This week in the literacy area the children have continued to show an interest in space. The children were excited to discover that their ladies and Mr McIntosh had taken a trip to the moon and brought back some special moon dust for them to explore. The children engaged in a sensory exploration of the materials they used their fingers and brushes to create their marks. The children attempted to replicate upper and lower case letters, shapes, patterns, and numbers and some of  learners were able to differentiate between the letters and numbers and even match the ‘mummy letters’ with the ‘baby’ letters.

RS “ That’s a picture of Miss Queenan on the moon”

AS “ I’m making a big circle”

FC “I’m making an ‘F’ for Finlay”

This week in the sewing area the children wanted to make their own bracelets for themselves and their friends. They concentrated and persevered as they worked to thread the beads onto the string. We are also beginning to learn to tie knots as we secured our bracelets on to our wrists.

The children have also been working on their independent sewing skills as they made collages with the shapes. They chose which shapes and buttons to sew on to the foam and created their own pictures to take home.

In our small world area this week the children have been further developing their measuring, designing and building skills. The children explored with small world and magnetic tiles, using the magnets to make creations to extend their play. Small world naturally encourages the creation of stories. Adding magnetic tiles allows children to build settings which will inspire deeper narratives. The children were experimenting with building stable structures using magnetic tiles and then spent time figuring out how these interact with the small world characters! 

In our creative area this week the children have been spray water painting with spray bottles containing diluted paint. This is a fun, messy and engaging art activity which they sprayed on to boxes, almost as a target practice! This activity promotes fine motor skill development, hand-eye coordination, creativity, and colour exploration and as you can imagine the children thoroughly enjoyed it! 

We are working towards our Green Flag Award at the Family Centre. This is an internationally recognised achievement for schools and nurseries committed to Learning for Sustainability. Flags can be seen flying outside our schools all over Scotland. We hope to have one flying outside ours in the not too distant future! This week we have been out helping the community and helping to Keep Scotland Beautiful by litter picking in our local area! The children really enjoy going out and doing their bit and there was lots of discussion around how this protects our local wildlife too!

In the outdoor area this week the children have been building and creating their own obstacle courses! Obstacle courses are great for enhancing gross motor skills like balance, coordination and strength and also fosters cognitive skills like problem solving and following instructions. It also promotes social skills such as cooperation and communication as they all work together!