Acorn room .
In the courtyard we have been following the children’s interest in our story book ‘Stick Man’. The children used loose sticks to build their own stick men learning about body parts needed to create the stick man – two arms, two legs, one body and one. The children followed on their stick man interest by painting using sticks and using our easel to markmake stick people drawings.
To develop fine motor skills there was a chance to practice using our large tweezers to pick objects up. We could also use the objects to create patterns and learn about big and small.
In the Acorn room the children have had a big interest in numbers recently. We have started to introduce number recognition as well as counting in sequence. For our little 2’s we are focusing on numbers 1-5. Providing them with objects that they can recognise numbers within, ie a clock. ⏰1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣.
After admiring themselves in the mirror and pointing out different facial features, the children were offered with the opportunity to explore different facial expressions using the mirrors. The children used emotion stones to talk about different feelings including happy, sad, angry and silly. We spoke about what makes us happy or sad – recognising that different things can make us feel different ways 🤗
Children are encouraged to add and count more blocks to the line to make dominoes. They are supported to measure and test the distance between two blocks. They are also encouraged to add blocks of different sizes and shapes.
This week Oakburn has a new stage 🎶 it has been very popular with a variety of musical instruments 🎸🎹🥁🪘lights and pom-poms for any aspiring cheerleaders.
Kirsty feels it is very important for building confidence and self esteem as well as having fun ❤️
This week in the woodwork area we have been focusing on junk modelling. I provided lots of different materials, cardboard, plastic, fabrics and loose parts such as bottle tops, corks and metal. The children used their creativeness and imagination creating rockets, towers, campervans, caterpillars and castles. The children worked well together, helping each other stick the materials together.
This week in the courtyard we have been developing our literacy area! Our authors of the month are Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart who write the fabulous ‘You choose’ books 📚. The children have been discussing their favourite stories and we have had a lovely time reading them together 📖.
Also, our makaton signs of the fortnight are currently, ‘happy’ and ‘sad’. Please feel free to practice these at home ❤️
In STEM area with week we have been doing some investigating using magnifying glasses and looking for bugs 🪰🕷🪲
We have been exploring our senses using our feely tubs and using lots of different describing words 😁
We also created a box which we painted and are going to use as a blindfolded sensory activity using all of our 5 senses 👃👄
Week commencing 28/03/22 – Outdoors-Small world and expressive arts area🌳🌿🌱
We have been exploring ball and gross motor skills, colour recognition, gradients, speed and force! So many scientific concepts!🤩We were kindly donated some ball pit balls which led to discussions around speed, direction and positional language!🌳❤️⚽️🎾
We used pipes and a stand to investigate the speed of the balls travelling down the tube, depending on how the tube was positioned!
We soon discovered, the steeper the gradient, the faster the balls travelled!👏🙌
We are also continuing to develop our small world area. Some of the children requested vehicles.🚗🚌🚜🚚We added some wooden cars and trucks and will continue to develop this area further in the coming days and weeks…🌳❤️
Towards the end of the week the children suggested bringing chalk outside which led to mark making in a variety of ways, using black paper and a wooden pallet!🙌👏
The children have been developing their fine motor skills, hand/eye coordination and strengthening their hand muscle while exploring the threading activity. The children then used the foam beads to continue on with the patterns with some children able to continue on with three steps patterns. The children then got creative designing their own patterns. ❤️🧡❤️🧡❤️🧡❤️🧡
In the small world area we have been focusing on people who help us learning about the importance of fire fighters and their job roles. The children had fun in a tasting experience using the yoghurt as an alternative to paint. “Mmm strawberries!” We are going to continue looking at all the different people who help us and what to do in an emergency situation 🚨
