We read ‘Meg and Mog’ and ‘I think my Mum is a Witch’, inspiring us to use our imaginations and create our own spooky stories.
Working collaboratively with our peers we successfully made Pumpkin Soup. We carefully deseeded the pumpkin, using our fine motor skills to chop the pumpkin and other vegetables.
We developed our problem solving skills as we measured and weighed the ingredients.
The children then had the opportunity to taste their creation. ‘This soup is amazing’- R
We created our own potions using play dough and a variety of other resources, we retold the spells from the book developing our language skills.
We developed our fine motor, sensory and number recognition skills as we matched and counted spiders 🕷 and snakes 🐍 using tweezers in a variety of different experiences.
In Katrine Room (Yellows and Pinks), the children’s talk and excitement about Hallowe’en has inspired lots of learning – they’ve been building (with bones), designing, learning about spiders and bats, enjoying songs, dancing, story-telling and science experiments.
We’ve been talking about our bones and where they are in our bodies, as well as reading Funny Bonesand practising the Skeleton Dance. If you want to try the dance at home, here is the link: https://youtu.be/Pbl4BNkAq_U
Experiments and imaginative role play have been going on at the water table and all around the room: “We’re filling the spider bowl up to make a bath for the snake…” “We’re making a triple berry pie…” “It’s a disgusting pie!”
Spider & Bat Studies The children have shown a keen interest in bats and spiders from wildlife magazines. So we’ve been studying them with books and videos and later made some models of them. Good fine motor and threading skills were on display as the children poked pipe cleaners and string through holes to construct spiders. “That’s a tarantula.” “I’m going to the make the one with orange legs.” We also tried different ways to make giant webs… Fine motor skills were further tested whilst picking spiders out of webs using tweezers and other tools.
With great concentration, children selected shapes to make bats, tried their hand at pumpkin printing, and created individual lantern designs – the best bit was when we put out the lights and lit them up!
In Science experiments they studied the life cycle of a pumpkin, dissected them, and then planted pumpkin seeds. We look forward to watching them grow…
The Red group have been really busy developing our literacy skills, including gross and fine motor skills. We have been using loose parts outdoors and indoors.
Over the past few weeks the children in the Green and Blue group have enjoyed learning all about shape and numbers. Have a look at all the fun experiences we took part in while developing our early numeracy skills.
The children sorted and identified shapes whilst taking part in “tap tap” and transient art activities, they then used these shapes to make objects.
They have also used a variety of media to make shapes, including paint printing and mark making in shaving foam.
Blue and Green group took part in number activities and displayed confidence when counting out and matching corresponding numbers with picture cards.
As Summer turns to Autumn the children have been learning about what is growing and changing with the seasons. The Yellow and Pink groups have been exploring Autumn through song and role play, making leaf prints, counting conkers and acorns, and chopping apples and plums from the trees to find their seeds. We have been talking about harvesting and where different foods come from: ”Carrots and potatoes grow in the ground.” “Apples and pears on trees.” “That’s wheat… it gets made into Weetabix!”
Autumn role play corner in the Katrine Room.
The children painted an autumn frieze after looking at art by David Hockney, Gustav Klimt and Andy Goldsworthy. They wanted to make bats and fairies to add to the forest and glued on real leaves.
David Hockney’s autumn woods
They later designed Autumn fairies using wooden pegs and leaves.
Chopping apples and plums, using hammer & nails to create squash hedgehogs, and designing leaf people.
Using leaves to copy a repeating pattern and create designs.
This week the children wanted to make a Safari Parkfor wild animals. They were fascinated to read the brochure from Blair Drummond Safari Park and tried drawing their own maps of it.
They also modelled a cave for the bears using Mod Roc with balloons, powder paint and water.
In Numeracywe have been learning about pattern. At Together Time the children identified, described and matched different animal patterns. They practised their aim and number identification with this Beanbag number game. Watch them in action!
If you would like to sing our Autumn Song with your child, here are the words (the tune is The Farmer’s in his Den). Have fun!
Autumn time is here, autumn time is here, It’s getting very chilly now, ‘cos autumn time is here.
The leaves are falling down, the leaves are falling down, Yellow, red and gold and brown, the leaves are falling down.
The animals gather food, the animals gather food, Nuts and seeds and juicy fruits, the animals gather food.
The farmers gather crops, the farmers gather crops,
Peas and beans and broccoli, and we can eat them up.
Nature is fascinating!In Arran Building, the Pink and Yellow group children have been showing great curiosity about sea creatures, so we’ve been learning more about Ocean Worlds in various ways : “Can we read this big book about shells?” “What is this fish called?” We’ve been reading fishy stories & books of facts to discover about different types of fish, like lion fish & deep sea angler.
We made our own Sea World, then designed fish and fishing rods using magnets and paper clips. Watch us trying to catch them!
“We need to make some seaweed for it.” “That’s a whale shark. It’s the biggest fish.” “Look, I’ve caught two anchovies.”
”I caught a number 3.”
The children explored with their senses as they felt the scales of a real mackerel and described what they observed: “It’s cold and slippery…” “…green and blue, shiny, feels soft…” ”Tail helps it swim. That’s the bit that the eggs come out… that’s the fin.”
Rock Pool role play and nature investigations with bladderwrack seaweeds and shells. “It feels slimy” (seaweed) “I’m being a whale shark… This is a baby stingray.” “I can hear something in the shell….I found a limpet!”
Expressive Arts:
The children have also been expanding their creative skills by trying out different art techniques including collage, printing, and paper marbling with inks and oil. They used mashers to print turtles and clay to model starfish and other creatures.
We practiced numeracy skills through some fishy games. “I counted 8 shrimps!” Sink or Float:In Science experiments, we made jellyfish with balloons and string. When filled with air alone they floated too high. One of the children suggested it would sink more if we added water inside, so we did… We also tried adding a little oil and sand.
“I saw jellyfish floating in the water on my holiday.“ ”They’re soft, yellow and red” “They have tentacles“ ”This one’s a baby” “Look what it’s doing. It’s making a current….a whirlpool.”
More Science experiments: trying out salt to melt the frozen icebergs, and making ocean slime.
The Red Groupare currently based in the Lomond Room in Arran building. They have been eagerly exploring the characters in the exciting story of Supertato and have been role playing his adventures and daring rescues.
In Early Science experiments, the children tried different ways to free the peas from inside the frozen ice, adding salt, hot water and using various tools.
The Red Group have also been studying different vegetables and talking about how and where they grow. Then they made their own vegetable characters using different resources and re-enacted some of the key story scenes from Supertato. “My favourite bit is when Supertato runs!” “They put him in the jelly…” “He wanted to kill the vegetable market…”
At group times the Red Group have been enjoying songs with actions, story-telling and talking about their feelings.
Outdoors they have been busy catching rain, puddle splashing and investigating forces with ropes (after reading the story of the Invisible String.)
Mixing powder paint with rain and experimenting with colour.
Using gloop to play and experiment with colour and shape.
DEVELOPING CREATIVITY, PROBLEM SOLVING, LEARNING AT HOME WITH JUNK MODELLING I hope everyone had a lovely weekend staying safe at home. Katie was helping me sort out the recycling and after finding plastic bottles and kitchen roll tubes, she decided to make a space rocket.
Katie used a small plastic bottle and cut a piece off a kitchen roll tube. She stuck them together with sellotape and wrapped red paper around them both, folding the paper at the top to make a triangle shape. She cut out triangle shapes for the fins at the bottom and covered them with red paper and cut other shapes for the windows.
Let’s explore your recycling – first check with your parent or explore it with them, to make sure it is safe to use – and see what you can find. There are lots of great objects such as cereal boxes, egg cartons, plastic milk bottles and kitchen roll tubes which can be ripped or cut and stuck together with sellotape or glue. You can transform the materials into whatever you choose and then paint or decorate them – what can you create?If you are using scissors, remember to sit down and use them safely.
Junk modelling is great fun and helps develop children’s creativity as they use their imagination and construct freely, while developing problem solving skills and resilience as they work out how to make their creation. Constructing also helps develop fine and gross motor skills, which helps children to manipulate tools better and supports the development of early writing skills.
Could you be a future engineer, exploring materials and deciding whether a material is strong enough? Why not send us photos of your creations to our Twitter account? Have fun being creative!
Playdough is always a favourite in our house whether it’s homemade or shop bought. There is lots that children can do with playdough and it is an amazing resource that covers all areas of learning, which the article below explains in more depth.
For Erin I found loose parts around the house for her to use in her creations along with the playdough.Loose parts play is a type of play that supports invention, divergent thinking, problem solving and offers a sense of wonder to children. They are materials that can be moved, carried, combined, redesigned, lined up, and taken apart and put back together in multiple ways. From pasta and spaghetti to cupcake cases, curtain hooks and lids for cutters, stones, shells, kitchen utensils, flowers…the list is endless when you start looking.
I have included a photo with a recipe for how to make playdough and the article attached also has recipes within it. Why not give it a go and let’s see your imagination go wild?
By using kitchen resources I created a filling and pouring station for Erin. There is no need to have a tuff tray to do this as this can be done on a smaller scale on an oven tray, inside a cardboard box, a plastic box from under the bed…anything really that will contain the mess. I collected various items from the kitchen rice, cous cous, tea leaves out of teabags, cornflakes, cheerios, spices, herbs, oats, a crushed up biscuit, spaghetti…the list is endless. You only need a small quantity of each to enable pouring and scooping between containers so don’t worry about using up lots of food. Then add to the tray any utensils and bowls to aid scooping and pouring; different sized spoons, measuring cups and spoons, sieves, pots and pans…make sure nothing sharp is placed in the tray that could pose a hazard. Filling, scooping and pouring activities help develop fine motor skills in under 5s as well as using concepts such as less and more. Adding scales to your pouring and filling tub can also introduce the concept of weight. These tasks help children coordinate their hand movements with what they are seeing and feeling.
Keep up to date with what we're getting up to in nursery!
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