Today in the garden the children had great fun using our giant polydron pieces.
They checked out some pictures for inspiration before drawing up their own plans.
The children worked really well as a team to create various designs, developing their problem solving skills and communicating their ideas.
“we made a train, all aboard “
“look at our house”
The possibilities are endless and through polydron activities it will help them to grow and develop to their full potential.
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!
Today in the discovery room we looked at magnets and how they work.
We decided to select different items we found around our playroom and investigated to see if they were magnetic using a selection of different sized magnets.
We used our mathematical skills to discover that magnets can pull together objects or push them away. We also found that although we had two of the same item, only one was magnetic. This is because objects that look the same are not always made of the same material.
We recorded our findings on a chart. It showed us what items were magnetic and those that were non-magnetic. We discovered that magnetic things were made of metal but items that were made of wood or plastic were not magnetic, unless they had a little bit of metal in them!
We loved listening to each other making our predictions whether something was magnetic or not, everybody made sure they were taking turns when choosing what items to test. We loved guessing the material!
Why don’t you have a look around the house and guess what materials are magnetic or not!
Today the children had great fun in the garden. They set up the guttering on our new stands and loved rolling balls of different sizes down the slopes. The aim was to catch the balls in the basket at the bottom!
The children showed great problem solving skills whilst developing their gross motor skills stretching, reaching and chasing the balls. They were very excited when the balls landed in the basket.
Before home time the children enjoyed having fun out on the bikes. They loved zooming around the garden and were very excited that it was getting dark! This further develops their gross motor skills, balance and coordination.
Lots of fun and fresh air today and the children showed great teamwork and amazing turn taking in the garden!
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.
Today the children found a packet of marshmallows and were keen to explore and investigate them.
Using an iPad they researched what things they could make. We found a recipe for marshmallow playdough so we chose that.
The children measured out the marshmallows and poured some vegetable oil into a bowl.
The recipe asked for the marshmallows to be melted and the children asked how they would do this. They talked about it and used the microwave in the staff room to do this.
After 30 secs the microwave pinged and they were excited to see what the marshmallows looked like. They noticed that they had all melted but looked hot.
They brought the bowl back to the playroom and added some cornflour to the mix. Using their super muscles they took turns at mixing it.
The children enjoyed exploring the texture of this new play dough and by adding dried oranges and lemons added to their sensory experience.
Maths week in the toddlers has been great fun! We have been super busy. Today we focused on shapes.
The children were exploring common 2D shapes on the geoboard. They were able to confidently name the shapes and use their fine manipulative and problem solving skills to put the elastic bands around the nails to create their shapes.
The children had lots of fun learning and creating shapes. We decided to get creative and use shapes for printing!
From an early age, children notice different shapes, even if they don’t yet know that the shapes have names. Giving children lots of practice with shapes helps them solidify their understanding of the two-dimensional structures. That knowledge of shapes gives the young children an advantage in many areas of learning.
Today the children have been super busy making ramps for their cars using the blocks. They decided to make their own ramps. The toddlers self selected their own paint colours and then dipped their cars into the paint and set them off down the ramp. The children noticed that some of the cars went further than others, some went down fast, some slow and that the tyres all made different marks. They added some textured balls to see what different marks they left. “ That’s left a bumpy mark” They learned some new concepts including stop, go, up, down, fast, slow developing their language skills and learning about cause and effect.
When asked what they would like to do next with the cars L said “ make a garage “ So they set about creating one. H said “we should use these boxes”. L said “ I’m painting it green, it needs to have a tunnel and space for the fire engine”. The children demonstrated great team work when planning together to create their garage. They were proud of their finished result and had great fun playing together.
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