This website/Twitter page has lots of simple but fun activity ideas.
Please let us know if you try any of them out…
Category Archives: Creative Arts
Calling all Artists and Nature Detectives!
Hello to all the children from Busby Nursery! We hope you have been having fun playing, learning, creating and exploring at home.
Have you seen any signs of Spring through your window?
Any birds building nests or looking for food?
Any leaves starting to grow on bare trees?
Any new Spring Flowers?
The famous artist David Hockney, who is 83, was busy drawing some beautiful daffodils on his iPad last week. Here is his picture:
Here is another huge painting he once did of trees in the Spring. It is the size of a whole room. Do you like the colours?
Why not try looking for some signs of Spring through your window or on your daily walk. You could keep a notebook of them.
Lots of children have been drawing and painting beautiful rainbows and putting them in their windows. Perhaps you could also try painting some Spring flowers or trees to celebrate Spring. You could try using an iPad like Hockney if your family has one, or you could do it with pens, pencils, coloured paper or anything else you can think of. Let’s make a Spring Gallery. You can share your pictures on Busby Primary and ELCC Twitter.
Family Learning
Learning at Home
Below are some fun activity ideas that could be done at home.
If you wish, you could share pictures of your learning in your learning journal.
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Act Out a Story Act out a scene from one of your favourite books. You could use costumes, props, make your own puppets and even set up a stage! |
Mark-Making
Find interesting materials to draw and write with. These could be messy materials like paint and mud. |
Make Play-Dough
Make playdough with 2 cups of flour, 1 tsp. salt, 1 tbs. oil and 1 cup water. Add food colouring, glitter or herbs and spices. |
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Missing Number Write out a line of numbers (e.g. 0-10). The adult should cover a number for the child to figure out which number is missing. |
Loose Parts
Find interesting objects like bolts, marbles and pine cones. Use them to make groups of 5s etc. |
Junk Modelling Use up some of the items in your recycling bin to make models. These could be robots, buildings or inventions. |
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Counting Games Counting tins in the cupboard, estimate the number pasta shells in the jar and count the steps in the house. |
Threading Pasta
Make some jewellery using string and pasta. You can decorate your shells with paint or glue and glitter. |
Watch the Clock Keep an eye on the clock for o’clock times. Have a think about the time of day that you do different things like have your meals and go to bed. |
| Matching Coins
Find some money and sort the coins into matching groups. Can you recognise the £1 coin? Practise spending your money at the shops. |
Sensory Play
Fill bowls with different sensory materials like rice, jelly, gloop (cornflour and water), soapy water and cereal. Play in them all, try to describe how they feel. |
Take Photographs Take photos of different scenes. This could be family, your toys, plants or interesting patterns. |
Below are some useful links for online resources:
https://www.storylineonline.net/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/school-radio/nursery-rhymes-songs-index/zhwdgwx
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/games/get-squiggling-letters-mobile
https://www.teachyourmonstertoread.com/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/curations/nursery-rhymes
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/3-5-years/counting
https://www.nasa.gov/kidsclub/index.html
http://www.bobthebuilder.com/en-gb/activities/more
http://www.kidspsych.org/index1.html
https://www.science-sparks.com/science-and-stem-challenge-cards/
http://www.bigbrownbear.co.uk/magneticletters/index.html
https://resource-bank.scholastic.co.uk/
https://www.learningandexploringthroughplay.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/CosmicKidsYoga
https://www.abcearlyyears.org.uk/index2.html
https://www.robinhoodmat.co.uk/learning-projects/
Apps
The Hello Atlas
Bookbug
BBC iPlayer Kids
Alphablocks
Numberblocks
Welcome Spring !
Below is a selection of the Spring banners our children created to decorate the hall for our Daffodil Tea. They practised their Spring songs to sing to parents and visitors and thus helped raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care. Well done to all the children and a big thank you to all who supported the event!!
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Saving the Planet
As part of STEM fortnight, the children have been reading Greta and the Giants (the story of Greta Thunberg). In the Story Box they explored which animals are endangered through habitat destruction and made their own signs to say “Stop”, “Help” and “Save Our Planet.”
The children created a frieze from the story – making a forest, drawing the giants, people and houses, and writing signs.
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“I want to make a Stop sign.” EH
“We’ve drawn the giants.” EP
“This is all the houses.” FD
“That says Help.” SF
The giants “smashed the trees… I drew all the people – the big people and the little people.” LM
“Litter” (is dangerous for sea turtles) MF
“Did you know that in China they are chopping down the bamboo that pandas need to eat?” IMM
“Orangutan! That’s King Louis. What do they do in the trees?” EH
Bring on Spring!
The children have been learning all about how things grow, as we look forward to Spring and also our Spring Event next Thursday morning, March 5th.
The children used cupcake cases, paper quilling, chalk, pen, scissors, crayon and glue to create their individual daffodil designs: |
“The trumpet part is orange.” |
Planting Iris Bulbs: we have planted indoors and outdoors, and are comparing how quickly bulbs grow in the different environments. |
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“Put a seed in, water it and wait till the sun comes.”
“One of my iris bulbs turned into a white flower.
The other one was yellow.”
“The bulb is round.”
“It has roots.”
“Mine has grown big.”
Singing “Ten Little Daffodils” and imitating how they grow.
Space
We were listening to the story “Little Moon” about a moon that was lost in space.
After reading the story we drew pictures of our own planets and helped little moon to travel around the solar system to find his home, Earth.
We love singing along to the planets song and learning lots of cool facts!
click on the link below to listen at home:
The children worked together to create the surface of the moon. Lots of gluing, cutting and sticking to develop our fine motor skills.
We also made some rockets and astronauts for our tuff tray.
Our finished product! We enjoyed using our moon for role play and story telling.
The Year of the Rat
We have been celebrating and learning about Chinese New Year in lots of different ways:
Acting out the story of the Great Race;
Taking part in a Chinese Dragon Parade;
Tasting noodles, stir-fried vegetables & prawn crackers;
Making paper dragons, lanterns, dragon frieze and lucky red envelopes;
Hearing all about Chinese New Year from Ivy’s Mum
Gong Xi Fa Cai !
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 The Animal Swimming Race Story |
Celebrating Scottish Culture
During Scottish Literacy & Burns week, we have been busy in the nursery exploring different aspects of Scottish culture:
We are learning about Robert Burns and his life;
We’ve been dancing to Scottish music in gym and the playrooms;
We are cooking and sampling porridge, haggis, neeps and other Scottish foods.
The children have loved learning to sing “Three Craws sat upon a Wall”, making their own crow masks and spotting “craws” on the school roof.
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Making our Mark
In Skills Academy today, some of the children read the book, “The Dot” by Peter Reynolds. They then tried guessing which household utensils created which marks… and then experimented at making their own marks in many very original ways.
“I think the fork made that mark…”
“That one was the sponge.”
“I think this brush did that one.”
“Look we can use this lid to make a dot.”
“I’m going to try that one. It’s for scraping car windows.”
“If you press the straw here, it makes a line.”
“I like using the toothbrush.”
We all signed our work.
