Author: Miss MacPherson

In the courtyard this week we have been talking about how we get to Oakburn and the different modes of transport. Each day we have added a mode of transport to our area, speaking about safety on the roads, holding an adults hand and things that we may see on our journey to nursery. We even added some road shapes, to encourage our shape recognition through play. The children have also been busy creating their own traffic light and are able to identify the red as stop and green as go!

They have also been talking about ice cream and the different colours, we have identified our favourite colours and used this to create a sensory experience for the children using shaving foam! A favourite was strawberry ice cream 🍦🍓

In the Art area the children have been using different resources to develop their mark making and fine motor skills and different shapes. We used flour, salt and glitter to mark make with our fingers and try to draw different shapes. We used the dinosaurs to make footprint paintings counting how many steps the dinosaurs 🦕 needed to cross the page.

A few children were keen to explore our sea animals, the adults scaffolded their learning with a creative provocation and jigsaws. A few children developed their fine motor skills as they manipulated the pieces into place. G.M was able to make number “1”, a “circle” and a “rainbow” in the paint. C.M was able to sing the 5 little duck song with encouragement. The children participated in a relaxing sensory light experience as they learned the sea animals.

 

In the malleable area this week we have been exploring ice by saving superheroes. The children worked together as a team to discover ways we can set them free. We used warm water and tools to break through them. We discussed words such as melting, temperature, freezing, solid and liquid.

We have been discussing how to keep safe from germs by washing out hands regularly. 🦠 We participated in a hand washing experience in the water tray, washing the hands properly to ensure there were no germs. 🧼 We have also been discussing our mental health and emotions, exploring how we feel each day. We have shown this by making self portraits using our transient art, we looked into the mirror and talked about if our faces looked happy, sad, angry etc. 😁

 

This week in the expressive area, the children have shown an interest in mark making. To support this interest, we have been designing tiles for a tile gallery to showcase the children’s lovely work. We have been using acrylic paint pens and tiles to design our own individual tiles. 🎨

We have continued to explore our interest in mark making as we have been mark making with a variety of materials. We have been mark making with paint and chopsticks this week, some of the children have also been mark making by dipping their fingers into the paint.

We have continued to explore our interest in mark making as we have been mark making with a variety of materials. We have been mark making with paint and chopsticks this week, some of the children have also been mark making by dipping their fingers into the paint.

 

This week in the Expressive Area, the children have continued to show an interest in babies and caring for babies. We have explored changing the babies nappies and dressing the babies this week, the children have really enjoyed learning some of the skills required to look after a baby. 🍼

This week in the construction Area we have been focusing on health week! Therefore, using loose parts and real potato’s we created our own mr and mrs potato heads! The children seemed to have really enjoyed this activity therefore, I brought in real potato heads for the children to construct through symbolic and schematic

This week at Oakburn it has been health week. The children were interested in making smoothies. Learning about eating the right foods to keep us healthy.🍌🍎🥝.

The children helped to prepare the ingredients cutting into small pieces and adding ingredients of their choice. Some children told us they shopped at Asda and Tesco and they help choose their own healthy snacks.

The children were very engrossed in this experience and told me we have to wash hands with hot soapy water, then sit nice and use one hand to hold the ingredient and use the other hand to chop the ingredient safely, using the green chopping board as that is for fruit and salad ingredients.🔪🧑‍🍳

This week in our garden 🪴 we have been very very busy developing our space , after consultation with the boys and girls , we have added some wonderful additions, such as an interactive weather and days of the week station ☀️❄️💨☔️☃️.A fantastic numeracy station , we’re the boys and girls can collect items from the garden 🌸🌻🌷to add to our numbered pots , or perhaps the boys and girls will be curious enough to find out how tall they are . Our mud kitchen 👩‍🍳🧑‍🍳has had a few changes as well , for our boys and girls to make some mud pies. We have also added by popular demand a brilliant water 💦 wall which allows our boys and girls to explore with water that they have collected in the buckets 🪣 next to the station 😃. We have been very busy with other activities in the garden 🪴 making firework pictures using gloop and some food colouring 🙂, as well as popping balloons 🎈to create a magnificent firework picture 🔥. We have been making potions 🧪 this week , and the boys and girls have been writing out their own potions 🧙🧙‍♀️ this has been very interesting 🧐. Towards the end of the week we have been celebrating Diwali and making mandalas from lovely red Playdough adding some buttons for decoration.

This  week we have been celebrating Diwali, by making our own clay tea light holders.Diwali is a five-day festival that celebrates the victory of light over darkness.🕯🪔

Hindus across the world are celebrating Diwali. The five-day festival of lights is one of the most popular holidays in India, and Thursday is the main day of festivities, when the faithful pray to the Hindu goddess of wealth.

The children used moulding techniques and using clay also helps improve eye/hand coordination and build both gross and fine motor skills, including the small muscles in hands and fingers.

Our author of the month for October was Valerie Paul and the children have been reading many of the “Winnie and Wilbur” books. We have read about Winnie and Wilbur’s adventures in winter⛄️,on a flying carpet, with a big bad robot🤖, on a pirate ship ☠️and at a birthday party🎂.These have proved very popular and the children have joined in with counting to five or ten as they pretended to wave their wands 🪄and say the magic word “Abracadabra!”.

We have also been learning about the right way up to hold the books, the front cover, the back cover, the spine of the book and the blurb.

In the discovery area we have been making fireworks with glitter, flour, pom-poms and coloured lollipop sticks. We spoke about how we keep safe and how we stay far away from fireworks as they can be dangerous fireworks 💥🎇

During the week, some of the children have shown an interest in caring for the babies in the home corner. On Monday whilst playing with the babies, the children began role playing a hospital environment. To support this, we introduced some medical resources such as bandages, plasters, stethoscopes and a thermometer. This allowed the children to develop their imaginative skills further as they role played and took care of the sick babies. 👩🏻‍⚕️👨🏼‍⚕️🚑

To celebrate Guy Fawkes night, we have been creating transient art fireworks using a variety of loose parts. This allows the children to develop their creative and imaginative skills as they take part in this experience. The end result was some really lovely firework creations 🎇💥❤️