Fragrant Fruits

The children have continued to use their favourite fruits chart and have been taking turns asking their friends what fruit tastes the best.

We had a discussion about what our five senses are and what body part you use for each one.

Taste “- your mouth”, tongue”, “ I lick my lips and taste”
Touch –  “with your hands”
Smell – “My nose”
See – “eyes”
Hear –  “Ears”

We decided we could use another one of our senses to gather information using our chart. The children chose their sense of smell to try and guess what fruit was in the cup.
We prepared the fruit and put them in our paper cups and covered it with a paper towel sealed on with an elastic band.

Everyone gathered their cups and charts and went to ask their friends to smell the fruit and say what their favourite smell and what they thought it was, before making a mark on the chart to record their answer. The children all had different favourites but were very good at identifying the correct fruit just from its smell.

We then all came back to the table and counted up all the marks we had gathered to see which one was the most popular.

“Apple has 9 it is the favourite”

” Orange has the most on my chart”

“ watermelon had none but I like watermelon”

We discussed our favourite smells before making a plan to use a different sense for our next fruit identification, what sense do you think we chose?

Slimy, Squishy Beans

Today in our malleable area the children enjoyed some sensory play with beans supporting brain development, and learning about the world around them.

Through this play the children are developing fine motor skills through tactile play, developing language, improving co-ordination, as well as fine/gross motor skills. Improving social skills such as communication and co-operation.

“I eat beans at home“

“They’re sticky”

We used all sorts of utensils to scoop, fill, pour, mash and weigh.

We used big spoons, small spoons, slotted spoons and watched the sauce “drip drip”through.

“I’m mushing the beans”

“Tap tap tap”

“Scoop, scoop, scoop”

“Wow it’s slimy”

“Look it’s slipping”

“Look squishing up”

We also had a go at balancing the scales with various degrees of success.

Exploring technology in the studio

As part of STEM week, the children have been exploring technology in the studio room by using the promethean board to create pictures.

The children were able to explore the different features of the ‘Actispire App’ by selecting different colours that they wanted to use..

”I’m using the yellow colour”

”I can pick black for my picture”

The children then used their gross motor and fine motor skills to perform different movements with their arms to create their picture on the board.

”I can do a circle”

”My picture is red and wavy like this”

”I can do a green colour on my picture”

T discovered that he could control the board by using the mouse pad on the laptop, he chose this as his preferred way to make selections for his picture.. great problem solving skills!

He then used the Ipad to take a picture of his creation all by himself.

 

Caring for our garden

Today in the Cart Mill garden Derek had a couple of helpers to check in on our seeds and see how they were coming along.  Take a look at some of our seedings starting to sprout up.

We looked at the seed trays and noticed that some of the pots had more than one seed growing in it. We decided to separate these so they would have more space to grow.

We gathered everything we needed compost, seed trays and our gardening tools. Using a stick we were very careful and removed the seedling. They were very fragile so we were super careful when we separated them.

We looked at the seedling and learned about the different parts. We discussed the stem, the leaves and one of the children identified the roots.

We filled the new trays with compost ready to plant one seeding in each space. Being super careful not to break the seeding we made a hole and planted them in their new homes.

“They will get big roots now”

“They will have more space”

Once we had planned the seeds in their new homes we watered them and placed in indoors so they are warm and ready to grow.

Article 28
You have the right to education.

Article 1
Everyone under the age of 18 has all the rights in the Convention

 

What can you SEE👀?

It’s STEM  week! (Science, Technology,Engineering, Mathematics)

Following on from learning about the sense of hearing in the science area we have been talking about how many senses there are and what they all are. We found out there are 5 senses. Today we discussed which of our senses we would like to focus on, we chose sight.

The children looked through the microscope to SEE the different specimens on the micro slides.

“I can see it, it looks like a little bit of grass from the garden”

“It’s tiny stones”  “Now it is BIG”

Next we did an experiment to SEE if the items we chose would Sink or Float. We discussed each item before it went in the water. We predicted whether each individual item  would float or sink, developing our critical thinking skills.

“The golf ball will sink”

“Why do you think it will sink?”

“Because it’s heavy”

“The pom pom will float”

“i know, it’s not heavy, it’s light”

”I can see it sinking all the way to the bottom”

We used our mark making skills to record our findings. The children made tally marks for each item and recorded them on a table.

“3 floated and 2 sinked”

For our final experiment, the children used pipettes (developing their fine motor skills and hand- eye co-ordination) to add different coloured food colouring to individual glases and then filled them up with water.

In each glass they added a paper towel so that half was in one glass and half in the one beside.

We watched as the coloured water transferred from one glass to another causing some of the colours to mix creating different colours in the empty glass.

“Look i can SEE it moving, the blue and yellow have turned green”

“They mix together”

The children have had lots of fun exploring their sight while being mini scientists.

Fun in the snow !!

What a week to spend in the garden and to finish on a Friday with SNOW!!!!!

Snow angels, using our gross motor muscles to make marks  and patterns in the snow…what fun!

Rolling the tyres to watch the marks and patterns we could make in the snow.

Making a fabulous ice slide…it goes really fast!

Mark making in the snow using different resources helping our fine motor skills and creativity.

The children love being outdoors in all weathers, lets all put on our jumpers and jackets and enjoy being outside having fun together x

 

 

 

 

Outdoors fun!

This week in the garden, we have been thinking of ways to develop our physical area. We have been working as a team to come up with some suggestions to make it more challenging and interesting.

While doing this, we realised we could add some more things into our obstacle course to focus more on our balancing skills. We talked about what balancing is…

“You freeze, That helps you stay still”

“Put your arms out. That helps you not fall on your face.”

“I can balance like a statue, look!”

“I’m like a flamingo”

This sparked some conversation about being “statues” and how they don’t move because they can “balance”. Think about statues, can they move? Can the wind move a statue?

As the children were becoming more confident with their balancing skills, we explored more tricky ways to practice.

The children found many uses for the tyres in the garden, and ways we could incorporate them into our play to challenge ourselves physically using them.

“Look how super fast I can go”

“I can balance if I lift my feet up!”

“If I put these 2 in front, then that will stop it from toppling over. Look, it worked! I’m a giant!”

Great problem solving everybody!

The children also showed an interest in making their own little chalk obstacle courses too…

“I want to hop! That helps me balance”

“I’m going to do a zig zag. I want to run on it”

Then, to top off a super busy week of physical fun, we played musical statues!

I wonder what we could add into the garden next? Great work everybody!!

Creative puppets

Our children have shown a keen interest in making puppets. Today the children have been working hard in the studio creating some characters for a puppet show.  We watched the puppet show The 3 little pigs before starting our own.

We discussed our characters and what they would look like then picked some resources to make them.

“I’m going to use these of his eyes”

Some of the children have chosen there favourite characters from books and some have created there own.

“I’m making a unicorn”

“I want to make a mouse. I’m going to use a small stick for my mouse, he’s little”

“this is the big bad wolf he has a big nose and ears”

“I like Pip and Posy books I’m making Pip”

Once our characters were made we wrote a story about then to act out.

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We made our stage and found some friends to come and see our show.

Everyone enjoyed the show 😀

Creative thinking at the tinker table !

Today we have been looking at some of the loose parts around the tinker table and what we could create with them. We placed our favourite pieces into a tray and decided we would use the hammer, nails and wood glue.

Tinkering is a playful way to explore or solve problems through the direct experience, experimentation and discovery with materials and tools.

The children decided what they would like to make “I am going to make a couch”  “mine will be a windmill”.  As with every activity, children’s ability and engagement can vary. Some of the children are confident to use the hammer and nails . We were also able to use the wood glue to add on some of the smaller loose parts.

The children were very engaged and worked well together discussing their ideas and sharing the tools and resources.
The children were very happy and proud of their creations. We look forward to adding in more loose parts and resources to expand our knowledge and building skills.

Article 12 – You have the right to be listened to and taken seriously.

Our Favourite Fruits

Today we were having a discussion about our favourite fruits. We decided to go and see what fruits we have in nursery and took pictures of the various fruits we could find.

We wanted to find out everyone’s favourite fruit  so we decided the best way was to create a chart of “our favourite fruits”. We cut out our pictures and glued them on paper and made squiggly lines to separate the fruits. We laminated these so we can use them everyday.

We then went round our playrooms asking our friends what their favourite fruits are.  We put a tick next to the fruit they chose.

“It’s yummy”

“Watermelon tastes the best”

The children then counted how many ticks at each fruit to see which was the most popular.

“The  watermelon Is most popular.” “ it has 10”

“The  pepper only has one “

We decided to have the four different fruits for our snack today so .we washed our hands and gathered our chopping boards & knives and began preparing the fruits . We talked about the different sizes of fruit  and the best way to cut them.

“ Watermelon is the hardest”

“Bananas are easy”

Finally it was snack time and it looked delicious!

We decided next time we could find out what our favourite smells are.
Continue reading Our Favourite Fruits

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