Author: F Forbes

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.

 

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”.

 

This week has been a super busy week at Oakburn with our first sessions of ‘stay and play’ which was a great success!
We had great feedback from our parents saying they loved seeing all the learning taking place.

Here is a look of what we got upto!

The courtyard

The children have been collecting different sizes Continue reading “Week beginning 14/11/22”

This week at Oakburn we have been celebrating Maths week with a range of different activities and provocations. We have been learning about counting, measuring, pattern, data analysis, shape, symmetry ,colour and much more!

STEM area

Previously in the STEM are we had been looking at the body and body parts. AH told me “my eyes are blue” so we decided to create a chart to record how many people had a certain colour of eyes.
The children took turns looking in the mirror and making a tally mark next to what colour of eyes they had. After the children counted how many tally marks were on each colour.

In the art area we have been focusing on pattern. The children used a range of materials – paint, glue, foam shapes and loose parts. They were able to copy and create their own pattern!

In woodwork the children have been experimenting with everyday items to measure, compare and investigate sizes.  The children have been exploring the language used when talking about measurements such as long, short, tall and longest.  We used measuring tapes, rulers and non standard units to estimate and measure length.

In block play we have been exploring 3D shapes. We have developed our problem solving skills as we have recreated these 3D shapes using wooden blocks. The children showed excellent understanding and knowledge of 3D shapes 🟦🟢🔺

we have also been exploring stage 5 of block play (Symmetry and Pattern). We have been discussing symmetry and what makes something symmetrical. The children have been using mirrors to explore symmetry through reflections and creating their own symmetrical structures!

In the home room we have been learning about money. We looked at and identified different coins and notes comparing the similarities and differences in size and shape. We made our own shop and had to use the coins to buy different food and count the money into the till

Some of our children went on an outing to Tesco this week to buy some ingredients that we needed for cooking. On our walk we identified lots of different numbers – on houses and on buses. Once in Tesco the children identified numbers on the price tags for food and on our food bill at the end of the shop. The children were involved in counting out the money and putting it in the self service machine.

In small world we have been exploring size. We used the book ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’ talking about small, medium and large. The children got involved making porridge for the bears. A small amount for baby, a medium amount for mummy bear and a big amount for daddy bear.

We also used other objects from around the nursery to compare sizes. Measuring which was the biggest and which was the smallest.

Outdoors we have been exploring counting using 1-1 correspondence. The children identified the number on the number line then went to find the corresponding number of objects to place on the line.
In the construction area children were scooping, digging, filling and emptying buckets of mud and water. We discussed concepts such as full/empty and discussed volume.

This week in the gross motor area throughout numeracy week we have been focusing on colours! The children helped me set up different coloured markers and then went on a treasure hunt around the whole centre to find objects that matched the colours. The children displayed amazing memory recall skills to remember where particular objects were that matched. They also worked together as a team to find some of the more difficult colours such as orange! Fantastic work everyone ⭐️

Acorn Room

The children have enjoyed using Mr Potato Head 🥔 to practice our counting. How many eyes does he need? How many do you have? This has sparked many conversations about our body parts and features. Using our numbers we have practiced counting from 1 all the way to 5! This has also encouraged fine motor skills and turn taking.

We have been exploring songs and rhymes with numbers in them. The children enjoyed counting from 5 down to 1 while singing “5 little speckled frogs” and joined in with all the actions.

I set up a numeracy provocation to allow the children to explore number and shape. The children were able to recognise the 2D shapes and identify these.

 

 

Fine motor and Malleable area

We have had a super busy week! So much wonderful learning going on in our malleable and fine motor areas.😀 We started the week with a beach, which brought much excitement! How cool is it to have a beach scene indoors?! Lots of filling, pouring, scooping and building of sand castles!

We explored the concept of shape on Tuesday, using a variety of media. We included a number square to help us count the sides of each shape. Some children used the smaller blocks for sequencing which was very impressive!

Later on in the week we used the tweezers at the malleable table to pick up play dough. It proved to be a tricky business at times! Again we gave our fingers and hands a good workout!🙌

Measure had been a feature this week too… We used rulers and tape measures to measure lots of different things. We discovered the snake was much longer than the bus!🐍

Expressive studio

This week in the art area we have been exploring Mosaic art. We have been using paper, scissors and plastic to create our own mosaic. The children used scissors to cut up different shapes to stick on their paper to make their own design this helped to develop their fine motor skills. The children then matched each shape on to the mosaic on the whiteboard.

The courtyard

In the courtyard area, the kids are continuing to explore different sports! With a focus on hand-eye coordination, the children have had the chance to experience golf and tennis. 🏌️‍♀️ 🎾 By making big targets for our mini golf course, the children worked on hitting the ball with our homemade golf clubs.  Through concentration and perseverance, the children displayed great confidence getting the ball into the hole! On the tennis front, the children have been transferring the hand-eye coordination skills that we have been working on over the past few weeks by getting the ball over our net. It’s clear to see how quickly the children have grasped and developed their skills in such a short space of time. They are all doing so well in all aspects of this area 🤩

The village

Upstairs in the village I have been developing the sensory area. The children have been loving exploring space with the projectors and backdrops, looking at their reflections in the mirrors and expressing their feelings. The children  were  exploring their senses through different materials and lights.

 

STEM area

In the steam area we have been super busy learning about the body. We have been learning about all of the different parts of the body and where they are and what they do. We have made a cardboard cut out of a body and are going to start to label it 💀

Small world area

This week in small world we have been exploring our fire fighters 🔥🧑‍🚒

The children have been rushing to emergency’s, practicing our stop drop and roll and learning about things that are hot and we should touch. 😀 the children were even talking about how if you ever need help we always phone 999 📱

We have also been to a magical land filled with unicorns 🦄 fairies 🧚‍♂️ and knights 🐎. They have been fighting dragons and protecting princesses. We have had a lot of fantastic sharing and imaginative ideas this week

Junk modelling/woodwork station

The beauty of junk modelling, the children have been busy using recycled materials to construct with. The children were given the freedom to build what they wanted with the simple addition of resources such as tape and glue. The final designs were “ flying campervan” “sewage system” “tower block” and a “race car”.  The children used their problem solving skills, imagination and creativity to build their designs

Construction area

This week in the Construction area, we have been exploring stage 3 of block play (Bridges and Pathways). We have been exploring building bridges and passageways using the wooden blocks. The children have also been exploring measuring these in different ways by using measuring tapes, tape measures and numbered planks. We then explored size as we compared our towers to our own heights and explored if our towers were taller or smaller than us. 👷‍♂️🚧👷

2-3 room

This week in the garden we have been very busy. We used our creative minds to make bubble mixtures and pipe cleaners to create coloured bubble wands 🫧

Over in the mud kitchen we have been busy creating smoothies using grass, leaves and left over vegetables 🥕🫑 and our very own version of chocolate mud cake 🍰!  The children have enjoyed putting their fine motor skills and imagination to work chopping and mixing to create their masterpieces 🧑‍🍳!

 

Fine motor and Malleable area

It’s been an extremely busy week in the fine motor and malleable areas! Lots of creativity, imagination, exercising our finger muscles and making a mess!😆👏👏👏

In our malleable area it was all about mixing, stirring, pouring, sprinkling and concocting! We used cornflower and water to make gloop and created our own potions using porridge oats, lentils, pasta, teabags and water!🤩

At our fine motor station we did an abundance of mark making using a variety of media, including felt tips, crayons, stampers, chalk and pencils!🙌🤩We even created our own Oakburn Office which has been a big hit! Lots of important business going on there!🤓We also explored weaving using pipe cleaners, which proved to be a tricky business!

Some of the children helped with our numeracy display on the resource cupboard. Super number formation.

To end a super busy week we made an alphabet line! This idea came from one of our children and I think you’ll all agree it looks AMAZING!👏👏👏

The Courtyard

The summer weather may be coming to an end but we’ve kicked off the first full week of the new term with lots of new sports in the courtyard! The children have been testing their skills against friends with our new homemade basketball hoop! 🏀 Together, we have been seeing how far we can throw from, how many hoops we can score within a time limit and challenging each other to who can score most! The gross motor skills that the children are displaying have been nothing short of amazing! We’ve also shown a strong interest in both golf and tennis so the children came up with the idea to combine them. ⛳️ 🎾 Using small cones to hold the ball in place, the children use the tennis racquet to see how far they can hit it! Their hand-eye coordination has been so impressive and what’s even better is that this was a team and child led idea!

Snack area

We have been very busy in the snack area this week. The children have been practising using the knives to help prepare snack. We have been chopping lots of different things, such as, cucumber, apple and banana. The children have been learning how to stay safe while using knives. 🥒🍎 🍌

The children have also been making fruit smoothies for snack! We had strawberry and banana smoothies and the children did a great job making them 🍓 🍌

the children have been developing their independence and self-help skills as ‘snack helpers’!

They showed good fine motor skills and risk assessing as they safely cut fruit into smaller pieces for snack, and into shapes using the cookie cutters.

They have been showing their independence through setting up snack, by placing the dishes in the correct places, filling up the cereal and jugs when there wasn’t much left. Thank you to all our brilliant Oakburn helpers 👏⭐️

Small world area

This week we have been exploring under the sea, the children have been fantastic at naming our sea life creatures 🦈🦭and even talking about how we can keep them safe. We spoke about how the rubbish under the sea is really hurting our animals and that if we remember to bin our packets and bottles we can keep them safe🗑.

The children have also been blasting off into outer space 🪐 they have been to lots of different planets and even teleporting to different worlds. The children have been practicing counting backwards from 10 getting ready for the rocket 🚀 to shoot off on its next adventure around outer space.

 

Construction area

At the beginning of the week in the construction area we have been looking at buildings – shapes, structures and where these buildings come from.  We looked at the Eiffel Tower from Paris, leaning tower of Pisa, The Taj Mahal from India and Empire State Building in New York City! The children have been creating their own structures using the blocks.

Later in the week we created our own dinosaur Jurassic adventure using the train tracks, the children were able to identify different dinosaurs including raptors, Tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops and stegosaurus.🦕🦖

Expressive studio

In the expressive studio we have been focusing on transient art – using loose parts to make creative pictures and models. OW made a fantastic robot!

Acorn Room

This week in the Acorn room the children were developing their fine motor skills using spoons and different bowls to scoop beans during sensory play whilst exploring the concept of hot and cold.

At the Acorn Beach the children explore weetabix sand and rice water using. The children used large scoops as spades to scoop up the sand and water to fill a bucket, hide the sea creatures and explored numbers 0-3.

 

Some of the acorns have been building on their fine-motor skills through mark making using various types of media such as salt/oats, digital drawing and chalk!

 

 

This weeks theme was “All around the world”. Celebrating and exploring different things about countries around the world.

Monday we celebrated the UK – Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.
in the construction area we explored famous landmarks from around the UK.  We talked about each of the landmarks and where they were we then recreated these landmarks using the wooden blocks. Some of our creations have been wonderful! 🤩 well done everyone!

Inside we read ‘the teeger that cam for tea’ – it had lots of Scottish slang in it where we had to guess what the word meant. Afterwards we had our own Scottish tea party for the Tiger

Tuesday we celebrated Spain 🇪🇸

The children have been using coloured rice to make some Spanish paella. It almost looked good enough to eat!🇪🇸🥘.

We watched some Dora where we learned Spanish words and repeated them back.  We learned some fun facts on the interactive board with Professor 👨‍🏫 propeller . Which we managed to find out Spanish foods , words and places.

Wednesday was America and Canada day 🇺🇸 🇨🇦

In our acorn room we were recreating the American flag using a range of different materials, playdough, rice and arts and crafts. These provocations gave the children a chance to strengthen and develop their fine motor skills and build on their knowledge of shape, pattern and colour.  

In the 3-5 room the children used different resources to make their own Captain America shields!  The children’s did a great job and they look fantastic hanging up 🇺🇸

Thursday we celebrated Italy! In the acorn room we were developing our fine motor skills making pasta jewellery using colours from the Italian flag. We had to thread the pasta on to the pipe cleaners.
we also made our own spaghetti and pizza spreading, pouring scooping and mixing all the ingredients together.

In the 3-5 room we discussed some Italian words, finding out what they meant and repeating them back to one another. We then matched them with their English word on the tuff tray.

In the kitchen we made PIZZA ! We made our own dough with all these ingredients.  After it was all mixed and into the bowl we left it for a few hours until the dough had gotten bigger due to the yeast.  Whilst we waited the boys and girls got busy making the tomato sauce, they cut up tomato, carrots, celery and garlic then blended it and added some basil creating a lovely sauce 🍝

We made some extra dough so that we could get creative and make mini pizzas using colourful sticks and shapes

On Friday we celebrated Denmark

in the construction area we explored famous landmarks from Denmark We talked about the size and shape of the buildings and recreated these landmarks using the wooden blocks.

we were lucky enough to have a parent helper in – Karina who helped the children make Danish pastries. The children had to use their fine motor skills to spread and roll the dough. Afterwards Karina taught the children number 1-3 in danish. They children loved having her in.

This week at Oakburn was nature week 🌲 🕷 🐞
on Tuesday it was a hot day so the perfect day for a water slide. The children took turns sliding down the wet soapy slide – as did the adults! We even had a water fight too.

On Wednesday it was wildlife day.
We were lucky enough to have Katie (carols daughter) bring in some of her bugs and insects. The children had so much fun investigating and handling the creepy crawlies.

Thursday was Camp fire/den building day. The children were involved in building the camp fire. They collected wood and twigs and Hannah talked us through how to light it. We discussed how to keep safe around the fire and we knew not to cross the big circle around the fire and to stay on our seats. We toasted marshmallows. They were very tasty.  🔥

Friday was mudslide day. It may have been a bit cooler but that didn’t stop the children getting covered in mud!

Indoors 

The children have also been looking at The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and there have been some fab discussions about different animals that we may find in the woods. 🌳

One of our aims as a centre is to transition as much of our indoor learning to the outdoors. Anything that can be taught inside can be learned outside. However, with nature week taking over this week the children decided to bring the outdoors indoors. We started by collecting natural resources from the outdoors and brought them into the home corner to decorate and create an indoor fire pit! The children then chopped up some fruit and veg and they cooked it over the “fire”. This allowed for an abundance of learning that stretches from gathering skills to fine motor knife skills to harnessing their imaginations. The children have done so well and got really involved with nature week!

Nature week has been a big hit within the Acorn Room and we have had lots of exciting experiences set up for the children 🪵🌿!

The children enjoyed a bug hunt in the tuff tray hunting for the large bugs before a visit form Katie the bug specialist 🐞🕷! We had an indoor campfire which we had group time around and sang our favourite songs 🔥🎸! On Friday we even made an indoor mudslide for our people to slide down 🛝.

hope you all have a lovely weekend. Next week is All around the world 🌎