Month: February 2023

Courtyard – block play

Building bridges, tunnels and friendships! This week the children have been exploring different ways to play the game “the floor is lava” when they discovered how to build bridges with the blocks so lots of people can get on at one time! This transitioned very well into obstacle course construction and the ideas continued to expand! Through teamwork, the children decided to construct a large tunnel which was completely made by themselves! This was amazing to see! The ideas are limitless and the children are really beginning to see that! Fantastic work builders! 🏗

Courtyard – Gross motor skills

This week in the courtyard we have been trying out our new bowling set, the children have been practicing their counting, shapes and patterns when trying out different ways to set the pins out.  They have showed great control and coordination when rolling the bowling balls 🎳

STEM area

This week in the STEM area we have been exploring science and the changing state of water. The children have been discovering that ice is frozen water and when ice melts it produces water again. We have also been using salt and hot water to speed up the melting process.

During the experiment our mini scientists have been discussing whether we think ice will melt with no help at room temperature and whether we thought our room was warmer or colder than a freezer.

When we melted our ice the children then used their creativity and imagination to make love potions using the water, glitter and sequins. 🧪❤️💕💗 The children enjoyed this so much the next day we continued making lots of magical potions 🧪 🌸 adding glitter and some rose petals.

🐛🐜 🔍 Magnifying Experiment 🔍 🐛 🐜

This week in the STEM area we have been exploring magnification. The children have had lots of opportunities to use magnifying glasses and also microscopes. We have magnified small pictures and practiced our positional language and direction skills by telling our friends how to find our favourite objects.

Later in the week children were keen to use the microscopes and magnifying glasses to look at bugs so we moved our STEM area outside and found lots of worms to take a closer look. This focused on the children’s senses and them describing what they saw. It was also an excellent opportunity for them to get outside and enjoy nature within our nursery garden.  🔍🐛🐜

Snack

PANCAKE DAY!

This week in the snack are we have been celebrating pancake day by making and trying pancakes. The children helped to cook the pancakes using the hot plate. The children developed their risk aware skills by being safe when cooking. We created banana and blueberry pancakes. The children had the option of lots of toppings!

The Garden

With the sun finally starting to come out, our little gardeners have been very busy! In our lovely allotment area, the children have decided to plant some blueberries and blackcurrants! And to help protect the young plants, we have built a fence out of twigs which we have collected from all around the garden 🪵🍃🍂🌹💐

Fine motor area

In the fine motor skills area we have been copying patterns using the foam shapes and laces. The children have been threading the foam shapes onto the laces following the pattern cards. This has been developing their fine motor skills, shape recognition skills as well as colour recognition and counting skills.

The children then created their own patterns  for their friends to copy.

Home Corner

The children have been exploring the kitchen area using real food. We have especially been enjoying pasta! Exploring the different textures and types of pasta. The children have been building on their fine motor skills by using the tongs and cutlery.

Acorn Room

This week in the acorn room all the children took part in making home made pancakes 🥞. They all took turns in mixing the ingredients together and then adding the pancake mix onto the pan.

We had the pancakes with a selection of fruit and sauces at snack time 🍓🍌

 

 

Woodwork area

This week in woodwork we have been creating patterns using nails and different coloured beads. The children have been exploring different sequences of patterns using different materials.

Art area

This week in the art area we have been focusing on the historical famous artist Vincent van gough. Using the two famous paintings ‘A stary night’ and ‘The Sunflower’ the children used chalk to recreate their own take of these paintings.

 

Home corner

This week in the home corner the children have loved exploring the kitchen. We have incorporated real food into the kitchen for the children to explore.

Baking area

In the baking area this week we have been exploring different vegetables and what we can make with them. The children chose to use bagels and suggested we make pizza bagels using tomatoes, peppers and cheese.  The children developed their fine motor skills as well as keeping themselves safe while using a knife to cut the vegetables.

Small world

In the small world area the children have shown a strong interest in dinosaurs 🦖 starting the week they explored “Dino land” and from that the children were looking at the shapes of their feet. They moved onto printing their feet the next day and looking at the size of real dinosaurs foot prints, the biggest one in the world being a sauropod at 5ft9 👣 the children wanted to know who was the same size as that so getting the measuring tapes they started measuring staff in the nursery, with Hannah being the closest in height “that’s a huge footprint” most of the children said. We measured our friends as the t-Rex print is 3ft3 which a lot of our friends in the nursery are the same size as.

STEM area

This week in the STEM area we have been enjoying learning about electricity. We have been finding out we can get electricity from fossil fuels/power stations, wind, the sun and water.

The children have also loved having a go at making their very own electrical circuits. We started with basic circuits and then some of the children were able to extend these to add switches, along with more than one light bulb.

Courtyard – Block play

Houses come in all shapes and sizes. Can you make your own? The children have shown an interest in houses recently and we have been discussing how all of our houses look so different. Taking this interest forward, we have been designing and building our very own houses in construction! The children have shown a great level of ability to plan ahead and discuss their ideas before building! We have even been drawing our houses before we build which is excellent to see! Amazing work builders, keep it up!

Acorn room

The children were observed hiding in the woods. The children laughed as they hid behind the trees. L.F scaffolded the learning by leading a game of hide and seek. The children were able to follow the simple instructions of the game. We added numeracy by counting 1-5. A child said peek-a-boo, L.F supported this interest with providing colourful scars. A few children were able to identify the colours “red”. With the children’s interest of hiding. L.F provided books, that support this.