Tag Archives: STEM

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Our beautiful butterflies 🦋

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What a wonderful surprise we got today walking into nursery to see our butterflies had emerged  from their chrysalises.

The children were super excited “we can now feed the butterflies”. We had a discussion about what the butterflies can eat.

“We need to feed the butterflies so they grow.”
“Then we can let them out to fly away.”

“The butterflies need sugar water.”
“Can we give them fruit.”

We read the guidance instructions and it was suggested that we feed the butterflies slices of citrus fruit and sugar water. So the children cut up pieces of oranges and filled cup lids with sugar water. Next we gently placed the fruit and water into the butterflies net and watched to see what happened.

“We need to be so careful so we don’t scare them.”

“They are going to eat all the oranges.

“That one is going over to the water.”

We will continue to look after our butterflies until they are ready to be released into our garden. The children have enjoyed watching every step as they grow. 🦋

Special Event

The life cycle of a butterfly 🦋

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Today we had a very exciting delivery in our nursery! The children were very excited to see what was inside the special box. It’s time to learn about… the life cycle of a butterfly 🦋

First we had a little look at our new caterpillar friends, which sparked some interesting and thought provoking questions.

“It’s like a teeny wee baby worm. Is it a caterpillar?”

“Why does it have a web around it?”

We talked about all the different stages the caterpillar goes through…

“They go into a cocoon first. That helps them get all cosy and grow big and strong”

“When they hang upside down, that’s when they are a chrysalis. They’re nearly ready to pop out then!”

The children showed great curiosity, and came up with some interesting suggestions on what we thought might happen next, using the pictures as clues.

“Maybe the big box is for when they’re butterflies. Because they will need lots of space”

“They might want some snacks too”

“What do butterflies eat?”

Seeing how living things grow and develop over time with proper care in our very own playrooms is a great opportunity  for our children to explore and develop life skills. We are so excited to learn how to take care of our new creatures, and watch them transform into beautiful butterflies 🦋

Outdoor Learning

Pendulum Painting 🎨

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Today in the garden we have been having lots of fun creating very cool patterns using our gross motor skills and learning about the forces of motion and gravity with a painting technique called pendulum painting.

We started off by looking for resources with holes in them, once collected from around our nursery we started tying string onto the handles and hanging them from the rope. We filled them up with paint, pushing the pendulums watching the paint fall through the holes, each one creating a different pattern.

“This has lots of holes in it.”

”I’m choosing purple because it’s my favourite colour.”

We looked at the patterns made by the paint, we noticed that by swinging the pendulum harder or softer, in different directions and tying the string at different lengths it would create different patterns.

“My one is going super high”

“It’s like a swing.”

“I did a big push and it swings all by itself.”

The children enjoyed pushing the pendulums back and forth to one another and seeing how high they could push them. What a great excuse for some messy play!

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Exploring technology in the studio

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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.

 

Literacy

What can you SEE👀?

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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.

Expressive Arts, Outdoor Learning

Let it Rain ☔️

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Today in the garden we spotted a rainbow in the sky. It sparked a conversation about the weather as it began to fade behind the big grey  clouds.

“It looks like it is going to rain, the rainbow is hiding behind the clouds”

”it rained lots and lots ands lots last night, there was big puddles in my garden I splashed in them”

“It rained so much I catched it in my hands, it was loads”

“How much rain was there?”

”I don’t know,just lots”

We decided to make a rain gauge to see if we could measure the rainfall throughout the week.

We wrote down all the resources we need and made a plan then got to  work.

Cutting off the top of the bottle to use as a funnel we placed it inside the bottle and taped off the jaggy bits to make it safe.
We then added the tip of an old felt tip pen to the bottles to make it easier to see how much rain has fallen. We used red, purple and blue.


We split the bottle in to 4 sections numbering it 1-4 so when it fills up with rain we can measure it. We then stapled the bottles to the fence and are now waiting patiently for it to rain to see how much water we collect. Typically  it stopped raining as soon as we were finished making the gauge.

We will be keeping an eye over the next few days and recording our findings.

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Scottish Inventors

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To celebrate St Andrews Day we are learning about Scottish inventors in the discovery room this week. We started by asking “What is an inventor?”

  • ”It’s someone who builds lots of stuff.”
  • “They make robots.”
  • “An inventor makes stuff.”

Then we learned about Henry Faulds who invented finger printing. We discussed what we know about fingerprints, what they can be used for and what makes each one unique.

  • “Police use them to catch baddies.”
  • ”We use them for mysteries.”
  • ”There’s hundreds of little lines.”
  • ”It means you’re not the same.”

Then we used our ink and made our own prints.

We also examined them through the telescope to see all the lines and whirls better.

“I’m making a picture with mine.”

Next we learned about Sir Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone and had a great time making our own phones.

We discovered that the string had to be pulled as tight as possible or the sound will not travel to the receiver. We experimented with different lengths of string and found the longer the piece, the better the sound.

Excellent work from our own little inventors!

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Indoor bug hotel

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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 is a big house it fit us in”

 

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Who is that in the mirror..

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Today the children have been very creative in the Discovery room. They have used loose parts in many different ways.

After discovering their own reflections in the mirror they decided to use some loose parts to recreate their features using the different pieces.

“

‘eyes and nose’

“that’s my face, I can use these stones for my eyes and this small one for my nose”

The children used the loose parts to sort and match by colour and practice their counting skills.

”blue like your eyes”

We counted together… “1,2,3,4,5”

Loose parts are a great way for children to use their imagination and learn in lots of different ways.  They are able to arrange and rearrange, sort, match and create their own images focusing on the process instead of the end product.

Expressive Arts

Exploring the tinker table

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Today the children were exploring the different tools and wood at the tinker table and planned out what they were going to make and what tools they would need to make it.

“ I want to make a boat”

We discussed the safety rules we need to follow when using the tools and what we need to wear to keep our hands and eyes safe.

”We need to wear safety gloves”  “and goggles”


The children collected the things that they needed and got to work.

”I need some wood and a hammer and nails” “and some glue”

The nails are all different sizes so they had to measure against the wood to make sure the nail didn’t stick out the other end.

“I need different shapes of wood for my boat like the round bit for the sail, I need to glue it though because it’s too long”

“I want to use the hammer” “ This ones a bit tricky though”

They explored the different woods, some were softer than others.

The children are developing their hand eye co-ordination as they hammer the nails in to the wood.

“I want to saw this bit of wood”

When using the saw we mark on the wood with a pen which bit we would like to cut on so that it’s clearer to see the cut. Sawing takes large muscle movements when moving it back and forwards and develops Gross motor skills. “That was hard work”.