The children in the Purple, Blue, Green and Red groups have settled well back into nursery. We have been taking advantage of the lovely weather with lots of exciting outdoor learning experiences such as pouring/ filling in water tray, painting, planting, reading and developing our gross motor skills on the bikes. 
Category Archives: Science
Easter Treats!
Making Easter Nests
The children in the yellow and pink group have been learning and talking about nests. We decided that we would make our own easter egg nests!
We all took turns melting the chocolate, mixing the chocolate and the rice krispies together in a bowl! We learned how to scrape the mixture into our cupcake cases by using two spoons and we all did this using our hand eye co-ordination!
‘1,2,3 eggs’
‘We used mini eggs and chocolate rice krispies’
‘We put chocolate and cereal in our nests’
‘I can’t wait to eat mine when I go home!’
‘It smells so nice!’
‘The chocolate was soft and then it went hard!’
We then counted out 3 mini eggs and placed them on our nest! Lastly, we found our plastic bag and picked the one that had our name on it and put our Easter nests in it ready for us to take home for the Easter holidays!
We all wish the children and their families a very Happy Easter 2021 and we are looking forward to welcoming you back on the 19th April. Happy Holidays!
Exploring Eggs and Nests 🐣
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 Exploring 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, we’ve built this for them. This is the tree bird (green), this is the water bird (blue) and this is the lava bird (orange).”
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
More Nest-making and an Egg matching game.
Have a very Happy Easter and Spring Break, everyone!
Slimy, Bumpy, Sticky Sensory!
If you fancy some sensory & science exploration at home, why not try out one of these fun ideas from Miss Hampton, Miss MacFarlane, Miss Henderson, Mrs Krivickiene & Mrs McInnes!
1. MAKING GLOOP with Miss Hampton:
One way we can explore our senses is by making gloop. You’ll need:
2 x cups of cornflour
1 x cup of water
2 drops of food colouring (optional)
In this video Miss Hampton demonstrates what to do:
How does the gloop feel? Is it a solid or a liquid?
The great thing about gloop is it can be both. There are lots of ways to explore gloop. Did you know that cornflour is made of lots of long stringy particles and when the water is added they don’t dissolve, they just spread out? When you roll it in your hands the particles join together and it becomes solid, but if you hold it up and let it dribble it becomes a liquid.
2. MAKING PLAY SNOW with Miss Henderson:
If your fingers are getting cold from the snow outside you could make some non-melting play snow of your own.
All you will need is:
Cornstarch
Hair Conditioner (white conditioner works best)
Mix the ingredients together to form a smooth dough. If it’s too sticky, add more cornstarch. If it’s too crumbly add more conditioner. Think about the textures and the smells as you make the dough. Is it cold or warm? Is it smooth or sticky? Hard or soft? Has the conditioner made it smell like coconut, fruit or flowers?
Another way to explore our senses and science is:
3. MAKING SNOW SLIME with Miss MacFarlane
For this you will need:
1 cup of white glue
2 cups of shaving foam cream
1/2 tbsp of baking soda
1 table spoon of contact lens solution (it must contain boric acid!)
Put the cup of white glue in a bowl and mix in the shaving cream, then stir until well combined. Add in the baking soda and stir. Slowly add 1 tablespoon of contact lens solution until a slime has formed. Once the glue starts sticking to the spoon that’s when you knead it with your hands until you are happy with the consistency!
And there you have made your own snow slime!
Use your senses to explore the slime:
What words can you use to describe how the slime feels?
Can you think of any words to describe its smell?
Can you think of words to describe how it looks?
Does it make any sounds? Why don’t you use different materials & tools to investigate what different sounds it makes? Go around your house and find different things to poke your slime with!
4. Make a SENSORY WRITING PLATE like Mrs Krivickiene for practising your letter/number writing and at the same time explore your sense of touch.
You’ll just need a plate, any dry grains you have in your cupboard (rice, lentils, couscous, etc). Feel the grains and then write or draw in them with your finger or any kind of stick.
(If you want to avoid too much hoovering afterwards, you can do it outside, or cover the plate in cling film first.)
5. Mrs Krivickiene has also been making a SENSORY JAR, using water, oil and a drop of food colouring.
This is a great experience if you want to have a mindful break and look at something extremely mesmerising. Besides, there is true science behind it. Water and oil have different molecule structure (molecules are the tiny building blocks of everything you see around.) This means that water and oil won’t mix.
First, pour some baby oil into a glass jar or bottle. Then add some water coloured with a little food dye and close the lid tightly. Watch the effects as you gently tip and jiggle you jar…
6. As if that wasn’t all enough, in Google Classrooms this week you can also watch Mrs McInnes use all of her 5 senses as she dissects and investigates an onion!
The Wonder of Snow ❄️
Hello everyone,
This week we are focusing on Sensory Play and Fine Motor Skills.
We have been given a free gift of one of the best sensory experiences ever – SNOW – and lots of it!
What have you been doing with this sparkly new toy?
If you are building snow people or an igloo, or rolling giant snowballs or sledging, these are all great for your gross motor skills like strength and co-ordination, as well as your creativity. 
Drawing or writing your name in snow is also really good for your fine motor skills.
And we can use all our 5 Senses to enjoy the wonders of snow.
For example can you –
– See the snow sparkling in sunlight, like millions of tiny diamonds?
– Hear the “crunch crunch” sound as you stomp through the snow?
– Feel snow with your hands, feet, cheeks?
– Smell the freshness in the air?
– Catch a snowflake on your tongue – how does it Taste?
What do you notice about the snow?
Snow has many different forms:
When is falls, is it light or heavy?
What about when it is rolled into a giant snowball?
And when it melts, what is it like then?
What colour are snow shadows?
Have fun investigating and playing in the snow!
Amazing Ice
We all have five senses in our bodies. Do you know what they are all for?
You can find out more about your senses in this video: https://youtu.be/XUMiPK6LZBI
Mrs Krivickiene did something very interesting at the weekend, using her senses – Forest Bathing!
“I went on a mindful walk in the woods. On a mindful walk, I try to use all my senses and pay attention to everything I can see, hear and feel. I use my eyes to notice the colours, spot an animal or a bird. I use my sense of touch to feel the texture and temperature. I use my ears to listen to the sounds of the wood and then try to guess what makes it and if it is a close or a distant sound. And I use my nose to smell. There is even a special name for mindful walking in the woods – it’s called “forest bathing”. Just like having a bath makes your body clean, forest bathing helps to release tension and feel calm.
So yesterday, on my mindful walk I found some pretty amazing staff that I would really like to share with you. I spotted hair ice, that is a rather rare phenomenon that can only be found on dead wood. This hair-like shape of ice is made by a special kind of fungus. Isn’t it amazing that such a thing as fungus can make its own style of ice!
It felt cold just like any ice but it was very delicate and was breaking down easily. What do you think it looks like? I hope you will try “forest bathing” next time you are on your walk and it will help you to discover something new and amazing that could be shared with all of us.”
Have you seen any different types of ice whilst outside? Sometimes it makes wavy lines, sometimes circle patterns, sometimes it looks like gemstones. Sometimes it is thick, sometimes thin and fragile. Isn’t ice amazing?
Have you seen any different types of ice whilst outside? Sometimes it makes wavy lines, sometimes circle patterns, sometimes it looks like gemstones. Sometimes it is thick, sometimes thin and fragile. Isn’t ice amazing?
Bird of the Day: Robin
Friday’s Bird is the cheeky Robin.
The Robin is many people’s favourite with its bright red tummy.
Robins are very friendly and will often come up really close to us. They sometimes follows gardeners around because when gardeners dig in the soil, they might turn up worms which Robin will then fly down and eat.
Robins’ eggs are a creamy colour with reddish speckles.
They have many different songs and they sing for most of the year. Listen to this one singing a Winter song in a tree last week:
Bird Quiz: Let’s see if you can remember the names of the 6 birds we have looked at over the week. See if you can point to each one and say their name:
How many did you get right?
Making Bird Food
On Google Classrooms you can find a video of Mrs MacLeod showing you how to make fat balls to hang out for birds.
And here’s a great idea from Mrs Marshall of how to make bird food, using cereal:
Making a bird feeder is a great way to help out our feathered friends in wintertime. All you need is pipe cleaners/string, Cheerios/Hoops cereal, and something to hang your bird feeder with such as ribbon. Start by threading Cheerios/Hoops onto pipe cleaners/string – a great fun fine motor skills challenge (you may enjoy munching some while you thread!). Leave space at either end to twist the ends together or tie together to ‘seal’ the ends. Add a ribbon or string for hanging and your bird feeder is done. Hang and enjoy watching the birds enjoy their snack! Remember to hang them in a safe place for visiting birds, avoid low spaces where they are within a cat’s reach, and avoid open and noisy areas.
The Big Garden Bird Watch
If you are taking part in the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch this weekend, have fun and we hope you spot something.
People who watch birds have a big long name – Ornithologist.
Sometimes they use tools like binoculars to help them spot birds. You could also take a bird book when birdwatching to help you identify birds, and perhaps some seed or raisins to attract the birds.
But really the only tools you need to watch birds are these –
– Eyes and Ears. So keep looking and listening and you can be a Young Ornithologist!
Bird of the day: Blackbird
Thursday’s bird is the Blackbird:
Blackbird has shiny black feathers.
He has a bright yellow beak and a yellow ring round each eye.
He is about 25cm long (try looking for number 25 on a ruler).
He likes to eat worms, insects and berries.
Mrs Blackbird is not black… She is brown all over and so are young blackbirds.
Blackbirds have 3,4 or 5 babies which hatch from blue speckled eggs. Mum and Dad feed them together:
Mrs MacLeod once had a pet blackbird called Blackie who started coming to her doorstep every morning and evening for raisins. He loved raisins!
The Beatles wrote a lovely song called “Blackbird”. You can listen to it here. See if you can clap or tap along.
https://youtu.be/Man4Xw8Xypo
Bird of the Day: Starling
Wednesday’s Bird is the amazing Starling:
– Starlings are bold noisy birds who like to hang around together, chatting.
– They are mainly black with white speckles, but if you look closely you can see flashes of shiny metallic green and purple in their feathers.
– They have quite big feet and so walk about a lot.
– They are omnivorous, which mean they eat all kinds of things, including seeds, fruit and insects.
(I always see them in the car park at Silverburn shopping centre. I think maybe they wait there to pick up scraps of food dropped by shoppers….)
– At night just before they go to bed, Starlings gather together in huge flocks and do something REALLY AMAZING!
Click on the green link and watch this video to see what they do:
https://youtu.be/M1Q-EbX6dso
Flying around in groups of thousands, the starlings move together like a giant swirly black cloud, making wonderful patterns in the sky! It is one of the great sights of Nature! It is called a Murmuration – a great word. Can you say “Murmuration”…?
Mark Making Challenge:
If you have any black paint and some cotton buds, you could try dipping a cotton bud in paint and dabbing it on paper to make a picture of this amazing sight. Or just use a pen, pencil or crayon to make dots and create a murmuration of starlings or any other pattern you like.
Bird of the Day: Blue Tit
Tuesday’s bird is the Blue Tit.
– It is a very small colourful bird.
– It likes to eat seeds, berries, caterpillars and insects.
– In Winter blue tits join up and fly round looking for food together. (If you want to feed them they like fat balls, peanuts and sunflower seeds. They are so light they can hang easily on bird feeders or fat balls and peck away.)
-There are many other types of tit in the Tit family. Here are two other members of the family. Can you spot their differences?
This video below shows all 3 types feeding in Pollok Park just last Saturday. Can you spot them all?
Who is the biggest and who is the lightest? Here are some little Maths challenges for you about the three birds:
(Clue: it’s the littlest one…)
