Month: January 2023

Acorn Room

This week we provided our acorns with experiences that supported Burns night.
The children were keen to create their own tartan. A few children created their own and a few children copied a few patterns.

The children decorated the Loch Ness monster.  With support a few of the children were able to identify the colours or Pom, Pom’s “A blue one” and “my favourite colour is this one, pink”. We tried the traditional Scottish dinner with vegetarian haggis. The children communicated their likes and dislikes with the tasting experience. At group time we incorporated learning traditional songs. The children were keen to shake the props on the parachute to the song Katie Beardie. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

 

Story Corner

We have been learning  all about Robert Burns this week.  His poems have become an extremely important part of Scottish culture. The children have enjoyed all the facts about him and trying out some of the Scottish words in the poems.  We also explored some other things we do to celebrate Burns day, foods we eat and clothes we wear.

STEM area

This week in the STEM area we have been exploring density though our sink and float experiment. The children helped select some fruit, veg and loose parts to do the experiment with. We used our turn taking and listening skills while having lots of fun predicting whether each item would sink our float.

We found out that an orange floats with its skin on but sinks with it off! We also discovered a tiny grape sinks! The children were very excited that the weight of the item did not determine whether it would sink or float.

At the end of the experiment we counted together to find out how many items we had in our sink box, how many in our float box and also which was the higher number. 🍊 🍌 💦 🍇 🫑 🍐

Home Corner

This week in the home corner the children have been making orange juice. The children have been using the juicer to squeeze the oranges 🍊

The children have also been enjoying doing some baking in the home corner. The children have been measuring the amounts of the ingredients to make and decorate some lovely cakes.🎂

Woodwork area

This week in woodwork we were running a little low on wood so we decided to use to the saw to cut some bigger pieces into smaller ones 🪚. We used a ruler to measure how long each bit was going to be and marked it using a ruler and a pencil ✏️.

Courtyard – Block Play

This week in the construction area, the children have been focusing on building small structures, specifically for superheroes 🦸‍♂️ 🦸‍♀️ working as a team, the children created excellent structures that contained many important features that superheroes need- “a gym, a bed and tall stairs” what else could a superhero need? The children confidently discussed their ideas together and worked hard to creative their image. Super work everyone!

Courtyard

This week in the courtyard we have been talking about Scotland, Scottish words and the Scottish flag.  We have have explored colours, porridge oats, songs and sounds.

Snack/Baking area

This week we have been exploring Robert Burns day. We tasted different Scottish food such as potato scones and haggis, neeps and tatties. We made our own shortbread, carefully cutting it into thin fingers. 

We linked our fruit kebabs to look like tartan. Copying the colours of the tartan for each piece of fruit.

 

Forest School

At forest school this week we have been focusing on whittling. The children had to use great concentration and listening skills and risk assess the activity, making sure to keep themselves safe

Outdoors

As the weather has been cold we discovered lots of big chunks of ice in our garden. We decided to use this as a canvas for painting! The children used blue and red paint mixing this together to create purple.

 

Acorn Room

The children were observed jumping from one log cushion to another. J.M said we are jumping like frogs. K.N said “ribbit, ribbit”. L.F scaffolded their learning by adding a dice and numbers and encouraged them to count and identify the numbers they landed on as they role played. A.M said “I want a frog” L.F supported this interest and created a play-dough experience of create your own frogs with play-dough. The children were able to make their own frogs using loose parts. H.T counted “1,2 eyes”. The children were keen to sing 5 speckled frogs at group time, L.F praised them for learning to count. The children smiled as they explored our pop up frog too. We also watched the frog life cycle song. Parents in the acorn room, please find the attached song on your child’s e.journals.🐸🪵

The acorns have been participating in activities to celebrate Chinese New Year! They have been exploring sensory play with rice and Chinese inspired playdough. They have also been learning about the Chinese flag and it’s different colours and shapes.

Woodwork Area

This week in woodwork we have been continuing to create beautiful photo frames🖼 the children have been super busy using their fine motor skills to hammer the nails around the picture and weave ribbon around them in lots of different colours. 

The Courtyard – Block play

To celebrate Chinese New Year in the block area, the children have been building their own Chinese Temples! Working fabulously as a team, the children modelled their temples from images. This is a concept skill that requires them create their own version of the image on a larger scale. This also requires great gross motor skills and teamwork which the children displayed in abundance! Fantastic job everyone!

Snack\Baking Area

This week was Chinese New Year! In the baking area we have been exploring different tastes – we have made noodles with a curry or sweet and sour sauce.  We also made the traditional Jiaozi (made with Quorn mince, carrots, onion and garlic).  The children did really well when using the chopsticks to pick up the Jiaozi. 🤩

Story Corner

We have been learning about Chinese New Year 🧧 this week in the story corner and reading our new books. The most popular book seems to have been Winnie and Wilbur 🐈‍⬛ at Chinese New Year by Valerie Thomas.

The children have been learning that this is a very important holiday for many people and 2023 is the year of the rabbit 🐇. We found out that Chinese New Year is also known as the Lunar New Year as it is connected to the moon 🌙. The children were very interested in the dragon 🐉 and lion 🦁 dances that are performed to bring good luck. All the children have shown that they are fantastic responsible citizens learning about another culture and celebration 🤩👏.

STEM Area

In the STEM area we have been celebrating Chinese New Year while practicing our numeracy skills. The children have been demonstrating their knowledge of numbers 1 to 10 and their ability to correspond the number of loose parts to the written number. Alongside this the children were able to observe the Chinese symbol for each number and Rong also showed us how to pronounce each number.

Also in the STEM area we have been exploring technology and programming through our bee bot robots 🤖. The children were very excited when the bee themed robots came out. They were able to programme them to go forward, back, left and right. When the children we confident giving the beebots a one step instruction then we built up to 2,3 and some children were able to master 4 step instructions. There was so much demand to play with our beebots we set up a queuing system while waiting our turn, promoting turn taking and cooperative play. This term we will continue to develop our technology skills within the area.

This week we have been exploring Chinese New Year. In the gross motor skills area we have been learning Chinese games. We played, passing the bean bag, jumping and throwing on the squares and picking and throwing pebbles. Rong showed the children the Chinese names for each game.

Fine motor area

This week to celebrate Chinese New Year the children were writing the Chinese number from 1-10. They were able to draw them in the rice with the lolly stick or their fingers or use the pen and paper to copy them too. The children found that writing some of the numbers was easier than others which were quite tricky.

Writing Area

This week we are celebrating Chinese New Year⛩

2023 is the year of the rabbit🐰? Our mark making table displayed a range of Chinese writing and the children were super keen to have a go at writing in Chinese themselves!✏️. It was a little tricky at times as the Chinese alphabet is written very differently to ours!

Home Corner

We made our own  Chinese lanterns using paper and glitter which we have hung up on the ceiling. They look great in our new home corner 🟡🔴

 

 

Mark making area

On Monday one of the children suggested making a post box, which led to the exploration of writing post cards and letters.✏️📮

We used a cardboard box to make the post box and then thought about who we might write our letters to.. Family, friends, Skye from Paw Patrol and Pikachu from Pokemon were just a few brilliant suggestions!👏🙌

We wrote our letters using a variety of media including pencils, felt tips, pencil crayons and chalk! Developing fine motor skills and letter formation, provoking discussion and incorporating role play! Fabulous!✏️📮👏

Courtyard – Gross motor skills 

This week in the courtyard the boys and girls have been using their gross motor skills to manoeuvre around our obstacle course. The children decided to make a hopscotch and were able to identify the numbers and sequence these in order from 1-10.

STEM area

The children have been enjoying the lemon juice volcano experiment this week in the STEM area. For the experiment we used the acid in the lemon juice, mixing in some food colouring and then adding some baking soda to cause a big chemical reaction. The children used all their senses, shared and took turns to add all the ingredients and listened very well to the instructions of the experiment.

Rebecca will embarking on a weekly science experiment in the STEM area. This will happen each day allowing all children to take part if they want to and will change weekly on a Monday.

The Stage

At the stage the focus for the month of January is Good Auld Scottish Patter .

We have been reading Scottish books 📖 and singing Scottish songs .

We have even had a few girls who wrote some Scottish words for the wall .

Snack area
This week in the snack area we have been celebrating lots of birthdays. We made lots of birthday cupcakes. We developed our numeracy skills by counting how many spoonfuls of things we needed and weighing out ingredients using the scales.

 

Courtyard – Block area

From images to real life, the children have done an excellent job this week creating large structures in the block area. Working in teams, the children have discussed ideas, lifted blocks together and created amazing structures 🏗🗼🗽the emphasis this week has been teamwork and this is something that the children do very very well 🤝 furthermore, the pre-planning the children have displayed through selecting landmarks and structures to copy has been wonderful to observe. Transitioning one skill to another and working in a team is a complex concept that the children have displayed with ease. Amazing work everyone 🤩.

Forest School

It was our second session at forest school. We walked in the pouring rain to the woodland but we all had our cozy suits on to keep warm. We put the tarp and hammock up for shelter. We ate breadsticks under the tarp and chatted about the different things we could hear; wind, planes, birds and school children. The children then had the opportunity to learn a basic overhand knot. We had lots of fun and headed back for lunch.

Story corner

This week we have been reading and singing Scottish stories and rhymes. The children have enjoyed learning the Scottish words and what they mean.  Some of our favourites have been, “ canny shove ur granny off the bus” and the “ wee lassie that swallowed a midgie”.  This has supported the children’s listening and communication skills. We also used puppets and resources to act out some of the stories and rhymes which helped to build confidence and vocabulary.

Art area

Within the expressive area the children have sparked an interest on pirates. We have been focusing on making pirate ships using junk modelling, creating our own money through the use of crayons and printing coins and creating our own treasure map for treasure island 🏴‍☠️

 

Woodwork

In woodwork we have been busy making photo frames using nails and wood. They have created frames using beads, smaller items from junk modelling such as bottle lids and excess fabrics 🔨 🗜. This has been great for developing our fine motor skills!

 

Home corner

Our home corner has had a revamp! We were looking for a more cosy environment where the children could relax. We added more natural materials and added a sofa with blankets and cushions. The children now have access to a dressing up table and mirror where they have been exploring roleplay playing hairdressers.

Acorn room

This week in the acorn room we have been focusing on our colours. Using different materials we have been matching and sorting them into the corresponding colour pots. By using the pincers we have also been working on our fine motor skills to pick up the Pom poms to match them into their pots.

In the home corner we have been talking about what we have for dinner. These sparked conversations about making pizza from playdough, using rollers and collage materials for the toppings. We also explored the “Tiger who came to tea”. Pouring and filling into the cups. The children role played with each other, turn taking and sharing with each other 🫖🤩.

The children have been showing an interest in exploring through their senses as they have been exploring our new sensory toys. The children spent a long period of time pushing our pop it. A few children were able to identify the colours on it. The children chose to reach out and touch  the tactile pages of our sensory books. Early Years Workers (EYW’s) used high quality interactions and descriptive language to scaffold their learning. The children said “soft cow” and “bumpy feet”. Showing their understanding. With the children’s interest of That’s not my books. We created a That’s not our Acorn ladies and the children were able to make simple choices of the loose parts they used to decorate them. J.M laughed as he placed tinsel on Elaine hair and said “Elaine has sparkly hair”.