In our Home Room this week we have been celebrating Maths Week Scotland. We have been using the different learning areas In our Home Room to explore this years‘ Maths Week Scotland theme of ‘finding the beauty in maths’, learning how we use maths in all different ways.
In our Baking and Sewing Areas…. As part of Maths Week have been exploring pattern through making some yummy fruit kebabs! We talked about the different colours, shapes and sizes of the fruit and then used our favourites to create a fruity pattern.
Some of the children were able to copy and continue a simple pattern using their favourite two fruits.
‘I like grapes”“Ben do it.”
Some children were able to create their own more complex patterns with three different kinds of their favourite fruit.
“I am doing the same again.”
“I need the banana again.”
In our sewing area we made patterns threading our different coloured beads, and sewing patterns onto the leaves we collected. We had to concentrate hard as it was very tricky!
“In and out.”“I’m doing colours.”
In our Playdough Area…
In our playdough area we have been learning how to make our playdough more independently. We have been using measuring, pouring and filling skills to correctly follow the recipe . We decided to record our recipe and display it to help our friends make their own.
“I scoop of salt.”
In our Home Corner……… Stories are a great way to engage children in mathematical conversations. Stories help children to see the relevance of maths to their own lives and develop their understanding of mathematical concepts and language in meaningful contexts.
We explored the story of Simon the Sock. Simon is an odd stripey sock. He lives in the sock drawer with all the other socks. Every sock in the drawer has a pair…except for Simon. Will he ever find his match?
Through exploring the story the children were able to use and develop mathematical skills such as sorting, matching, reasoning and comparing. We loved looking through Simon’s sock drawer. We used our matchIng skills to help Simon find all the matching pairs!
We then used our observation skills to look at the different patterns. We described all the patterns we could see, spots, stripes, stars and some of us even spotted that we had patterns on our own socks on our feet! Simon the sock challenged us to use our sorting skills to each decide a different way we could sort our socks. We even used our mark making skills to record how we were going to sort them each time!
When we had completed our challenge we matched all the socks together again in their pairs, well all apart from Simon!
We wonder if any of you have an odd socks like Simon in your home?!
This week the children have been learning about maths and having fun trying out all the different ways this can be done.
The construction block area is always in good use and after we had read a story about 10 little monsters the children decided to build their own spooky castle 🏰 we have been working out sizes long ones for this wall and we need shorter ones over here !
We have been counting 12345 as we have posted the counters through the block . We have discovered that some items are too big to fit through the hole.
At the tinker table we have been practising our measuring skills looking at the numbers on the ruler or tape and placing the items in order of size. This one is the” biggest “. We even had a look round the nursery to compare sizes of different resources.
Our loose parts area was full of resources and inspiration . We had a look at a book called Hannah’s Collection and this gave us great ideas. We then made our own designs using loose parts “ I will use the round buttons and make lollipops” and I can use sticks to make a shop. We had some lovely creations.
As the children also enjoy technology they had turns following the instruction cards to make our “bee bots” move in different directions. Press this button one time to move forward or this button to go backwards. There is four buttons on mine “look it can go this way “ we learnt that this means it’s moving to the right or to the left.
We have all enjoyed our day in the discovery room. Let’s look out for shapes and sizes on our way home !
It’s Maths Week! Today in our garden we have been super busy taking part in lots of fun experiences.
Some of the children were working hard as a team to build their very own ‘castle’. They were using their problem solving skills to estimate and measure the blocks and materials to see which one fits best.
“This one needs to go at the top”
”It’s taller than me”
The children also had lots of fun creating and following patterns in the sand
“This goes up and down”
“this one looks like M”
We went on a shape hunt in our garden which was filled with lots of different shapes.
“I’ve found a circle”
“I can see a square”
Welcome to our cafe, the children made up a menu with a selection of prices and the served up some delicious ice cream.
”I’ll have the strawberry please”
”That will be 20p”
The children were creating and copying shapes, using loose parts.
In preparation for Maths Week Scotland next week, we have been busy in the Discovery Room exploring and developing our knowledge of shapes!
Through use of our shape mats, we have investigated shapes we are familiar with and have been asking lots of questions about shapes we haven’t seen before.
Utilising our colour recognition and problem solving skills as well as our shape knowledge, we were able to carefully place the correct shape on the corresponding place on our mats!
“The blue square goes here”
”This is the triangle. It’s green”
“I don’t know what this one is”
”Do you like my butterfly?”
Creating an invitation to explore our Mouse Shape book, provided the opportunity for us to further develop our shape knowledge.
We demonstrated our excellent shape and colour knowledge by correctly matching our shapes to the corresponding picture and to the pictures in our book. Some of us were able to name the shapes and some of us matched them by using our colour recognition.
We decided to add some additional resources such as pens, paper and additional shapes. This allowed us to practice our mark making skills to draw our own shapes and copy the names. We decided to use different shapes to create our own mouse and cat!
“I used triangles for the teeth, circles for the eyes and the white ones for ears”
To challenge ourselves further, we introduced blocks into our learning. We were able to transfer our shape knowledge and problem solving skills to choose the correct shaped blocks to create our own mouse and cat! We are so creative and learned that a cylinder is a 3d shape that looks just like a circle.
“I’m making the mouse. I’m using the rectangle to make it stand up”
”Let’s make the mouse. The big triangles are the teeth. The circles are the nose. The big one’s are the hair”
Today the children had lots of sensory fun in the playdough area. We added a special ingredient to experience some new textures with our hands; Sand playdough!
First we added our normal ingredients and did lots of mixing…
Next we added our special ingredient.
The children really engaged their imaginations, and created lots of different role playing scenarios in the playdough.
“It smells like the beach. I’m going to make a sandcastle!”
”it’s very soft. And crunchy”
“Im going to make a sand cake!”
”my baby”
Some children loved being expressive with the playdough, and enjoyed making some funny faces.
“I want to make a playdough face. Like this, look!”
The children enjoyed adding the different textures and how soft and malleable it made the playdough, making it easier to mould into different shapes and sizes. These are all experiences that help develop little fingers and little muscles, and of course our imaginations! Great work everybody 👍
In the Studio Room our children have enjoyed using the rollers to paint. Today we used bubble wrap to further develop their interests.
We started with the different shaped rollers. We picked the colour of paint we wanted then got to work rolling the paint rollers across the bubble wrap.
We enjoyed listening to the pop of the bubbles as the rollers glided over. We spoke about the patterns our rollers were making onto the bubble wrap. “Curvy” and “zigzag” ones are the favourites.
We like popping the bubbles with our hands and exploring the texture of the bubble wrap.
Our activity soon took a change and became much more fun and sensory based as we used our hands to paint.
Much more fun! We decided the the bubble wrap was “bumpy” and the paint was “cold” and “smooth”.
We tried different ways to pop the bubbles, with our fingers and our whole hands.
We used our hands to mix the colours together to make new colours and spread the paint all over the bubble wrap making it look colourful and bold.
We even tried printing our hands and the bubble wrap with corks to experiment with the sounds and shapes it would make.
We had such fun with something so simple that inspired thought provoking questions from our children from 2-5 years. We enjoyed incorporating sensory experiences into our painting. We were learning about patterns and using new descriptive language.
But most important of all, we had the best fun getting messy.
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 week in the studio, the children have been showing an interest in castles!
When the children arrived in the studio room they asked for some music on the board, they decided on Disney music which has a castle as a background, this sparked some conversation about castles and the children asked if they could make their own castles.
”I know what we can do”
Some children decided that they wanted to stick things inside their castle to make it pop up!
”I’m making a draw bridge for my castle door”
We even made a sparkly castle… It was so much fun choosing different colours!
”I’m making windows for my castle, It has a big one and a wee one, at the side for the people to see out of”
The children have been very creative as you can see, I wonder what fabulous creations they will come up with next week?! As always, feel free to donate your un-wanted junk to us as you can see, it comes in very handy and our children love to be inventive with it!
Today in the garden we had great fun enjoying some September sunshine! We were very busy developing our gross motor skills in many different ways.
Some children got messy in the paint using big arm strokes to create an art masterpiece. They were using mops, brushes and roller cars to make different patterns.
We enjoyed water play and particularly had fun pouring water down the gutters and catching it at the bottom.. Rolling the balls down with the water was great, the children realised that the more water they poured the quicker the balls travelled!
Jumping in the very large puddle in the garden was as always loved by the children! They enjoyed getting their suits on and making a big splash! The higher the jump the bigger the splash!
Let’s hope the sun keeps shining down on our garden!
