All posts by Miss Brown

Junk modelling robot

We have been enjoying exploring the junk modelling area since moving in to the Studio room last week. The children discussed what they would like to make and made a plan to make a robot but what would they need, they decided to list all the things they would need.

”We need glue”
”and Cellotape”
“and of course, junk!”

The children used their imagination and problem solving skills to figure out how to make the parts stay together.

“You need to leave the glue to dry so it sticks”


The children worked together as a team making sure they followed their design so that everything was in the right places.

“paint it yellow like a bumble bee”

To finish off they decided to paint it yellow and add some cardboard tubes for arms.

The yellow paint didn’t cover the box as well as we thought, so the children improvised and used yellow tissue paper instead.

We are always looking for cardboard boxes (big and small), bottle lids, cartons, cereal boxes etc. to add to our collection so save your recycling and instead of putting it all in your blue bins, bring it in to us!

Chrome books

The children have been learning about different types of technology recently so we thought it would be a good idea to introduce Chromebooks. First of all we spoke about staying safe online and always have an adult with you when you are searching for information.


We then discussed what they know about chrome books and also what we would use them for.

“It’s like a tablet and a computer”

” we use them to watch videos and play games”

”that looks like my tablet at home”


We spoke about what we would like to use the Chrome books for and decided that we would like to find out some more information about our favourite animals..

Cats and parrots were the most popular 🐱 🦜 so we went online to see what we could find out.

We used the keyboard to search for information, recognising some of the letters in our names as we typed.


We found out lots of information about parrots
“there are lots of different colours of parrot and some even talk”
Then we looked for information about cats
“boy cats are called tom”

We found out lots of new information about our favourite animals which we saved. We can’t wait to show our friends what we found out and how to use the chrome books.

When we met Winston the Polar bear

Today we had a very special visitor called Winston the polar bear who came to talk about climate change.

We made a mind map about what the children already know about climate change and what is happening to our planet 🌎


We discussed the ways that we help our planet at nursery.

“We put our fruit in the little bin”

” The white bag for the paper”

We then read the story about Winston and all his polar bear friends and what is happening to the ice where the polar bears live.

“The ice is melting”

“because it’s too hot”

We will continue to meet up with Winston and learn some more about our planet and what we can do to help at home and at nursery.

Remember remember the 5th of November

Today we have been talking about fireworks night . The children told us what they already knew about fireworks.

“Fireworks are loud.”

“They make a Big Bang.”

“ I saw green and pink ones last night.”

“My dad bought Sparklers.”

Some of the children didn’t know what sparklers were so we used the computer to search for pictures.

We then searched for and found a firework safety video on YouTube where Fireman Sam shared some tips on how to stay safe on firework night.

 

We discussed what we had learned about being safe.

“Stay with mum.”

“We need to stay far away.”

“Fireworks could burn us.”

”We can wear torches so the cars can see us.”

We spoke about different ways of being seen in the dark. Wearing Hi   Visibility clothing can help.  ”Just like a policeman.”

Hope you all have a happy and safe fireworks night!

Forwards and backwards with the bee bots🐝

This morning in the discovery room the children decided to make a track for the bee bots to move around on.

They used different shaped blocks to create a track that was flat enough for the bee bots to move along .
We looked at the arrows on top and discussed what they mean.

”This button means forward”

”what is this one mean?”

“backwards backwards”


The children used the direction cards and placed them along the track.

“Let’s  go forward like this card”

”The green one is go”


They used their numeracy skills as they counted how many times they  pressed the forwards button and how many places the bee moved forward.

In the end they raced the bees to see who would move the furthest, it was a lot of fun cheering on the bees.

 

Maths Week Scotland in the Discovery

This week is Maths Week Scotland. The children in the Discovery room are showing off their number recognition skills.

“We can match the pebbles with the numbers”


They decided to use our loose parts box to match the parts with the numbers eg. “It’s number 7, we can use 7 pebbles”

”what about sea shells, 1,2…6,7”

Loose parts are not just shells and pebbles, they are open ended resources meaning they can be used for anything, counting, sorting, making patterns, transient art. The list goes on.


The children then decided to sort the numbers in order from 1-9, they worked together to swap them round until in the right order.

“Put the 5 next to 4 and 7”

”Number 3 is upside down”

Transient Art

This week the children in the Home Room have been creating their own fabulous pictures with transient art.

‘Transient art is simply moveable art’. The children are getting creative using loose parts such as stones, shells, buttons etc, to create pictures using their imagination.

Transient art allows children to make a picture 100 different ways, rather than having 1 end product when gluing and sticking.

The children added blue playdough to their pictures and pretended they were at the seaside and the playdough was the sea.

“Look at the waves in the sea, they are very big”

They even made 3D pictures. “Look the bird is sticking out of the picture”

This experience can be explored indoors and outdoors and can often lead from collecting sticks, stones, leaves etc. when out a local walk.

The children had lots of fun creating their own pictures, why dont you have a turn at home, when at the park or out a walk?

Ice cream parlour🍦

What a beautiful day it is🌞

After discussions last week on how to keep cool in the sun, the children decided they wanted to open their own ice cream parlour.

we used:

  • Shaving foam
  • Food Colouring
  • Chocolate powder
  • Sprinkles


The children used different sized spoons and bowls to mix the foam and chocolate power to make chocolate ice cream. They then mixed red food colouring to make strawberry ice cream.

“We need to add more chocolate powder, I cant smell it properly”

“I’m going to have a pink cone”

”I’m scooping the ice cream, it’s very slippy”

” I made a unicorn Ice cream, it’s gooey”

We made our ice cream cones in the shade while we had a break from the sun.

The children used their senses to smell and touch the foam with their hands.

They used their counting skills to count how many scoops of ice cream it took to fill the cone.