Category Archives: Group Pink

Creative Arts, Culture & Traditions, Eco Learning, Fine motor skills, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Imaginary Play, Mark Making, Natural World, Science, Sensory Play, Technology & Construction

Exploring Eggs and Nests šŸ£

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Plenty of eggs exploration has been going on this week…
The children have been learning about how birds are making nests at this time of year and will soon be laying eggs. They have been creating their own clay eggs and various Easter designs.

Eggs Role Play and ExploringĀ  Properties & Materials
“This is Bird World!”
“This egg is light and this one’s very heavy.”
“It’s made of stone.” “This one’s made of rock.”
“This one rattles.” “That’s metal.”
“That’s a rooster. Don’t put him in the pond – roosters can’t swim, but ducks can swim ‘cos they’re waterproof.”

“These are the baby birds saying “We’re hungry!”“


Birds & Block Play:
“Look, weā€™ve built this for them. This is the tree bird (green), this is the water bird (blue) and this is the lava bird (orange).ā€

Later we made birds’ nests using twigs, ivy, moss, fern, leaves and feathers. Great snipping and fine motor skills!

“I like the smell of that” (ferns)
“Maybe we should go outside and put these out for the birds. It should be up a tree so we need a ladder. We need feathers as well…”

Making Eggs with Clay Modelling

Painting the Clay Eggs

Printing Marbled Eggs
The children squeezed shaving foam, then added marbling inks to create a marbled pattern on egg shapes.


Designing individual Easter Cards


Eggs exploration and squidgy colour gel beads in the water tray


Ā More Nest-making and an Egg matching game.Ā 

Have a very Happy Easter and Spring Break, everyone!

 

 

Fun, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Imaginary Play, Life Skills, Numeracy & Mathematics, Social Subjects

Our money shopping role play game!

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Money Role Play Shopping Game!

The pink and yellow group have been learning about money the past few weeks. The children decided that they wanted to play a shopping game where they have to buy certain objects in the nursery with the different coins and pennies. The pink and yellow group were very engaged in this activity and had lots of fun and improved their numeracy skills!

Some of the children helped to write the number signs for the objects such as ‘1p,2p,5p and 10p’

The children were able to find the correct penny and match it to the correct number sign to buy the object of their choice.

‘It’s this one!’
‘Let’s play the shopping game!’
‘No, not that one – it’s this one!’
‘That’s a 5 and so is that one!’
‘That’s a 2 and that’s a 2 so that means I can buy it!’
‘I need this penny to buy the book!’
‘The turtle is number 10, 10 pence!ā€™

 

Fun, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Life Skills, Numeracy & Mathematics, Social Subjects, Technology & Construction

MONEY

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MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

The children in the yellow and pinkĀ group have been having lots of fun learning about money! The children have participated in a variety of learning activities.

Matching pennies/coins and sorting!!

The pink and yellow group did fantastic in sorting and matching the different coins/pennies and began learning that each coin/penny has different colours, shapes and has a different number on it e.g. 1p,2p,5p,10p,20p,50p,Ā£1,Ā£2.

The children learned some new colours such as Gold and Silver.

They began to learn that the Ā£2 coin is a big coin which is gold around the edges, has a silver circle in the inside and has two 2’s on it for ‘2002’

The children began to realise that a 1p/Ā£1 and a 2p/Ā£2 were different in terms of appearance. Miss McFarlane explained you can buy more objects with Ā£1 and Ā£2 than 1p and 2p.

One child noticed that one coin had a lion on it and one coin had a face on it! Great observing skills!

The children showed fantastic teamwork skills and communication skills!Ā 

Coin Rubbing!

The children enjoyed using their fine motor skills to do their coin rubbings! They learned about the different coins/pennies and how they have different shapes, different sizes and different colours!

‘This is a circle one like your glasses!’

‘This one is smaller!’

‘This one is bigger!’

‘It’s brown!’

‘It’s silver!’

The children were very enthusiastic and curious about money and understood that you need money to buy food, clothes, toys etc. The pink and yellow group decided they wanted to play a shopping game! Look out for our next post to see our role play activity!

Creative Arts, Culture & Traditions, Fine motor skills, Fun, Gardening, Group Pink, Group Red, Group Yellow, Imaginary Play, Literacy, Mark Making, Natural World, Outdoor Learning, Science

ā­ļø Shining Stars ā­ļø

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In Arran the children have been getting into the Christmas spirit – role-playing and hammering in the elvesā€™ workshop, potting their hyacinths in silver pots, creating seasonal artwork, using clay to design decorations of their choice, counting penguins, making cards, calendars, lanterns and much more…
What a busy bunch!
Outdoors we have been exploring the properties of ice and enjoying frosty walks to Busby church gardens.
Role Play: “Itā€™s a polar landscape.ā€

Literacy: In the Story Box, Ā The Gruffaloā€™s ChildĀ has been very popular, with the children keen to act out the story and make up their own versions using the props for character and setting.
Stick Man has been another seasonal favourite story to explore.

We also read Little Owl and the Christmas Star and looked at different types of stars, before the children designed their own.

Rolling, moulding, cutting, imprinting: the Red, Yellow & Pink groups experimented with clay and water to create stars, snowmen and other decorations, Ā using beads and various implements to make patterns, then metallic paints with varnish to finish them off.


“I’m going to make mine so pretty!”


The children were very proud of their different shining stars. We hope you enjoy hanging them on your tree or around the house!

Science: Planting & Growing: We have been watching the hyacinth bulbs that we planted start to grow. The children repotted them in silver pots for you and hope you enjoy the flowers later at home.

Science: Watch us mixing up fake snow using baking soda and hair conditioner…

Science: Ice Experiments: nature has kindly provided us with lots of thick ice shapes to investigate and experiment with.



Outdoors the children had great fun rolling down hills and investigating bugs found under logs

ā€œI want to hold the wood louse… we have to be gentle. Iā€™m going to put him back.ā€Ā ā€œLook, black beetles!ā€ ā€œA centipede!ā€

We have been gradually adding to our Kindness/ Christmas Tree with snowflake decorations, sunshine sticks and kind deeds.

“Share my lego with friends.”Ā  “I helped with lunch.”

Making lanterns to light up Busby


Numeracy: Christmas counting games


The children have also been offering ideas for a new nursery logo and then voting for their favourites to create a simple pictogram.




We’ve seen some fabulous Christmas outfits!

We wish a Merry Christmas to all our star children and their families!
We hope you have a very happy time together during the break.

Creative Arts, Culture & Traditions, Fine motor skills, Fun, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Literacy

Celebrating St Andrew’s Day!

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St Andrew’s Day!

The pink and yellow group have been having lots of fun celebrating ‘St Andrew’s Day’.

We decided to make our playdough ‘blue’ and ‘white’ as we learned that ‘blue’ and ‘white’ are the colours of our Scotland flag.

We mixed, measured and kneaded the dough to make our Scottish play-dough!

We had lots of fun using our fine motor skills such as cutting, sticking and gluing to make our own Scottish kilts! The ‘pink‘ and ‘yellow’ group learned about tartan and that each kilt has different colours and patterns on it. We created our own patterns on our kilts!

Have a look…

The ‘pink’ and ‘yellow’ group also read the storybookĀ  ‘The Gruffalo in Scots’ by Julia Donaldson and learned the Scottish way to say certain words like;

‘Moose’ – ‘Mouse’
‘Broon’ – ‘Brown’
‘Hae’ – ‘Have’
‘Whit’ – ‘What’
‘Lang’ – ‘Long’
‘Sherp’ – ‘Sharp’

We then ate porridge and potato scones for our snack!

“I have porridge for my breakfast!”
“I love porridge!”
“I live in Scotland”

We finished our exciting day by listening to the nursery rhyme ‘3 Craws Sat Upon a Wall’ and trying some Scottish dancing! We had lots of fun learning and celebrating St Andrew’s Day!

Eco Learning, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Health & Wellbeing, Imaginary Play, Literacy

We are Together

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Continuing with Health & Wellbeing Week, the Pink and Yellow groups have been exploring feelings through various props in the Story Box, inspired by the lovely book “We are Together” by Britta Teckentrup. It is a story about self belief, resilience, and the power of friendship.

“Look at this… Sun up in the sky with rain. The rain becomes a rainbow!” “I don’t mind rain.”Ā  “I hate rain.” ā€œThis one is a shooting star.ā€

As they played with the props the children also began telling their own stories:
“Evil seagulls come out when there’s a storm. The butterfly will wait” (till the storm has passed)



“We need to add more people.”

“This sounds like birds singing.”

“This one makes it heavier.”

Aw… all cooried up with a soft blanket and heart pillow…

ā€If storm clouds gather and weā€™re caught in the rain,
Letā€™s splash through the puddles until the sun shines again.ā€
(from ā€œWe are Togetherā€)

Community, Creative Arts, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Health & Wellbeing, Life Skills, Literacy

Feeling Groovy šŸŒžšŸ™šŸ¼

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It is Health and Wellbeing Week! In Pink and Yellow groups we are thinking about our differences & similarities, our feelings, and how to keep ourselves feeling good, relaxed and strong.

Monday is Dare to be Different Day. So we have had cool purple hair, some odd socks and some unusual yet fabulous style choices!

We’ve been talking about the ways we are different and the same.
“I don’t like spiders.” Ā “I like sprouts!”Ā  “I have blond hair.”Ā Ā “We all have brains…” “And skeletons.”

Our “Different Together” paper chain:

At Signing- In time each child chose a different patterned strip Ā to write their name on. We all have different favourite colours and patterns, and we joined them together to make a big paper chain.


We have been talking about different types of people and creating our own tiny people with lollipop sticks, pipe cleaners, buttons, felt, lace, wool and other materials.



“I want her to have red hair at the back and the front. She has a lovely smile.”Ā Ā  “I’m going to add this for a hat.”
“Let’s play with them…”



Noo-Noo (left) was feeling lonely because of being a bit different, but look how many friends the children have made for Noo-Noo now!

Tuesday is Bounce Back day, all about resilience. Ā At Together Time, the children all thought of things that make them feel happy and put them in a Thank You Jar with a coloured feather.



Here are some of the things we are grateful for:
“Star Wars and ice cream,” “Pink, and birdies in my garden”, “Daddy, Mummy” , “My sisters” ,”Squirrels in my gardens, and cats… and jewels”, “Tigers and PokĆ©mon.” “The colour red” ,”Jingle bells” “Tickly feathers”Ā , ā€œMy puppy and my two guinea pigs”, “Music in your heart.”
Afterwards we made some Sunshine sticks:



Keep smiling!

Eco Learning, Fun, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Health & Wellbeing, Natural World, Outdoor Learning, Technology & Construction

The Great Outdoors šŸŒ³šŸ

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The Yellow and Pink groups have been having a variety of outdoor adventures. Today we went on a local walk for a Nature Scavenger Hunt, looking out for different coloured leaves, spider webs and birds. We ticked off all of them!
We stopped to collect pine cones in the lane. We are going to wash, dry and paint them later. “We’ve found tons!”

We enjoyed feeling the beautiful tree bark.
“It feels scratchy” Ā  “Look, I found more moss.”

“Here’s some yellow leaves!”Ā  “Look! Spider webs!”
We also came across some blackberries and interesting fungi.
“The birds will eat them” (berries)Ā 
“Some of them are poisonous, so you don’t touch them” (fungus)

We then walked round to the back of the new nursery building for a sneak peek at how it is coming along.

Back at Ā nursery, various outdoor investigations and physical challenges have been taking place:



Balancing, transporting, and building core strength

Ingenious minds construct their own see-saw

After all that… a well deserved Snack.

Ā 

Creative Arts, Culture & Traditions, Fine motor skills, Fun, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Music and Dance, Natural World, Science

Some Spooky Goings on…

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In Katrine Room (Yellows and Ā Pinks), the childrenā€™s talk and excitement about Hallowe’enĀ has inspired lots of learning – theyā€™ve been building (with bones), designing, learning about spiders and bats, enjoying songs, dancing, story-telling and science experiments.

Weā€™ve been talking about our bones and where they are in our bodies, as well as reading Funny Bones and practising the Skeleton Dance. If you want to try the dance at home, here is the link:Ā https://youtu.be/Pbl4BNkAq_U


Experiments and imaginative role play have been going on at the water table and all around the room:Ā ā€œWeā€™re filling the spider bowl up to make a bath for theĀ snake…” Ā  “We’re making a triple berry pie…” Ā “Itā€™s a disgusting pie!”

Spider & Bat Studies
The children have shown a keen interest in bats and spiders fromĀ  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 triedĀ  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…