuss and create a plan to build a new bridge and roads.

They spoke about the different shapes and sizes of the blocks and how they would join together so that the road didn’t have ‘bumps’ on it .

“You need big muscles to be able to carry the big blocks”

“This block is wider than that one”

“We can make a ramp so the cars can go up and down,  the car can’t jump up”

They added in ‘funny shaped blocks’ to create  roundabouts for the cars to go round.

Once all the pieces were joined together for the road, they looked for bigger blocks for the bridge.

“This big one can be the start of the bridge and then we’ll add 4 bigger ones it will be so tall”

The children used their problem solving skills as they worked together to make the roads and bridge safe for the cars to drive on. They carried out a test run and a final check, then the bridge was complete.

Expressive Arts, Literacy

Mark making with the Cars

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Today the children were showing an interest in the different cars ,trucks and trains in the Discovery room.  We decided to collect some items to see if there were different to do with the cars.

We collected:

  • “A big, massive piece of paper”
  • Scissors
  • sticky tape
  • Pens

We taped the paper to the floor but the children also wanted to tape the pens to the cars to see what would happen to them.

” The train drawed a line and then a circle”

They realised when they moved the trains and cars on the paper, the pens were leaving a trail behind them.

The children noticed that by using different sized pens that the marks were different sizes.

“It looks like my dads map of Scotland, with all the lines on it”

Mark making is an important step in a child’s journey in learning to write. This allows them to practice holding a pencil and learning to control their marks. This improves their fine motor skills and helps to develop their hand- eye coordination.

Mark making can also encourage creativity by giving the opportunity to communicate through drawing and using their marks to tell a story.

” My truck is going to follow the track to find the other cars”

 

Digital Technology, Expressive Arts, Technologies

Developing our fine motor skills

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Today the children have been developing their fine motor skills in a variety of ways.

Fine motor skills is the coordination of small muscles in movement with the eyes, hands and fingers.


We played a game called ‘Pickle Pop’ where the children had to use their hand muscles by moving the pickle with their finger to pop the bubbles.

“ I have to move it over there to catch the bubble”


We put shaving foam on the light board and used our hands and  fingers to draw shapes and make patterns. This provides children with the opportunity to strengthen their hand muscles and hand eye coordination.

“ The thread goes  up and down ”

“ I made a line through it”

 

We spent some time at the mark making table where the children drew pictures, copied and continued shape and number patterns.

Social Studies, Technologies

The floor is lava

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Today the children played  “The floor is lava” but with a twist…

They worked together to collect different materials including:

  • Paper/card
  • lollipop sticks
  • twigs
  • Small figures
  • building blocks
  • Cars
  • Bowls

They then used the materials to design and build a stable structure together that was suitable to save the little figures and cars from the lava without it falling over.

“It needs to be up high, what can we use?”

”we can use the blocks to get it high”


The children came up with a variety of ways to save the cars and people from the lava while developing their listening and teamwork skills.

They used their problem solving skills to organise the different shaped blocks by size so that the figure didn’t fall over.

”The big ones need to go to the bottom because they will fall if they are at the top, they won’t balance”

“The bowl can go under in case he falls”

The children had so much fun making a safe structure for the cars and people using materials around the nursery. Why don’t you try creating your own at home.