Author: J Andrew

Snack Area

To celebrate Chinese new year, we used our cooking skills to make rice paper rolls.  We searched the fridge for healthy ingredients and together we decided to use “carrots” and “peppers”. 🥕🍥We also added some spring onions,which was a new ingredient for us to use.  We used our chopping skills to chop all the ingredients then safely cooked them in a frying pan to make them soft and mix all the flavours together.  We really enjoyed trying out the rice paper as it was “sticky” 😂 We had to follow the steps carefully, firstly dipping the rice paper in warm water then added our vegetables. Finally we rolled the rice paper over the vegetables to create the roll effect.  Looked at our amazing cooking skills,  we have the best chefs at Oakburn.👩‍🍳

Small World Area

In the small world area the children have been reading “One Button Benny “ who is a robot with one button , this button is only to be pushed in an emergency . We have been using different resources all week to create our own robots . We have used junk modelling, some different shaped paper and also playdough. We have had some amazing robots in nursery this week!

This has been developing our fine motor skills, our creativity, language and shape recognition.

Home Corner

This week in the home corner the children have enjoyed chopping a variety of vegetables. Children were using their fine motor skills to hold the vegetables still whilst using a knife to cut. This increase’s their independence skills. They are also learning how to keep themselves safe when preparing food. The children then used their imagination to make some delicious recipes. Keep up the great work !

Art Area

This week in the art area we have been practicing our cutting skills and making heart bunting in time for Valentine’s Day ❤️ the children have been talking about who and what they love and what makes them feel loved 🥰

STEM

This week in the Stem area the children have been exploring robots. The children have been looking at the story book ‘ One button Benny’ to explore the different robots. Using loose parts the children created their own robot. The children then used their problem solving skills to program the beebots to move in different directions.

Gross Motor Area

In the gross motor area we have been building obstacle courses. We have been using lots of different things such as the balancing beams, the pogo stick and the blocks. The children took turns each to go round the course, doing all different movements. This has been a fun way for the children to build their balance and coordination as well as their confidence. ❤️

 

Malleable Area

In the malleable area we explored numbers for number day. The children were asked to slide the pasta down the spaghetti depending on the number they chose. The children learned about counting forward in a sequence up to 10.

Art Area

This week in the art area we have been creating fairy gardens using transient art. The children have been using their imagination with the help of a you choose story based around fairytales 🧚

Home Corner

Today the children have been practising their numeracy and language skills. The children had fun saying the ‘One potato, two potato’ rhyme and counting the potatoes and matching to the corresponding number. The children were able to show the numbers in different ways. Well done children keep counting.

Snack Area

This week we have been trying out some new fruits.  We had mango, star fruit and pawpaw.  The children explored the different colours, shapes, smell and texture of the fruits using their senses.  We searched up where the fruits came from and how they are grown.  Some of the children’s responses were, “looks like a star fish, under the sea” “ it’s a star shape” “looks like a melon” “ tastes like a grape” “feels squishy”.   The children enjoyed some of the fruit mixed in with smoothies.

Story Corner

This week was numeracy week. In the story corner we focused on the author Mike Brownlow & Simon Rickerty books “ten little superheroes, ten little princess”. I set up an experience which encouraged children to count forward in a sequence 1-10 and identify numbers 1-10. The children were creating their own characters. Each of the children chose a number for their superhero, came up with a name for the character and a superpower.  Each of the children drew their own superheroes or princesses

STEM area

In the stem area we have been exploring our senses. This week we have been exploring our sense of taste and smell. The children tried a variety of different foods.

We hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year. We have been busy settling back into our routine here at Oakburn. Here are some of the exciting things we have got up to this week.

Woodwork area

New year, fresh starts! In woodwork this week we have been starting from the basics and building our way up! Focusing on the basics has allowed all the children to learn the foundations of woodwork from hammering into practice blocks to 1-1 sawing, as well as, discussing all the safety aspects of woodwork so that everyone is at the same level! Better yet, this has given the more experienced woodworkers the opportunity to discuss and educate the less experienced through confidently demonstrating and answering questions related to the safe approaches to woodwork! Not only have we been learning about how to craft with wood, we have been learning about how to craft deeper friendships! Amazing work woodworkers!   

The Courtyard

This week in the courtyard we have been developing our numeracy and gross motor skills. We played an exercise game where the children threw the beanbags into the hoops then completed the activity in each hoop, the corresponding number of times.

We have also been using dice and dot patterns to build our numeracy. The children were able to find the dot pattern which matched the number they had rolled on the dice.

Art Area

This week in art we have been very lucky and got new resources for our transient art area. The children have been learning about how to take care of our resources and where they stay. They have been busy using their fine motor and creativity skills making flowers and creating fairy gardens too 🧚‍♀️

Acorn Room

The children were showing a particular interest in lights. A child was observed stomping their feet, exploring the flashing light on their welly boot. This led to L.F creating a glow stick sort experiences. With support the children were able to develop their colour recognition skills and sort the glow sticks into colours. A child was observed exploring the torches,  this lead to a number shadow experience. The children took turns to hold the torch and numbers. The children were able to identify the numbers on the wall 0-5.

STEM area

In the stem area we have been exploring our senses. This week we have been exploring touch. Using there hands the children have been exploring how different materials feel.

Small World Area

This week in the small world area we have been talking about winter and the cold weather. One of our activities involved numbered mittens and cotton wool balls (as snow). The children were able to use the tweezers to pick up the correct number of  snowballs to place on the numbered mittens. This activity was developing their hand eye coordination, fine motor skills and number recognition skills

 

Outdoors

In the garden this week, it’s been very frosty and cold. We have been using the ice and snow to draw pictures with sticks in the garden developing our fine motor skills and being creative using natural resources around the garden.

Acorn Room

It was nursery rhyme week in the acorn room! The children enjoyed recognising numbers on the clock, exploring the 10 green bottles rhyme and matching the numbers on 1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive! In our art area, the children showed off their creative skills by decorating their own version of Humpty Dumpty and created Jack and Jill’s bucket of water using a variety of paint and collage materials. At group time, each child individually chose their favourite nursery rhyme and sang it with their peers.

Story Corner

This week we have been exploring the nursery rhyme hickory dickory. We looked at pictures of clocks and identified the numbers. We put the rhyming pictures in order and also practiced singing the song incorporating makaton signs.

Block Play

In the block play area we were looking at “Hickory Dickory Dock”. The children were then able to place the numbers 1-12 in the correct order in the clock. We then used the clock game and were able to see that when the big hand was at 12 it was o’clock. Some of the children were able to identify different times including 5 o’clock and 3 o’clock.

Small World

In the small world area we have had so much fun during nursery rhyme week! The children learned all about the body through head, shoulders, knees and toes and we even translated it into Italian! Introducing different cultures through familiar themes is a fantastic way to learn!

Woodwork

The children were busy in the woodwork area creating buses for nursery rhyme week 🚌 we were focusing on the nursery rhyme 🎶 The Wheels On The Bus 🎶. The children joined in with some singing as well as woodwork to create their buses. The children used loose parts such as bottle lids, buttons and cork slices. The children practise safe woodwork wearing goggles and making sure their was only 4 people in the area ensuring everyone had enough personal space. We spoke about travelling safely when using the bus as a mode of transport and children responded with answers such as, standing back from the road, minding the step and never going anywhere without a grown up. The children explored numeracy, literacy and expressive arts throughout this experience. The children demonstrated symmetry when positioning the wheels. The children worked their fine motor skills positioning and hammering the wheels onto the bus. The children participated in a group discussion speaking about their experiences travelling on a bus and how to keep safe. The children then explored expressive arts performing singing wheels on the bus to everyone. Good job guys 👏

Outdoors

This week in the garden. The children have been helping make rockets. We have been adding water and seeing them take off different amounts of water made the rocket go higher or lower. We done a countdown from 10 blastoff. This was so much fun.💥🚀

STEM area

This week in the Stem area the children have been exploring aeroplanes. The children used different materials such as cardboard, paper and straws to make different planes. The children tested to see if their planes could fly and measured how far they go.

 

 

It was Halloween week at Oakburn,  and fire safety week ahead of firework night. here are some of the spooktacular activities we got up to!

Throughout the week the Acorn children have been focusing on fire safety 🔥!

We were creative and made some fire sticky pictures and spoke about fire being hot, one of the children told me “red is hot and blue is cold”!

In the garden the children used the spray bottles to put out the fire drawn with chalk on the ground. We pretended to be firefighters 🚒. Using fine motor and hand eye coordination to aim at the chalk fire drawings. We saved the nursery 🚨!

Woodwork area

This week in the woodwork area we focused on Halloween 🎃 we practised our fine motor skills positioning and hammering nails into the pumpkin. We discussed the different shapes we usually see on a pumpkin, drew those shapes and then used the drawing as a guide line to hammer the nails into it.

Fine motor area

In the fine motor area this week we have been creating fireworks using tissue paper. The boys and girls have spoke about how to keep safe and all of the different colours they see when the fireworks go off.

Small world

This week in the small world area, the children have done a wonderful job of decorating the area themselves, as well as, taking part in a variety of Halloween activities 🎃 👻 when asked what they found scary, the most common answer was spiders so we made our own friendly spiders and hung them from our giant spiders web! This developed the children ability to design and create their own models and was a good way to develop their scissor skills. The children also made their very own spooky stories! The were asked to illustrate and tell their story and they were all just so fantastic! We had a story about a ghost who was scared of the dark but by using a torch they could still join in all the nighttime fun! Amazing imagination 🌈 frightfully spectacular work everyone!

This week has been very busy in the art area, from making Halloween masks to firefighters and fireworks! These activities have helped to develop the children’s fine motor skills, their cutting and sticking and hand eye coordination. We have had so much creative fun this week, the children have made some fabulous pictures and have been having lovely interactions with our friends we have seen lots of amazing team work🎃 🎇.

STEM area

In the STEM area we have been exploring Halloween. The children carried out a pumpkin investigation, we carried out science experiments to create pumpkin potions, using cocktail sticks and sweeties we created our own spooky towers, the children learned about body parts by creating their own marshmallows skeletons.

Snack area

We have had lots of spooky food at snack this week!

 

 

Acorn Room

This week in the acorn room, we have began our halloween celebrations. The children enjoyed exploring halloween colours in our water tray. The children were turn-taking and sharing the different water utensils. The children also enjoyed exploring different textures through playing with lentils, halloween pasta and shredded paper!

Fine motor area

This week in the fine motor areas we have been getting into the Halloween spirit with different sensory bags.  We had find the eye of the pumpkins, put the branches on the spooky trees, give the ghost some eye, find the pumpkins and ghosts and put the pom-poms in the circle 🎃👻

Small world area

This week in the small world area and cosy corner, the children have been transitioning themes across the both areas. Using the theme of dinosaurs, the children, with some inspiration from a story book, made their own dinosaur sleepover! We then decided to have our very own dinosaur sleepover in the cosy corner with mats, blankets, and stories 😴📖 Afterwards, the children then introduced dinosaurs into the doll houses for more imaginative play! All of these ideas originated from the children and they expanded on them themselves to guide their own learning. What an excellent dinosaury week we have all had.

Block play

In the block play area the children were building bridges, they worked together with their peers and made some wonderful bridges for their cars and trains. This developed their team building skills, their fine motor skills, their listening and language skills , all while balancing and stacking the blocks and being creative with their imagination.

Future engineers in the making!

Outdoors

This week in the garden, the children have been developing their gross motor skills using the climbing frame and asking for support when needing help to cross the monkey bars. The children are building on their confidence and independence 

The children have been on a leaf hunt outside, collecting different colours and sizes of leaves. Once collected we made a chart to show our findings. Grouping by colour and size

Art area

The children have been exploring autumn though a sensory tuff tray. We have been exploring using pumpkins, comments, leaves and sticks. 🍂 🎃 🍁.

We have also been doing some fun Halloween activities 🎃 the children used apples and paint to make pumpkin pictures, building on fine motor skills and colour recognition 🎃

STEM area

in the STEM area we have been developing our fine motor skills using loose parts to make our name.

This week we have been celebrating maths week at Oakburn with a focus on shape and motion. Here are some of the exciting things we got up to!

Block Play

During Maths Week children have enjoyed matching the 3D shapes to 2D shapes. We talked about the different properties of 3D shapes and how they have different surfaces. The cylinder has circles at the base and top with the other surface curving round. The cuboid has rectangles.

Block play allows children to experience working with 3D shapes learning about and working with the physical properties.

Acorn Room

This week in the Acorn room to celebrate Maths  Week we have been exploring shape and colours as well as matching.  The children have been using their fine motor skills and coordination to match up the colour to the shapes and also creating their own patterns using the magnetic shapes.

Our little acorns have been learning to recognise shapes. The children were able to sort the dinosaur shape game.  The children identified their favourite shape as they mark maked pictures for their loved ones.

Courtyard

In the courtyard we have been exploring motion as part of Maths week. The children have been building lots of different ramps and rolling cars down them. The children were using their prediction skills to see which car they thought would be fastest. We practiced lots of positional language, talking about heavier and lighter cars, steeper and lower ramps, pushing and pulling our cars and about driving up and down. We tried letting the cars go on their own and then pushing them to see if adding force makes them go faster.

The children enjoyed role playing and also racing their cars round the circuits they had created.

Woodwork

For numeracy week in woodwork the children created some shape jigsaws, the children chose their shape and painted it in the colour of their choice, then using the saw we cut them in half. The children used self risk assessment during this activity while developing gross and fine motor skills. The children then got the chance to put them back together, using their team work skills and problem solving skills all the children managed to re create the shapes.

Malleable

The children have been using the oats in the malleable area to explore different shapes. The children used the cutters to create different 2D shapes which they were then able to identify.

we used the playdough and different shaped  buttons. We pressed the buttons into the dough to see the shape imprint.

Gross motor area

In the Gross Motor area we have been learning about  circles and semi circles. The children jumped in the hoops developing their gross motor skills, by changing direction while jumping in each hoop. They were also able to count the circles and semi circles in the line.

STEM area

During maths week in the STEM area, we have been exploring force and how it works! Firstly, we done this through making our own paper airplanes! ✈️ We threw them as far as we could and measured what number we got to! For more challenging numbers, we reinforced the concept of 1-1 correspondence for the children to count the number of items beside the written number to still work out how far they threw their plane! They were incredible throughout this! Next, the children made their own rockets and used a straw to blow them as far they could! They started out by drawing their own rocket and designing it themselves. They then cut out the rocket and attached a small pocket to the back of it. From there, they put the straw in and blew as hard as they could and watched the rocket soar! 

Outdoors

Outdoors we went on a shape hunt. The children had shape identifiers and had to find the same shape in the garden. We found loads!

Acorn Room

Out in the courtyard this week we have been exploring bugs, using our fine motor skills and also practicing our counting.  The boys and girls have been investigating the bugs in the oats – counting how many ants, ladybugs and beetles we can find.🐞🐜🪲🐛

In the acorn room our book of the month is ‘The Gruffalo’. We have being using the children’s interests in the book as sparks. LK said ‘snake’, this led to having a sensory experience of scrambled snake.

The children have been talking about making ice cream, we used the shaving foam to explore our senses of touch and even smell to create our own bowls of ice cream 🍨!

Outdoors

. The children requested to use chalk so we wrote the alphabet on the fire pit benches. The children then took turns to firstly recognise the first letter of their names and then any other letters of their name they  recognised.

I was very impressed as all children recognised the first letter of their name and some even spelled their whole name.

Afterwards the children practiced their mark making on the logs around the fire pit. ☀️

Outdoors the children have taken an interest in our new birds that have been nesting in our tree. We talked about what the birds might eat which led us on to making our own bird feeders.

STEM area

Recently in STEM, we have been exploring different life cycles and have stumbled on the topic of mould! So we started off by chopping up a variety of different foods into smaller pieces. This developed the children’s fine motor skills, as well as, introducing mathematical processes such as grouping and division. As the weeks have went on, the children have watched mould develop which has sparked a variety of questions and opened the door to different topics and discussions based around life cycle’s. Although a less practical and patient activity, it has allowed the children to better understand and witness change and growth up close! Fantastic work everyone 🧑‍🔬👩‍🔬

Story corner

In the story corner we have been looking at the story ‘what the ladybird heard’ and looking at positional language. The children used the small world animals and blocks to place the Animals ‘inside, outside and around’. Some of the children then drew their favourite animal

 

Acorn Room

This week in the Acorn room we have been looking at numbers  up to 10.  We have been doing a lots of different activities relating to numbers allowing the children to use their counting and organising skills.

The children have also enjoyed music time, using lots of different instruments to sing our favourite songs 🎶!

 

Mirror mirror! We in the art area, we used the mirror to look at our reflection and draw ourself on paper. We spoke about our features, what colour of eyes we have,musing this to mark make and create our pictures 📸!

Block Play

This week in the block play area children were busy building tall structures and compared their own heights to the buildings. This led to some very tall buildings through which children were able to practice their risk assessing skills keeping themselves and other safe.

Children role played using the large hollow blocks. A fire truck, houses, and a jail cell with some of the children being police officers and some being prisoners.

Many of our younger children have been developing their block play skills, demonstrating their ability to stack and build enclosures, some of which became zoo enclosures.

Small World Area

This week in small world we have been exploring People who help us. We have been exploring emergency services. We explored how firefighters keep us safe and what their role is.

 

STEM

This week in STEM, we have been doing lots of experiments! The children shaved soap down to very small pieces and then carefully using the electric whisk, they whisked it into crazy foam! They also mixed secret ingredients to make mini fizzing potions and watched as all the colours merged together! They all followed the instructions very well which ensured amazing potions! And finally, they used their excellent problem solving skills to melt the colourful ice in a variety of different ways using a variety of tools! I have been so impressed with the enthusiasm and involvement of each and every child! Fantastic work my mini scientists! 👩‍🔬🧑‍🔬🧪

Mark Making

this week in mark making the children have been creating their own self portraits. We looked at what makes us different and unique using the mirror to see who had different coloured eyes and hair.

Children’s Rights

The children have been helping make our rights Jenga game. They have been amazing and helped make these from start to finish. The children helped saw the pieces in woodwork and then sand them, making nice safe

, smooth edges to play with. On Friday the children helped with the next step by painting the blocks in rainbow colours to represent the different articles in the UNCRC. We will then write the key values onto each piece (safe, heard, educated, healthy, play and rest and identity) and use some clear varnish to stop them fading.

The game will then be used with the children to build their awareness of their rights by starting conversations about each value when they remove it in the game. If anyone would like to borrow this for home please come and speak to Rebecca and we will happily lend it to you. 🎨

Acorn Room

• This week in the 2-3 room we have been experimenting with size, volume and using words like “full” and “empty” while playing in the water tray.  We have also explored different textures through playing with shredded paper, home made paint (flour, water, food colouring) and breaking ice to set the dinosaurs free! In the story corner,  the children took part in a puppet show, they each got a chance to preform with their chosen puppet in front of their peers!

 

Art Area

This week in the art area the children explored mixing colours using paint . We discovered:

Red + blue = purple

Red + yellow = yellow

For wear your pajamas to nursery day we used fabric cuttings to design our own paint of pjs and discussed the different prints and patterns of the cuttings.

Outdoors

This week in the garden. The children wanted to make chocolate cake we got out the cookbook and we used lots of mud and sticks. We started by using the mud to turn into the cake and we used the sticks for candles. The children all worked together to make big cakes and little cakes. This was so much fun outside this week. Well done boys and girls

Fine motor area

For pj day this week we made our own pillows. The children learned about risky play when using the sharp needles and the importance of slow precision. The children listened and followed all the steps until they had finished each side. This experience allowed children to practise precision when sewing the dots, working on strengthening their fine motor skills and achieving something tricky!

Malleable area

This week has been imagination Week and the children have been very busy! For our Oakburn bake off day, the children have been making playdough cupcakes !🧁 The children have added different colours and flavours as well as some icing and sprinkles to decorate 🎂

For Disney day, the children made their own playdough Disney castles! 🏰 The children were able to copy pictures of the castle and build their own. Great use of our imaginations 🏰

Block Area

This week the children from the Pine and Willow groups took part in the Oakburn Bake Off. The children enjoyed weighing out the ingredients. They helped stir the biscuit, chocolate, marshmallows and sultanas together. They poured the mixture in to trays and then popped them in to the fridge. They got to sample their baking which was delicious. And we then entered our ‘three billy goats gruff rocky road bridge’ into the competition. They all enjoyed this experience, which contained science, seeing the consistency of the chocolate change after heating it. They used their numeracy to help measure the ingredients.

STEM area

Snow in the summer?! ⛄️ The STEM area may have misread the ingredients to make cornflour play dough for our bake-off themed day at nursery! But what a wonderful mishap! The children decided their own measurements of cornflour and conditioner and were delighted when the snow formed! We ran with this idea instead of trying to fix it as this was much more exciting! By making shapes, mark-making letters, and developing our fine motor skills, this activity was full of just as many learning experiences for the children! With science, even mistakes can lead to fantastic experiences, such as, building a snowman in August!

Children’s rights @ Oakburn EYC

We had a lovely visit from Ezmie and Elaine from the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland on Tuesday.

The children welcomed them and showed them around the centre, they then explored all the different areas of the nursery, even joining us for a yummy lunch of soup and spaghetti bolognese. Elaine and Ezmie were super impressed with the children’s confidence and independence moving through the nursery and at lunch time. They thought Oakburn were doing an amazing job of promoting children’s rights, in particular safety, child led practice, play, health and well-being and offering a good quality, varied education promoting children’s creativity and individuality.

We all shared lots of ideas and resources based around children’s rights, we then introduced them to our cuddly friend Belle our rights elephant.

Keep an eye out for lots more info on our children’s rights journey at Oakburn and our Rights Awareness Week in November. 💪 🐘 🛡️

Have a lovely weekend everyone !