Category Archives: Technology & Construction

Creative Arts, Eco Learning, Fine motor skills, Fun, Gardening, Imaginary Play, Life Skills, Literacy, Numeracy & Mathematics, Outdoor Learning, Technology & Construction

September Learning Adventures

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Interactive Storytelling
Inviting children to take part in a story increases their engagement and stimulates their imaginations. It also leads to retellings, which further increases understanding and language development.

The Tiger who came to Tea: Here the children participated in the Tiger’s tea party as the story was read to them. They were excited to make their own props and recreate the story themselves.

Through Commotion in the Ocean, the children were inspired to draw many ocean scenes and to create their own puppets, which they then used to take on roles in the storytelling.

Different Ways to Sort
In Numeracy we have been focusing on sorting and matching. Here are a few different ways the children have tried sorting, matching and categorising:

Sorting by length

Sorting superheroes & Matching 3D shapes to their outlines

 Matching dots to written numerals

Sorting by colour & Matching pieces
At home you could now try asking your child to sort out the cutlery or their sock drawer…
Technology
The children have been cool with tools and concentrating hard, as they learn how to  use a hammer and nails safely, and create wooden hedgehogs and other creatures.

 

From Little Acorns…
We’ve been looking at autumn treasures in a Treasure Box and talking about the changes that happen outside in Autumn.
The children have identified acorns, conkers and pine cones and have been learning how trees shed their seeds at this time of year. They know that “Squirrels eat acorns”, but we also thought about what would happen to the acorns that squirrel forgot.. We looked at a tiny plant grown from an acorn, and together we planted this tiny oak tree in the Eco Garden and watered it.


Maybe one day it will grow into a Great Oak…

Fine motor skills, Imaginary Play, Outdoor Learning, Science, Sensory Play, Technology & Construction

Construction and Ice Creations

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Creative Skills in Construction Corner
The children have been spending lots of time in Construction Corner, trying out different types of material, like bricks, wood, bamboo and crates, to design and build their own structures.

Science Investigations: Making Ice Eggs
At the water table one day, the children were role playing together and inventing pretend ice. So later they were invited to try making some real ice to play with. They carefully filled up balloons with water and took them to the freezer. They were very excited to handle and describe their giant ice eggs.



“It’s so shiny…”   “It looks like a diamond inside.”  “It’s going to hatch!”
Indoors the ice balls were taking a long time to melt, so the children eagerly tried taking them outdoors into the sunshine and then tested out pouring on warm water to speed up the process.


“It’s melting now…”

Creative Arts, Eco Learning, Fine motor skills, Fun, Gardening, Group Green, Group Red, Health & Wellbeing, Imaginary Play, Natural World, Outdoor Learning, Science, Technology & Construction

Creative Creatures

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The Busby Bug Hotel is Open for Business!


The Red and Green groups have been busy packing our bug hotel with leaves, damp wood and straw to attract some new guests. They also planted marigolds around it. So far some wood lice and a spider have visited!

Studying the spider and role playing with “Worm World.”

Splendid Sunflowers
The children have also been excitedly watching the sunflower seeds they planted starting to grow, as well as measuring them.


Later they tried some Transient Art to create beautiful sunflower pictures.

The children have also been showing off their creative talents in their Block Play, in the sand pits and in  junk modelling. They are building increasingly complex structures as they work imaginatively and cooperatively in teams. They have recently constructed walkways, animal homes and a giant robot costume! WOW!



 

 

Fine motor skills, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Health & Wellbeing, Imaginary Play, Literacy, Mark Making, Outdoor Learning, Science, Technology & Construction

May Days and Creative Ways

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The children have been using all kinds of exciting creativity in their play. Great minds at work!

Planting our herb garden and creative cup stacking. “Tah dah!”


Young Scientists in the Making:
“Scientists work really hard.”  “Can I be a scientist?

Helicopter Stories:
In Helicopter Stories, the children make up their own stories and are then each given the “stage” to act out their story, with friends taking part as various actors. It is great for building self confidence, esteem, focus, and talking and listening skills. We have had some wonderful stories, including “The Rhino and the Fight”, “The Orange Dog”, “The Magical Unicorn Food” and “The Red Racing Car.”


Some of the children wanted to create their own puppet show too. Great acting and storytelling skills were on display!

The children wanted to turn an old cardboard box into a den and had lots of great ideas about how to design, decorate and upholster it:


And for Mrs McInnes’s special birthday this week, they carefully designed her cards and created a very special cake:


“Happy Birthday, Mrs McInnes!”

 

Creative Arts, Eco Learning, Fine motor skills, Gardening, Group Pink, Group Yellow, Imaginary Play, Literacy, Natural World, Numeracy & Mathematics, Outdoor Learning, Science, Sensory Play, Technology & Construction

Science Adventures: Space and Planting

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The Wonders of Space

The children in Pink and Yellow groups have recently showed an interest in learning about Space, so they have been designing rockets and reading the story of Little Moon in the Story Box to find out more about planets and black holes…


Exploring the Story Box and experimenting with different sphere shapes


Rocket Number Games and Play Dough Aliens


Creating Rocket Designs and Junk Modelling

We also tried making some paper mâché planets by mixing up a paste of water and flour, dipping in newspaper strips and tissue paper, then wrapping them around balloons.

“I think that one looks like our planet – Earth.”
“This one looks like Mars and that one is the sun.”
“Rover is on Mars.”
“Craters are on the moon.”
Earth has “more water” than land.
“That’s a gas giant!”

The children also began some other experiments with balloons and discovered static electricity when they found they could rub the balloons and make them stick to the walls.

Planting and Growing

Mrs McInnes has been showing the children how to plant grass seeds to make Grass Heads, and they have been learning what a plant needs to grow.

We have been carefully watering the plants for 2 weeks and look how quickly the grassy hair grew!


Time for a hair cut!

Some other outdoor fun in the sun!


 

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 🐣

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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 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!

 

 

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 pink 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,£1,£2.

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

They began to learn that the £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/£1 and a 2p/£2 were different in terms of appearance. Miss McFarlane explained you can buy more objects with £1 and £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! 

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!

Fine motor skills, Health & Wellbeing, Learning at home, Mark Making, Natural World, Outdoor Learning, Science, Sensory Play, Technology & Construction

The Wonder of Snow ❄️

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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!

 

Health & Wellbeing, Learning at home, Literacy, Music and Dance, Social Subjects, Technology & Construction, Videos with ELCC Staff

All Around the World 🌍

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Bonjour! Here you can watch Mrs Small and her friend Mr Fox (Monsieur Renard 🦊) as they welcome you to Languages Week and go on a French colour hunt.

Now why not find a favourite toy to sing and dance along with Mrs Marshall. 🇫🇷 This French song is called “Je peux sauter”, which in English means “I can jump!”
You can jump, clap, turn and walk with your toy or do it yourself! 

And Mrs Branco reminds us how to sing our French Song about how we are feeling.
Would you like to join in with Pierre?
Comment ça va aujourd’hui?

Here are the words to help you sing along:

“Bonjour tout le monde comment ça va?
Bonjour tout le monde comment ça va?
Bonjour tout le monde comment ça va?
Comment ça va aujourd’hui?

Tres bien merci comment ça va?
Tres bien merci comment ça va?
Tres bien merci comment ça va?
Comment ca va aujourd’hui?

In Google Classrooms you can enjoy hearing Mrs Ahmed read The Hungry Caterpillar for you in Urdu, a language which is spoken by many people all over the world. 

And Mrs Boyd has also been offering some fantastic Gaelic lessons in Google Classrooms. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Gaelic is a Scottish language which is still often spoken in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Here is a taster:
“Hello and Failte gu Gaelic! Welcome to Gaelic. Join me, Murdo the teddy bear and Seamus the seal in learning Gaelic. Here we will learn how to say welcome, introduce ourselves and even sing a Gaelic song. Have fun learning Gaelic!”

 Do you or any of your family speak or know any other languages? Another fun way to explore languages is to try out the Hello Atlas App. It is free to download and allows you to explore how to say “Hello” and a few other simple phrases in all sorts of languages, choosing from a map of the world.