Month: April 2023

We have been up to lots of exciting things this week at Oakburn!

Home Room

Following consultation with the children, they decided to create a supermarket in nursery- Tesco!

So far, we have managed to collect empty food boxes, tins, fruit 🍌 🍊, empty shampoo bottles, toothpaste boxes and wire baskets for our nursery supermarket.

The children have been using their writing and numeracy skills to price the items by writing prices on sticky labels.

Some of the children wanted to make coins 🪙 for the tills. We looked at the shape and size of real coins and talked about what we need money 💴 for.

The children drew around the the real coins on silver and gold card and were encouraged to write ✍️the number of the coin on the back.

There has been fantastic role play and imagination in our nursery supermarket where the children have taken turns to be customers and shop assistants.🤩👏

Cosy Corner

This week in the cosy corner we have been looking at our favourite stories using different story stones. We have been looking at the 3 Little Pigs 🐷🐺 🏠. We have used the story stones to retell the story and look at different characters.

Expressive Area

In the art area we have been focusing on junk modelling. Today the children used loose parts, recycled junk, scissors, glue and sellotape to create their very own robots. The children worked the fine motor skills, problem solving and engineering skills to create their own robots 🤖

Acorn Room

After showing an interest in the “Jack and The Beanstalk” story, some of the acorns have been planting their own “magic beans”. We have been learning that sun and water will help them grow into beanstalks. We are looking forward to taking care of them to watch them grow tall like Jack’s!

Woodwork area

This week in the woodwork area we have been developing the area in the garden. We have raked the bark and then put down sand to help make the Astro turf last longer. We have also dug some holes to make a fence to make it into an lovely area 🤩

Courtyard – Block Play

This week in block play we have been reintroducing more gross motor activities! The children decided to build a structure that they can jump over and instantly it got competitive! So to record our jumps we added in a measuring tape! 📏 This allowed each child to record their own jump through number recognition with really heated up the competition! The children helped each other with numbers and were kindly giving others advice on how to jump really far! 🥇

STEM area

This week the children have been exploring water and buoyancy by designing our own tin foil boats. The children started by designing their boats using their mark making skills. They were then all given the same length of tin foil to bring their creation to life, using only their fine motor skills to mould their designs.

We had some amazing designs from traditional shaped boats to triangular rafts. We then tested the strength of our boats by placing pennies inside to see how many they could carry before sinking.

As we as being super fun this activity showcases the children’s creative skills alongside science, numeracy and communication.

🚤 💦 ⭐️

Snack Area

We have been making smoothies this week in the baking area using banana and strawberry (children’s choice) 🍓🍌. We also used a electricity connector so that the children could control the smoothie maker from pressing a button.  The children asked questions about how the electricity is passed through so we had a discussion about this.

Outdoors

This week out in the garden the children have been developing their gross motor skills playing football. The children decided to make their own pitch and worked together with me drawing it using chalk on the ground. We scored lots of goals!!

Stay and Play

Part of our stay and play sessions this week was planting in the garden! It may have been raining but that didn’t stop us getting our waterproofs on and heading out. We used our gross and fine motor skills using spades and trowels to dig up the soil and place the seeds in.
we had great feedback from our parents !

Hope you all have a lovely long weekend and we will see you all on Wednesday 3rd May 😁

 

Courtyard – Block play

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream 🍦 this week, the children decided to continue their interest in our favour summer treat- ice cream- and they asked for a shopping till in the construction area! This expands their learning so much by introducing the concept of money 💰 waiting patiently their turn, the children then put in their order and the shop keeper served them ice cream and told them a price (£100 may be a bit steep for ice cream) and the children exchanged plastic bottle caps and got their favourite flavoured treat! This experience covers all of the important aspects of early years learning! It covers numeracy with money exchanging, counting and number recognition. It covers literacy through the language the children were using to one another in their imaginative play. And finally, it covers health and well-being through the building of friendships in their play.

Amazing job everyone, I hope you all enjoyed your ice cream 🍦

Expressive Area

The rainbow fish 🐠 🌈

We created some stain glass window collage pictures based on the book the rainbow fish. The children worked their fine motor skills using the scissors to cut the tissue paper into smaller pieces and applying the sellotape on the pre cut hole in the paper. Once fully sellotaped I double checked for gaps and we flipped the picture round to start sticking with tissue paper. Once complete the children put some blue tack on their picture and chose a place on the glass fire door to see the sunshine through their ‘stain glass picture’.

Later in the week we created some salt paint

In order to make salt paint we required glue, salt and some food colouring. The purpose of this experience was to learn about absorption as they transfer their white art into a colourful creation. The children seemed to really enjoy this experience and love participating in science experiments 🧬 🧪.

Courtyard – Gross motor

This week in the courtyard we have been working on our number recognition and colour matching.  The boys and girls have been showing me that they are able to subitise when looking at the dice then they were able to confidently find the matching number.  Later in the week we played a colour matching scavenger hunt where the children found items of different colours then group them together.🤩

STEM area

This week the children have been observing their runner beans growing and also potting them up.

We have been using recycled pots alongside compost and sticks from our garden to support them to grow as big as we can!

The children were so excited to pot them up. We spoke about the different parts of our beans from the roots, the stems to leaves and how we would get flowers then runner beans.

After we potted them we put them back in our sunny window sill and gave them a big drink of water. 💦🫘🌱

Outdoors

With the sunshine showing a little more consistency, we are now able to get more of our gardening jobs done! ☀️ the children got their paintbrushes out and got stuck into our new fence around the allotment at the top of the garden! Choosing to paint it green, to boys and girls made an excellent job of it and it looks absolutely fantastic! So next time you have some spare time, feel free to come and look at all the hard work the boys and girls have been putting into their garden!

2-3 Room

The children have been showing a great interest in our “Runaway Pea” book. The children ask to read this book multiple times a day. On our termly trip to Milngavie Mannor, our local care home our little acorns listened and laughed as our friend Margret one of the residents read to the children. Margret was a teacher and said “it truly makes my day having a visit from you all, I love reading to the children it was my favourite part of my job when I was a teacher” Margret was a English teacher at Douglas High School. H.M asked to make “pea soup” when we read the book, so we worked together and made a list. The children then walked to the shops and used the visual shopping list to gather the ingredients. The children were able to help chop to make the soup. The children tried the soup. A few children said “thumbs up” and “yum” where others said “no thanks”. Demonstrating they are developing the ability to communicate their likes and dislikes. With the childrens interest of the Runaway pea we then set up a pea planting provocation. J.G was keen to explore with their senses, squeezing the peas and filling and emptying the plant pots. F.R with encouragement counted “1,2,3,4 peas.

Have a lovely weekend 🙂

 

 

 

Expressive Area

This week in the art area we have been working on fine motor skills and imaginative play. The children used their imagination to build and construct different items. LB made a castle using levels and natural resources. This activity influenced the curiosity approach and enabled children to use their imaginations and problem solving skills.

Woodwork area

As the weather has been nicer we have taken woodwork outside when we can.  The children have enjoyed hammering away in the sun and showing off their beautiful work 🤩

Block area

Reduce, reuse and recycle is at the heart of Oakburn! In the construction area, we have decided to reuse old pieces of board that used to hold together our courtyard shelves and have found so many more uses for them that are much more fun! Just this week they have been tables to build on, roads for cars, ramps and bridges! All of these ideas have came from the children which highlight their vast understanding of reducing waste by reusing these boards to create their own learning opportunities ♻️

The focus this week in the construction area has been building large structures! With their hi-vis vests and thinking caps on, the children have worked together amazingly to build wonderful creations this week! With the sunny weather creeping in this week, it has got the boys and girls thinking and inspired them to build a vehicle that serves everyone’s favourite summer treat- an ice cream van! Spending lots of time building it led to even more time serving us all our favourite flavours 🍦 this activity combined many key learning opportunities such as teamwork, gross motor skills, construction from imagination, and imaginative play. Well done builders 👷🏻👷🏻‍♀️

Acorn Room

The Acorns have enjoyed “That’s Not My…” themed sensory books – pointing out different facial features. We used the mirror to look at our own features such as hair and eye colour and made happy, funny and sad faces! 😁😊😋☹️

STEM area

Over the past few weeks we have been planting runner beans in our STEM area. The children have been loving this activity and watching them grow on the window. The children used clear zip lock bags, wet paper towels and runner bean seeds to create their growing environment.

Together we spoke about what our beans needed to grow and the children came up with some great ideas including water to drink and some lovely warm sunlight.

The children have enjoyed checking their bean growth each day and some are now growing out of the bag and have lots of roots, leaves and flowers starting to bud before the beans form.

After everyone’s beans start to grow we will be planting them in pots with compost and they will come home with the children so they can be enjoyed, harvested and eaten at home.

Please look out on the window for our beans when you are visiting the nursery next! 🫘🌱🫘🌱

Hope everyone has had a lovely Easter holiday and we will see you all next week 🙂

Jocelyn