February Fun at Cross Arthurlie
February has been filled with lots of fun, friendships and fabulous learning for the Purple group!
Chinese New Year
The children celebrated Chinese New Year within the Nursery by making Chinese lanterns, chicken noodle soup and developing their numeracy skills with the Promethean board, Chinese dragon activity. The children are continuing to work on their turn taking skills within the nursery and are becoming more patient whilst waiting their turn. Their knowledge of numbers 1-5 have also been strengthened whilst completing this task.
Well done Purples!
Back to Front Day
The children had a great time wearing their clothes back to front to raise some money for the Nursery! Thankfully nobody put their shoes on back to front, or there may have been a few accidents!
Painting
Painting is always available to the children daily in the nursery. They love to get creative in the art area and messy too! Some of the children prefer to use their hands for painting and we support the children’s choice to explore different medias to further their creativity.
We continue to prompt the children to put on their own aprons when they enter the arts and crafts area, they are aware of the guidelines and often help each other put on their aprons too. I love to see the children helping each other and develop their friendships throughout their play and learning during their time in Nursery.
Planting in the Garden
Some of the purple group were involved in completing some planting in the Nursery garden. We made a herb window box, filled with strawberries, rosemary, mint and thyme. The children are learning about caring for plants and remembering to water them in order for them to grow. They loved getting their hands dirty and patting down the soil. Hopefully our plants survive the cold weather and by summer time will be blooming beautifully!
Ice & Outdoors
February has brought us some very cold weather indeed, but the cold weather never puts the littles ones off playing outdoors! The muddy puddles in the garden are always popular choice and put to good use once the children have their wellies and puddle suits on. The children particularly enjoyed exploring and breaking the frozen ice on top of the muddy puddles and sinks in the mud kitchen. We watched throughout the day as the ice melted and disappeared, as the temperature changed throughout their time at nursery that day.
Gym Hall Fun
Monday mornings is our allocated time or Gym Hall fun where Mr. Flemming plans a lesson, using his coaching expertise to develop the children’s gross motor skills. The children love their time in the gym hall and are continually developing several skills such as jumping, climbing, balancing and crawling.
It is lovely to see the children’s abilities progress from week to week and their confidence grow whilst completing the different physical activities. They are learning to follow instructions whilst being outwith their daily environment of the playroom. At the end of each session we participate in a circle game which the children get very excited about!
Puzzle Time
Jigsaws are one of the children’s favourite activities to do in Nursery. They especially enjoyed our new rocket puzzle, which has lots of pieces to match together. I was so impressed at how well the purple group worked as a team to complete the puzzle and how their problem solving skills are developing every day.
Well done Purples!
Froebelian Occupations
Miss Ramsay has started completing learning experiences with the children based on the theorist Friedrich Frobel. His studies have a focus on children’s abilities to work independently and strengthen their fine motor skills and hand muscles. All the experiences work under an umbrella effect, which are all interlinked.
The children have been involved in learning about how to thread a plastic needle with wool and create pictures by threading wool through the holes of woven fabric.
Wooden slat work has also been a favorite for the children, where the children place wooden sticks on a black background to create different images. Their creativity and imagination is encouraged whilst completing this task.
Paper perforating, was also heavily enjoyed by the children. Here they were able to create little images by using a tooth pick to prick through the paper onto a foam background. This exercise is helping develop the children’s pincer grip, which is helping get the children ready for holding a pencil when they begin hand writing.
