Tag Archives: #problemsolving

Staying safe in the sun☀️

What a wonderful day it is☀️.The children have been out enjoying the sunshine, but learning how to stay safe when the temperature is high. I asked the children if they knew what we can do to stay safe in the sun. They gave some great answers.

”Sun cream, my mum put some on me before I came to nursery”
“Wear my sun hat”

We discussed staying hydrated by drinking lots of water and taking regular breaks from the sun in the shade.

This is some of their favourite shaded areas to play in.


“We like to have pretend picnics on the bench”

”and read stories in the den”


We have been developing our fine motor skills through this mark making experience in the shade. The children are exploring letters and writing/ drawing in the sand.

We added 4 golf balls and powder paint with a splash of water to the tuff tray. The children used their strong muscles to lift the tray up and worked as a team to move the golf balls around in the tray to mix the colours and create patterns.

As some of the children went to play somewhere else, they noticed that the tray got heavier and tipped to one side.

“uh oh it fell, how do we get it back up?”

The children used their problem solving skills to figure out how to balance the tray and keep the golf balls from rolling off.

Who said you can’t have fun in the shade, the kids have had great fun outside while staying safe.

While this hot weather is due to continue, please make sure the children stay safe in the sun by putting sun cream on before they come to nursery, wearing a sun hat or cap and ensuring we have sun cream for them in the centre. We want to enjoy it while is lasts!

Colour mixing fun🏳️‍🌈

The children have been exploring the colour wheel and discussing their favourite colours and designing their own wheel with various materials.

Today we explored the colour wheel and began to talk about the various colours and if anyone could identify the three primary colours. A couple of the children were able to name these

.”Blue, Red & yellow”

We listened to a story called Mouse Hunt which told us a story about the primary colours and what happens if we mixed certain colours together and what colours they become.  The colours that they are called secondary colours.

We talked about the story and I asked who could identify the primary colours now. Then as a group we took turns to mix the colours, we made predictions on which colour it would create.
“Blue”

”yellow mouse”

”Red mouse”

The children then gathered their own  resources  and began to explore and experiment with the  primary colours. They used  their fine motors skills to mix the primary colours of their choice  together and create the secondary colours. Some of the children chose to do this in their pallets and others chose to mix them on their paper.

Red and blue is purple

I am going to make orange, I need yellow and red

Blue and  yellow

The children continued to experiment with the colours and were able to paint a piece of art work using them.

” I made the mouse”

”mine is beautiful colours, I made”

“ I made this orange myself”

” looks Suzi it’s an eyeball”

” I made a Christmas tree with my colours”

”mine is light green”

Well done children your colour mixing was fab.

What new colours can you create at home ?

Creativity in the sewing area 😍 Meet Bob and Mouse 🐻🐭

Today in the studio we were developing our hand eye coordination finger dexterity and building our self confidence through our love of sewing.

“I want to sew on some buttons “ “Im choosing pink ones and pink material would look nice too” “It’s quite tricky for me to sew, but I can do it”


“I want to sew buttons on to” “I want to sew on four” “I’m choosing blue material, I like it best”

”I want to make a little teddy bear” “ I’m making him yellow” “ I think it would be easiest to draw him out first “ “He has a big head” “I think he looks like a Bob, “Yes Bob bear”

“I would like to make a cuddly mouse” “ I need to see what a mouse looks like first can I look on the I-pad? “ I’m going to copy the mouse from the I-pad” “ I need brownish material “”sewing takes quite a long time but I’m excited to see my finished mouse” “ The stuffing is soft and bouncy” “ I love my mouse he is very squeaky and small”

Well done everyone I can’t wait to see what fab ideas you have for the sewing area tomorrow.

 

 

Story Box!

The children have been very creative in the junk modelling area over the past couple of weeks designing and making their own story characters.

They made a story box using recycled materials such as cardboard, bottle tops, bottles and cartons and decorated it adding some coloured tissue paper and more crafts.

Using their imaginations the children came up with some great ideas for characters, they created bunny rabbits, a hare, batman, a robot, a boat, a car, a monster, an octopus and so much more and added it all to the story box.

Next they selected some characters from the box and began to tell their story, writing it down as they went along.

“The mermaid kitty and the octopus went in the taxi to the shop.  They bought cheese and ice cream. Then they met hare and batman and then they went home. The End.”

Something as simple as a cereal box can spark so much conversation and lead on to so many amazing ideas where the children develop their problem solving skills , communication skills, and are able to express their thoughts and ideas.

We are so grateful to you all for bringing in your recycling it has so many benefits for your children.

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.

 

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!!

Let’s get creative 🛠

Today at the tinker table the children have been super busy, we have had so much fun creating using the tools, loose parts and blocks of wood.

To begin with the children were investigating and experimenting with the different tools to see which would work best.

“I’m going to need the saw and hammer.”

After choosing all the resources needed we then got started!

First the children wanted to measure out their fabric, so we used our measuring tapes.

“I’ll draw a line to help measure.”
“I’m going up to number 4.”

The children then carefully hammered the nails into the blocks of wood, joining the pieces together.


“I use the hammer with my dad to fix things in the house”

Next the children used the saw to cut the wood into smaller pieces and carefully sanded down the sharp edges, using our sandpaper tool that the children previously made themselves.


“It’s sharp we need to make it soft.”

”You need to saw very carefully, like this.”

Here is the children’s fantastic pieces of work! Great job everyone 👍🏻

“My giraffe has a very long neck, his name is Max.”

”My airplane goes all the way into the sky.”

”I have made a cheetah.”

The children demonstrated brilliant independence skills as they made their own choices and decisions. The children were encouraged to use the majority of the tools and resources independently while being supervised.

Let’s get building!

Today in the discovery room the children have been having lots of fun working together as a team to build brilliant models.

This morning the children were using their problem solving skills to build their fantastic fire engine, great job!


“This is our fire engine.”

”I’m the driver.”

“I’m on the phone”

This afternoon the children were super busy, using their creative skills to build their spaceship for everyone to join.


“This bit needs to go here”

”I’ll fix it”

Everyone aboard! The children were all very engaged in playing in the ‘spaceship’ and acting out scenarios. We even spotted aliens in space!

“Everyone get in, blast off.”

”we’re in space, I can see aliens.”

 

 

 

Patchwork houses

Thank you so much for all the kind donations of boxes and cardboard  for our junk modelling area. We decided to have a look in our Cardboard Creations book for some inspiration!   We loved the patchwork houses in our book and decided we would make some of our own!

We discussed what resources we would need and decided on:

“glue to stick things on”

“cardboard or boxes to make the house”

”scissors to cut things”.

”pens to draw windows and a door to get in”

”material, coloured paper and buttons to stick on”

We worked together to collect our resources and shared our thoughts on why we had chosen them.

”I’m choosing pink, it’s my favourite colour”.

”My favourite is red”.

”my favourite is red too”.

It was a bit tricky to cut the cardboard so we decided it would be safer if an adult used bigger scissors to cut it for us.  Using our smaller scissors helped us develop our fine motor skills, through cutting our paper, ribbon and wool.

Next it was time to design our house! We demonstrated excellent mark making and writing skills by adding our own features to our houses.

“I’m drawing windows. We need them up at the top, and at the bottom”.

”I’m drawing a door so we can get in and out”.

”I need a chimney, it goes on the top on the roof”.

”I’m writing number 23, that’s the same as my house”.

It was lots of fun choosing different materials to glue onto our houses. We used our knowledge to describe our materials and explain why we had chosen them.

“I like this one, it looks like a picnic blanket!”

”I like the pink one. It’s shiny and smooth”.

”The green one is like a tree, it’s fluffy”.

”The ribbon looks like a tractor wheel”.

”This one is black and white and it has flowers on it”.

”I love the blue one, it’s bumpy and has sparkles on it”.

”I’m putting buttons on. I like the colours”.

The glue on our houses was still a bit wet, so we decided to put them up to dry. When we put all our houses together, we decided it looked like “a wee village!”

It was so much fun making our houses and we can’t wait to see what else we can create!

 

 

 

 

What can you create?

Today in the discovery room the children have shown an interest in our loose parts area. Some of the children were talking about the fireworks they seen at the weekend with their family for guy fawks night, so they created their own fireworks.


“It goes poooooof”

”So noisy I had to cover my ears”

“So high in the sky”

”Lots of colours”

“I’ve made a rainbow with lots of colours and fireworks under it”

Some of the other children made funny faces and little houses.

“My face is funny”

”My face is excited”

“I’ve made lots of houses, they are all different colours”