Category Archives: Outdoor Learning

Eco Learning, Learning at home, Literacy, Outdoor Learning, Science

A Bird a Day: Thrush 🎵

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In the run up to the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch, we will give you a titbit about a different bird each day to help you spot them and learn a little more about them.

Today’s bird is the Thrush:
Thrush has a brown body and a smart white tummy with brown spots.
Thrush is about 20cm long. If you have a ruler you could look for the number 20 on it to find the Thrush’s size.
Thrush has  a lovely song and likes to sing from the very tops of the trees! 🎵🎶


Thrushes are quite shy but you can often see them hopping about in grassy areas as they like to pull up worms there. Snails are another favourite food.
In Winter it can hard for Thrushes to find any worms if the ground is hard and frozen, so you will sometimes see them in the trees eating up all the red berries…

Here is a little rhyme for you about Thrush:

Mrs Thrush is in a rush,
To find some food for tea,
Because she knows that when it snows,
The ground is going to freeze,
There won’t be any worms to pull,
And so to keep her belly full,
She gobbles up the berries
On the bushes and the trees.

You could ask an adult or a big brother/sister to read this rhyme to you, then try saying it back to them, a line at a time.
Can you think of another word that rhymes with “Thrush”? Maybe you could make up your own rhyme or a story about Mrs Thrush.
Or you could try drawing her lovely speckled tummy.

And let us know if you see one!

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

⭐️ Shining Stars ⭐️

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In Arran the children have been getting into the Christmas spirit – role-playing and hammering in the elves’ 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: “It’s a polar landscape.”

Literacy: In the Story Box,  The Gruffalo’s Child 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,  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

“I want to hold the wood louse… we have to be gentle. I’m going to put him back.” “Look, black beetles!” “A centipede!”

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

“Share my lego with friends.”  “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.

Community, Group Red, Health & Wellbeing, Life Skills, Music, Outdoor Learning

*Yoga Bugs and Tongue Drums*

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We have been very busy  this week exploring many different ways to enhance our health and wellbeing.   Let’s have a look at some of the fabulous experiences  the Red Group have been doing.

Confidence and self esteem

Dare to be different

 

Crazy hair and yoga cobra pose!     

Yoga can be done anywhere you feel comfortable! Trying out  the spider pose …..this strengthens and activates core muscles….also…..helps to refine fine motor skills (e.g writing and dressing) by activating shoulder muscles and many more benefits, as well as being relaxing and lots of fun challenging yourself!

Mindful Walking

 

 

 

 

 

 

On our mindful walk we stopped to focus on our thoughts and sensations in our bodies  with our eyes closed……….

 

Bumble Bee pose – find your happy hum!
Building resilience and self esteem

We are  ‘All Kinds of People’  – we had fun mixing paint to match our own different skin tones and making a self portrait.

“My skin’s not that colour, maybe if I mix white and orange”
“I’ve got blonde hair”
“My hair is pink and brown”

Have a look at our resources!

Group Purple, Health & Wellbeing, Outdoor Learning, Technology & Construction

Feeling thankful with the Purple Group

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This week the children have been helping Mrs Walker develop our block area, the children have shown a particular interest in building castles, they have been developing their mathematical language as they described their castles.

‘My castle is taller than ………., but hers is longer’ 

‘I built a long castle for the Queen’ 

‘My castle is like the Statue of Liberty, really tall and the colour teal, the statue of Liberty is in New York in America’

As part of Health and Wellbeing Week, we have been discovering what our peers are thankful for. The children thought carefully about this, and posted their answer in our gratitude jar.

‘I am thankful for my Mum’ 

‘I am thankful when my Grandpa kisses and hugs me’ 

‘I am thankful because my Mum takes me to the park all the time’ 

We have also been taking part in a wide range of activities outdoors. We were making muddy handprints and creating obstacle courses, developing their gross motor skills and problem solving skills. Well done everyone.

 

Group Red, Outdoor Learning, Science

******Making a Rainbow🌈 ******

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What do we need to make a rainbow?

Let’s investigate!

“Sun, rain, and maybe with a torch?”
Did you know that you can split the light using a CD?

We tried this using a CD and a torch .

“I see all the colour, it’s a success!!”
“I love science experiments”

We discovered that bright white light is made up of different colours of light all mixed together.We tried to think of things with all the colours of the rainbow for our experiment……We could use:

  “the wee sweet bright things you can eat?”

“Oh look the colours all mixing up”

“That’s going brown”

“It’s really making a rainbow”

This experiment didn’t quite work out!   We thought using water and sun we would somehow create a rainbow?  Maybe try a holding up a glass of water in a sunny place until you see a rainbow on the floor next time?   However we did discover you need light to see your reflection!  We also noticed our shadows on the ground when it was really sunny, then when it clouded over they disappeared.   Sometimes scientists repeat experiments and get different results depending on  lots of factors like the environment or method.  (During our experiment a fly flew into the water………..which may spark another type of investigation!)

Try these experiments at home to see if you get the same results!  Next generation of scientists! 

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

The Great Outdoors 🌳🍁

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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”   “Look, I found more moss.”

“Here’s some yellow leaves!”  “Look! Spider webs!”
We also came across some blackberries and interesting fungi.
“The birds will eat them” (berries) 
“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  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.