Fitness Focus

In Fitness Week we’ve all been honing our athletic skills with a variety of challenges. The children have been using and building on their core strength, balance and co-ordination, jumping, hopping, throwing and catching skills. The sunny weather has given us the perfect conditions for our sporty week!

Ball skills

The Javelin Throw Challenge


The Sack Race – Ready, steady…jump!

The Long Jump revealed some great athleticism

Dribbling Skills

High Jump


Orientation skills – over, under, upside down!



Bumper Obstacle course challenge ย – she shoots, she scores!

Two ways to cool down – watch out for the water squirter!
Or alternatively try someย ย relaxing mindful meditation….

 

Where did we come from…?

Some of the children were talking about the extinction of the dinosaurs and asking when the Ice Age and humans came. One of our childrenย also wrote a fantastic story called “Dinosaur Skeleton Bones.” So we have been studying a bit about Evolution, using The Story of Life book in the Story Box, along with lots of props and books to explore.

“These are chimpanzees. They turned into cavemen.”
“Dinosaurs evolved into alligators.”
“We came from that…” (pointing at small furry mammals in book)
“Some creatures came out of the water… This one flies.”

Re-enacting the moment when a meteorite hit Planet Earth.

We also tried making bones, fossils, skulls and footprints using clay with tools, toy dinosaurs and some fossil moulds:
“That one’s an ammonite. What is this one called?”


We buried them in sand and pretended to be Archaelogists and Paleontologists, digging with brushes and other tools.

“I found a bone!”ย ย ย ย ย  “Look! A T-Rex footprint!”

To dig up this Ice Age man and Sabre-toothed Cat, the children worked out the quickest way to melt the ice. They tried warm water, salt, chisels and saws… They were then fascinated to study and name all the different body parts, take them apart, and put them together.


“Is this his heart?” “That’s a brain!” “More salt- that’s working.”





Painting our clay volcano and fossils
“I made aย  handprint fossil and a shell one.”

Later we tried an outdoor science experiment – we built a volcano using sand and water and then created a volcanic ย eruption by mixing vinegar with bicarbonate of soda.

Watch our eruption!

Creative Creatures

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.โ€

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 ย 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!



 

 

May Days and Creative Ways

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.”ย  “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!”

 

The Joys of Spring

We had a lovely morning exploring the joys of spring in nearby Busby Church gardens. The children loved the freedom of the outdoors and they went on a Colour Hunt, finding blossom, daffodils, dandelions, stones, and bugs under logs. They were very excited to discover and study wood lice, slugs, worms, centipedes and bees, and they took great care to look after the nature around them. We also had fun trying out different viewpoints – including ย lying down and upside down…


“We found bugs and snails.” “Wood louse is brown.”




The children found “pink blossom”, “brown tree stumps”, “a green tree”, “white stones”, “yellow daffodil heads”, “blue sky” and “purple pansies” on their Colour Hunt.
We have also started to look at the life cycles of various creatures, including frogs, and match them to their habitats.
ย โ€œWorm lives in the ground!โ€ย  ย “Bird in the nest.”

Here is a video of some tadpoles that Mrs MacLeod was lucky to see in a small pond last weekend. What other new life have you seen growing this Spring? Let us know!

Science Adventures: Space and Planting

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 mรขchรฉ 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.”
โ€œCraters are on the moon.โ€
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!


 

Fun in the Sun

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.

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 readyย  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 ๐Ÿฃ

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 Exploringย  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, weโ€™ve built this for them. This is the tree bird (green), this is the water bird (blue) and this is the lava bird (orange).โ€

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


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

Have a very Happy Easter and Spring Break, everyone!

 

 

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