Author: Miss MacPherson

Spring has sprung! This week we have recycling old wellies by planting pretty flowers in them. We filled them up half with soil and planted pansies in the top. We also filled our smaller planters with soil and planted onion bulbs.

 

The children have enjoyed exploring the trees we have growing in our garden, watching the colours quickly change in the last week. The blossom has blossomed and the green leaves have appeared. We have been climbing the hazel trees which have lots of branches to climb and swing on.

 

This week we have been talking about cakes we make in the house, we decided to make cupcakes with different flavours- vanilla, orange and lemon, they were all very delicious! We will be exploring different baking stories next week.

This week the children have been exploring their senses as they made vegetable soup.  🥦🥬 The children used their touch to feel the different textures of the vegetables, smelling the different aromas and the sounds the vegetables made when they chopped, mixed and grated them.  As a group we discussed the responsibility we all have when in the kitchen while using the equipment and how we safely handle the equipment.  This activity also supported the children’s maths skills as we had to read numbers on the recipe, how many of each vegetable we required and how many sections the vegetable was chopped into.  It was a great conversation starter for the children as well as they discussed who had tried and who like what vegetables. This was also great way to encourage healthy eating 🍅🫑

 

Our Makaton signs of the fortnight are ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ as are feel free to practice these at home. ❤️

 

 

The children have also been showing an interest in sea animals at the moment so we have been exploring this. We have been looking at all different sea animals and finding out some interesting facts about them. 🐠🦈🐙

 

 

 

This week in the courtyard we have been discussing our favourite story books. The children chose their favourite story to read and we have started to create a display of all of our favourite stories! Please feel free to share a picture of your child with their favourite story and I’ll add it to the wall 📚.

 

In the stem area this week we have been looking at what’s magnetic and what isn’t. We used the basket of different types of materials. Children were using good describing words like heavy, light, small etc.

 

 

 

We were so surprised to have a visitor who was looking after her 3 babies, behind the fence!🦊🦊🦊A fox! She was so well behaved as she watched over her little ones. The children were intrigued to look quietly!🦊🦊🦊

 

We wrote a letter to Rachel, our Housekeeping Assistant to ask if we could please have some more fruit from the kitchen!🍓🍎🍊

During a group time consultation the children shared some brilliant ideas for outdoor experiences and in particular the mud kitchen.🌳🤩

We discussed creating a fruit shop and making jam! We took some fruit outside and made orange jam using forks!🍊🍊🍊We mashed and chopped and tasted!😋

 

 

 

 

 

Our little Acorns have been very busy this Easter. The children explored a variety of experiences that supported them to learn through their senses. A few children’s next steps were identifying simple colours, we supported the children to achieve this as we provided coloured eggs for the children to match. The children have been developing their numeracy skills, counting 0-5 and identifying numbers 0-3. The children have been engage with role play, which has been supported with a variety of loose parts and malleable materials.

 

 

 

 

 

Last week we had a fabulous Easter 🐣 we played games , did some dancing and even had a special snack all together in the courtyard 😊. This was soo much fun. We all received an Easter egg 🥚 from the bunny who set up a magical Easter egg hunt in the garden ❤️.

The boys and girls have been fully engaged in the stage area . We have had some fantastic performances, the boys and girls have enjoyed using our instruments 🎸 and taking turns to be on stage ⭐️ as well as part of an audience 👏👏. Well done everyone 🥰

 

 

Acorn room .

In the courtyard we have been following the children’s interest in our story book ‘Stick Man’. The children used loose sticks to build their own stick men learning about body parts needed to create the stick man – two arms, two legs, one body and one. The children followed on their stick man interest by painting using sticks and using our easel to markmake stick people drawings.

To develop fine motor skills there was a chance to practice using our large tweezers to pick objects up. We could also use the objects to create patterns and learn about big and small.

In the Acorn room the children have had a big interest in numbers recently. We have started to introduce number recognition as well as counting in sequence. For our little 2’s we are focusing on numbers 1-5. Providing them with objects that they can recognise numbers within, ie a clock. ⏰1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣.

After admiring themselves in the mirror and pointing out different facial features, the children were offered with the opportunity to explore different facial expressions using the mirrors. The children used emotion stones to talk about different feelings including happy, sad, angry and silly. We spoke about what makes us happy or sad – recognising that different things can make us feel different ways 🤗

Children are encouraged to add and count more blocks to the line to make dominoes. They are supported to measure and test the distance between two blocks. They are also encouraged to add blocks of different sizes and shapes.

This week Oakburn has a new stage 🎶 it has been very popular with a variety of musical instruments 🎸🎹🥁🪘lights and pom-poms for any aspiring cheerleaders.

Kirsty feels it is very important for building confidence and self esteem as well as having fun ❤️

This week in the woodwork area we have been focusing on junk modelling. I provided lots of different materials, cardboard, plastic, fabrics and loose parts such as bottle tops, corks and metal. The children used their creativeness and imagination creating rockets, towers, campervans, caterpillars and castles. The children worked well together, helping each other stick the materials together.

This week in the courtyard we have been developing our literacy area! Our authors of the month are Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart who write the fabulous ‘You choose’ books 📚. The children have been discussing their favourite stories and we have had a lovely time reading them together 📖.

 

Also, our makaton signs of the fortnight are currently, ‘happy’ and ‘sad’. Please feel free to practice these at home ❤️

 

In STEM area with week we have been doing some investigating using magnifying glasses and looking for bugs 🪰🕷🪲

We have been exploring our senses using our feely tubs and using lots of different describing words 😁

We also created a box which we painted and are going to use as a blindfolded sensory activity using all of our 5 senses 👃👄

 

 

Week commencing 28/03/22 – Outdoors-Small world and expressive arts area🌳🌿🌱

We have been exploring ball and gross motor skills, colour recognition, gradients, speed and force! So many scientific concepts!🤩We were kindly donated some ball pit balls which led to discussions around speed, direction and positional language!🌳❤️⚽️🎾

We used pipes and a stand to investigate the speed of the balls travelling down the tube, depending on how the tube was positioned!

 

We soon discovered, the steeper the gradient, the faster the balls travelled!👏🙌

We are also continuing to develop our small world area. Some of the children requested vehicles.🚗🚌🚜🚚We added some wooden cars and trucks and will continue to develop this area further in the coming days and weeks…🌳❤️

Towards the end of the week the children suggested bringing chalk outside which led to mark making in a variety of ways, using black paper and a wooden pallet!🙌👏

The children have been developing their fine motor skills, hand/eye coordination and strengthening their hand muscle while exploring the threading activity.  The children then used the foam beads to continue on with the patterns with some children able to continue on with three steps patterns. The children then got creative designing their own patterns.  ❤️🧡❤️🧡❤️🧡❤️🧡 

In the small world area we have been focusing on people who help us learning about the importance of fire fighters and their job roles. The children had fun in a tasting experience using the yoghurt as an alternative to paint. “Mmm strawberries!” We are going to continue looking at all the different people who help us and what to do in an emergency situation 🚨

 

 

Continue reading “Week commencing the 28th March”

The garden

 

This week in the garden, the children have been showing an interest in colour mixing and painting. We have been learning what colours we can mix to make different colours 🎨. Our garden has been looking nice and colourful with everyone’s lovely artwork! 🖼

On Thursday, we also had lots of fun playing with the snow! We had a snowball fight and built a snowman called Sammy⛄️!

The home corner
This week the children have shown a particular interest in role play tea parties and cafes 🍰☕️

We have seen lots of lovely independence as the children self selected their resources, set up the table and served themselves and their friends 🥰 They took particular care with the babies,

In the home corner we have been learning how to take care of babies 👶 We have been feeding them, changing their nappies, putting their clothes and putting them too bed. We even gave them all a big bath 🛀 we have also been talking about what kind of foods they eat.

Small world – discovery

This week in malleable and small world we have been very busy ! We have been exploring the farm animals 🐖🐄🐂🐴. The boys and girls have really enjoyed this . They have been using the animals to sort into groups and count . This has been great fun. We have explored the size of animals 😄 and the noises that they make. We have spoken about the different foods that they may eat.

We sang  🎶old Mac Donald had a farm .

We also have been playing with safari and jungle animals 🦁🐆🐒🦓. Reading the lion who wanted to be loved story 📚 again talking about each animal what they like to eat and what nosies they make . The boys and girls found this really interesting sparking some interesting conversations 👏.

Malleable Area

The malleable area has been used for pretend baking with some inspiring chefs 👩‍🍳🧑‍🍳 the boys and girls have particularly enjoyed having some extra flour, they have rolled and patted , made pizzas 🍕 and cakes 🧁. Well done everyone for having soo much fun at our nursery ❤️

STEM

This week in the STEM area we have been exploring our 5 senses. We made a mind map to share our ideas of what we think our 5 senses do. We then participated in a range of different activities where we were blindfolded and had to rely on guessing what was in front of us using only one sense at a time.

We collated our information and used our mark making skills to write our answers.

The courtyard 

This week the children have been talking about farm animals as one of our nursery friends had visited a farm. 🐴🐔 We created the Oakburn alphabet farm with lots of things you would find on a farm.  We made alphabet stones that we used to spell out the names of animals.  The children developed their letter recognition and the sounds of the letters in the alphabet.  The children played cooperatively sharing and taking turns of the letters and the animals.  We also enjoyed singing Old MacDonald while playing with the animals making lots of funny noises 🐮🐷

Fair Trade fortnight. 🐛🦋

It is Fairtrade fortnight starting this week, the children have been learning all about where foods come from, who grows the produce and how to look for the Fairtrade symbol.  We looked at a video of Pablo the super banana and the children are now going to look out for the Fairtrade symbol when they are shopping with their families! 🤩

Garden – week beginning 7.2.22

This week in the garden, the children have been very interested in the story, ‘We’re going on a bear hunt.’ We listen to the story on the speaker while doing our own bear hunt through the garden! 🐻

We also made a mini bear hunt to match the story. The children enjoyed walking their character through the grass, and mud etc in time with the story. 🐻💧❄️  Our children have the best imaginations! ❤️

Woodwork

In the woodwork area we have been focusing on Valentine’s Day! We made wooden hearts using hammers and nails. allowing children to use real tools and have real life experiences gives children a real sense of achievement and empowerment. The children have the chance to risk assess, develop hand eye coordination and develop their concentration skills.

 

Courtyard

This week in the courtyard the children have been interested in making their own obstacle courses.🧱⚽️

Whilst working hard and the children creating their own vision, the benefits are as follows:

• Strength and Balance, when children encounter obstacles in an obstacle course they develop and enhance strength and balance.
• Memory and Problem Solving.
• Sensory Processing.
• Motor Skills.
• Coordination.

The children are also valuing opportunities to make friends and be part of a group in a range of different situations.

The children were speaking about more benefits as it can keep the children fit and healthy ensuring they eat some fruit and vegetables too.🍓🍎🥒🌽🥕

These activities encourage children to be independent and lead their own learning, which the children were more engaged and interested as it was all their own ideas and vision.

Using a variety of new words for some children such as jumping high, balancing on the blocks, and using concentration for a longer period of time.

Acorn Room. (2-3 room)

 

The children were provided with a range of experiences to support their next steps of achieving particular learning outcomes in Realising the ambition: Being me, celebrating Valentines. There was discussions about people we love and why we love them.

A few children chose to use their self help skills, to peel and chop a banana.

The children scooped and measured creating  “love soup” and role played as they fed it to the dolls.

A child showed an interest in our water tray, we added ducks and pink glitter. This sparked the children’s curiosity of colours, identifying the coloured ducks. A child was able to count them.

Following the discussion of who we loved, we created valentines pictures for our loved ones. A few children were able to count their finger marks, of how many spots were on their bug.

Happy Valentines for Monday, you are loved.

After showing an interest in transporting, some of the children have been building on their fine-motor skills through various threading and sorting experiences using loose parts.

Have a lovely weekend!

Erin 🙂

Garden

 

We continued to develop ‘Animal World’ at the bottom of the garden.🦫🐿🌳🌿🌱

The children wanted to add pine cones to ‘to give the animals food and we can pretend the cones are eggs that have babies inside!’… ❤️

To extend learning we then looked at mathematical concepts such as pattern and addition! How amazing that our wonderful children can enhance their knowledge of numbers outdoors!👏🙌🌳🌱🌿

We used pine cones to create addition columns and used leaves to then create a two step pattern…Pine cone, leaf, pine cone, leaf….WOW!👏🙌

Towards the end of the week we used paint to add a little bit of art and creativity to our outdoor area!🎨🎨🎨 We rolled pine cones in blue and yellow paint to explore colour mixing and used lollipop sticks to mark make!👏

This week at Oakburn –

Baking Area

This week in the baking area we have been making vegan scones, the children have been practicing their measuring, pouring, mixing and counting. We are doing this daily to allow children to experience the in-depth life skills that come with baking, the children will build confidence independence and responsibility over time and we hope that with the continuation of this experience we will have very confident little bakers who can make their own scones very soon. Well done everyone, the scones look yummy!🤩

Woodwork workshop.

This week in the woodwork area we have been designing our own self portraits. The children used a mirror to identify different parts of their face. They then went on to draw what they could see in the mirror! The children used their imagination to pick what loose parts that they would like to use for their eyes nose and mouth. The children will then make their self portraits come to life by creating them in wood work next week.

Expressive Area 

In the art area this week we read the story ‘Stickman’. We then progressed by developing the character stick man from the book. We went on a nature hunt and collected sticks and leaves and put them into our basket! Next we came back inside and crafted our own stick man! We used our imagination, memory, creativity and curiosity skills throughout this experience.

 

Every child experiences a sense of wonder- science 🧪 

This week we showed a great interest in science experiments. We decided to conduct science experiments using vinegar, baking soda, paint, cola, ketchup and mentos! The children developed their sense of wonder, problem solving, risk assessment, team work, leadership, and turn taking. Ought many great skills were developed we have had so much fun watching reactions take place, explosions and creating their own volcanos! 🌋 

STEM Area 🧲 

This week in the STEM area we have been investigating simple types of forces and learning about their effects using magnets!

We have been using magnets in different activities involving ice and paint. These have been great to explore and to get a simple understanding of how magnets work!

We then lay out a range of different materials and the children had to sort them into if it was magnetic or not. We displayed our findings on a graph using our literacy and numeracy skills.

Oakburn home

This week in the home corner we have been busy making our own recipes books and filling them with things we like to make and bake at home and within the centre. We have observed and asked questions whilst looking at recipes and when creating our own we used our little fingers to practice our writing skills.

We also has some discussion about things that we have in our own home, we thought of somethings that could make our dining table look more like ours at home, the children decided to make some beautiful flowers out of lollipop sticks and tissue paper and they have turned out bright and beautiful.

 

The courtyard 

In the courtyard we have been celebrating Lunar New Year, known as Chinese New Year. We have been looking at numbers 1-4 and learning how to write them  using paint.

We also made special traditional red envelopes and, At Lunar New Year, it’s tradition to give the gift of a bright, beautiful red envelope (known as 紅包, hóngbāo) to your friends and family. … These are filled with money – and symbolize good wishes and luck for the new year ahead. The importance of the hóngbāo isn’t the cash held inside; it’s actually the envelope itself.

We are responsible citizens 

Some of the children have shown great interest in reading our recycling books this week.

We have learnt why it’s important to recycle and what happens to the materials when we recycle. The children talked about what and how they recycle at home.

We made our own boxes, using recycled boxes and painting them blue – for paper recycling, orange – for plastic recycling and green- for garden waste.

We gathered a pile of recycling and the children took it in turns to sort it into the boxes.

The children have shown that they are fantastic responsible citizens ⭐️by understanding the importance of recycling to help the planet 🌎!👏

Our little hands are busy getting stronger.

 

This week we have been working on our fine motor development. In early years it is so important to work on the muscles within our hands and arms as it prepares our little people for when they begin to write, by providing wide ranges of fine motor experiences children can work on strengthening their muscles making holding pens/pencils easier to use when they progress into school.

This week we experiences weaving which included great concentration, some problem solving and hand eye coordination. We then progressed this onto using litter pickers and linseed to collect some little and large Pom poms this was a real favourite for the children and offered some support and challenge to their learning, next one of the children had said one of the green Pom poms was a shiny apple, we decided to add some fruit to a tuff tray and try using knives to cut it, offering bananas to start as they are smoother to cut through and offering challenge via apples and cucumbers, with some children we also discussed 1/2 and whole sizes.

Some children showed an interest in our “Rumble in the Jungle” storybook. Whilst reading the story, the children also played with the relevant jungle animals – discussing different colours, shapes, patterns and sounds. The children were offered an experience to recreate their own animal patterns where they were able to continue to explore various shapes, colours and patterns.

This week in the discovery area, the children have shown an interest in dinosaurs. We have been exploring all of the different species of dinosaurs and the differences between each. We explored some dinosaur small world provocations, exploring the dinosaurs in a variety of different ways. 🦖🦕⭐️

We have been exploring dinosaur eggs this week, we made dinosaur eggs using different materials such as ice and bicarbonate of soda. We then used our problem solving skills to hatch our eggs. 🦕🥚🦖

During one of our dinosaur experiences, the children began talking about volcanoes. To follow on from this conversation, we decided to make our own volcanoes using bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. We developed our curiosity as we saw the effect these ingredients had on one another. 🌋

We have been exploring dinosaurs and their bones/fossils this week in the discovery area as the children continued to show interest in this. We explored some dinosaur bones and real pictures of dinosaur skeletons and bones, we developed our knowledge of the past, the world around us and how this has changed throughout time. 🦕🦖🦴

This week in the discovery area, we have been making our own fossils using different materials. We have developed our creative skills as we used clay and play do to create our own fossils by pressing the bones and dinosaur figures into this to create an imprint. 🦴🦕

We have been developing our curiosity and inquiry skills this week as we have been observing the hatching process of a dinosaur egg. We have been checking on our egg regularly to see any changes or signs of hatching, we will check on it again next week. I wonder what could be inside… 🦖

In our Acorn room a few children are settling, we are using one to one and high quality interactions to support them to develop positive relationships with their key workers. The children are in a calm, loving, nurturing and curiosity driven learning environment that supports them to gain a sense of security.

A few acorn children have showed an interest in getting a pet with our 2-3 room. We had a group discussion of the animals they wished for. The children were respected a they shared their views, thoughts and feelings. A few children asked for a “bunny rabbit”, “fish”, “snails”, “an elephant”. The experiences were scaffolded by their choice of animals. For example we had sleeping bunny’s, a bunny counting game, a pet puzzle.

Our Acorns have also been busy taking care of our dolls and learning through bathing the dolls, putting them to bed and dressing them.

In the courtyard the children have been experimenting with ice and figuring out different ways to get the animals out of the ice. The children had some ideas, which were to smash the ice with spoons, some children suggested using hot water as well. The children were being safe and used goggles for their eyes as the ice was going everywhere. The children used all of their ideas to solve the problem and counted all the animals the found and named as many as they could. 🐬🐙 🔢

At home some of our children have been experimenting and speaking about colour mixing. In our kitchen we have been using shaving foam and the children were choosing different paint colours to see what colours we could make. Some children used

red and blue = purple💜

White and red = pink 💗

White and blue = light blue💙

These were just some of the colours we mixed. The children were highly engaged in this activity and would like to do it again but make it a bit different.

Week Commencing 17/01/22 – Outdoors🌳

Happy New Year!❤️

It’s been a busy week in our garden.🌱🌿We discussed the cold weather and the children thought it would be a kind and very caring idea to make bird feeders.🥶

We felt they needed some food to help keep them healthy and warm inside!

It was a real collaborative effort!👏🙌

We used lard, bird seed and coconut shells!🥥Lots of mixing, stirring, mashing and turn taking!🙌👏We listened carefully and followed up to 3 instructions! We were kind friends sharing the spoons and we chose which tree we wanted to hang our feeders on.🌳

I think you’ll all agree our bird feeders turned out brilliantly!🤩

Can you see the pigeon having a good nibble at the feeder?!🙌🙌🙌🌳

To add to our busyness we decided to get a fingers moving to keep us warm by doing lots of weaving with ribbons, rope and pipe cleaners to make our gates to outside all colourful 🌈

As well making bird feeders and doing lots of weaving, the boys and girls have loved jumping in muddy puddles and breaking the ice when the puddles froze over ❄️

We also had a consultation meeting this week and the children decided they would like to develop an area at the bottom of the garden and create ‘Animal World!’🌳🐿🦫🦔🌳We are at the very early stages and will post regular updates on the blog for you all to see how this area is taking shape!🙌Children having autonomy and ownership over their own learning!🙌🙌🙌#teamoakburn #responsible #creative #independent #confident #teamwork #collaborativeworking❤️🌳❤️

Week commencing 24/01/22…🌳❤️

Look! We have added to our ‘Animal World’ area. The children felt the animals needed leaves and sticks so they could have comfy beds!❤️

We also tied some ribbons to branches of the tree. One child said ‘The ribbons will blow in the wind and the animals will enjoying looking at them!’…❤️