Oakburn Early years centre

A few children had been exploring the garden in the rain, the children saw a worm in the mud. We scaffolded their learning by creating a bug hunt using mini beast resources. The children used magnifying glasses and tweezers to pick the bugs. This developed their fine motor skills.

Our little Acorns have been  provided with experiences/resources that support their interest of learning through their senses.

This week the children have been exploring skeletons  💀They have been learning about how our bodies work and the names of different bones.  They have been very creative when putting the skeleton together.  The children also created their own skeletons using cotton buds. 💀 We also looked at some fossils and the children created their own using clay.

This week we read a story about a princess who has fun in a maze. One child said “ I’ve been to the maze in Victoria Park”. The children asked if they could have a maze in nursery so we made one with masking tape on the floor. The children had to use their fine motor skills and problem solve to make their way around the maze with the cars.

The children have been having a tea party so we introduced flavoured tea into the home corner. The children have been using there sense of Smell 👃🏻, and Taste👅. The children said the peppermint tea smelled like chocolate🍫 and it looked brown when the hot water was added. The children loved the smell of the wild Berry tea, a child said it smelled like sweets and enjoyed the taste of it. All the children were amazed when we added the hot water it turned purple. The lemon and ginger tea smelled like oranges 🍊 the children thought.
The children explored the colours of the tea and  were being very safe when pouring the hot water into the jugs . The children were able to say to staff that the water was hot and they needed to be very careful. 

This week in the construction area we have been focusing on hammering and screwdriving using the nails and screws and some fruit. The children enforced schematic play in the rotations of the screwdriving in and out. The children were learning about the different shapes to match the screws in order for the screwdriver to work whether it’s a star or a straight line. The children incorporated their own input into this activity ‘making faces’ in the apples. Every time before we use these tools we risk assess talking about the importance of goggles to protect our eyes , keeping our fingers out of the way and not to consume the apples!The children seem to really enjoy construction play working their fine motor skills using real life tools!

This week the children have taken an interest in space! The interest started when a couple of children wanted to make rockets, so I provided lots of junk material, glue, paper and celloptape so they could explore this further.

I used the children’s interest in rockets to develop their number and letter recognition by building their own rocket using letters from their name and numbers 1-5 and 1-10.

The children talked about their rockets going to the moon and Mars, this took on an interest about planets. We looked at books and videos online to find out information about the planets and what they looked like. We then created our own using lots of different materials and tools to create our own solar system.

 

This week in the acorn Room , we are aware of all things sensory. This week we explored edible sensory experiences, this allowed children to taste, smell and touch. At this stage in development it is important for children to begin to learn to differentiate between what is edible and what is not.

we have also been developing our awareness of shapes and have explored 2D in a variety of ways. We have done some drawing, we have completed shape puzzles and we has spoken about the different shapes.

 

This week the children have been discovering how magnets work.  They have been testing out different objects to find out if they are magnetic or not.  The children took part in an activity ‘how far can the ball jump’.  They started at the starting line, slowly moving the magnetic wand towards the ball.  When the magnet 🧲 attracted the ball the children would make a mark where the ball jumped on to the wand then measured the distance using a measuring tape.  Some children got very creative and created their own magnetic maze game.  After they designed their game they used the magnetic wand and ball to make their way through the maze to the finish line.  The mazes were amazing 🤩

The children have been enjoying the space station and rocket set up this week so they decided to make their own rockets to see how far they can travel.  The children used straws, paper, scissors and sellotape to design their 🚀 rockets. The children then stood at the start line and blew through their straw and watched their rockets fly through the sky.  When the rocket landed the children used a measuring tape to measure the distance it had travelled.  🚀