Oakburn Early years centre

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.  🚀

This week we have been exploring the “The Very Hungry Caterpillar “ book.  The children have been practicing using their fine motor skills when mark making with flour and glitter.  We have also been looking at ‘big’ and ‘small’, using play dough to roll out different sizes of balls then joining them together creating our own caterpillars.

We explored a variety of experiences in the courtyard this week, staring with a gloop mark making tray. The children followed instructions and used the ingredients provided to mix a tray of colourful gloop. One of the children said, “We’re scientists!”. When another child accidentally spilled some of the colourful water, the children were delighted to see how it changed the colour of the trays, “my one is a rainbow now!” They began mixing up all the colours, and adding cornflour to various parts of the tray, and described the textures.

Following their interest in science and colour mixing, the group took part in a science experiment where they made lava lamps using oil, food colouring and water. We then added effervescent tablets to make the bubbles rise. One child saw the bubbles rising and said, “it’s about to explode… it’s like a volcano”.

The next day, the children began using the junk modelling to build their own version of a volcano. We looked at pictures online for inspiration, and the children used their creativity and fine motor skills to cut, stick, paint and decorate their creation. The children have asked if we can add the lava next week, and try to make the volcano erupt.

It’s been extra muddy in the garden due to all the rain we’ve had. We have been exploring it in different ways. The children decided they wanted to make mud paint, by mixing paint and mud together, they also used different utensils for marking with. Leaving an interesting texture on the paper once it had dried. Following on from this we made our own natural paint brushes, which made different patterns depending on what we used for the bristles. The favourite choice seemed to be the pine needles!

This week in the expressive art area, a child said “I love sharks”🦈.. which sparked me to come up with a sea life provocation. The children from this were able to count the number sharks 1-10. Also the children were recognising sea animals that we had out, and a few children knew other creatures that lived under the sea… a child said “we don’t have any jellyfish”.

The children were able to differentiate the size between them small and large animals.

One child said to us.. that the shell of a turtle was to protect it from other animals eating it.🐢

The children also said that sharks hunt to find and eat fish. 🐟  The children used their exploration skills, word recognition knowledge , could identify numbers and were able to recognise and name lots of sea animals.🌊🐬

This child comment…”we don’t have any jellyfish” made me come up with this provocation. The children had to guess what sea creature we had make following the description. Most children recognised it was a jellyfish, with support to read the description, or by the example next to it. Some of the children learned that the jellyfish had tentacles and they were not called feet. The children counted how many eyes they were going to out into their jellyfish and also were using fine motor skills and shape recognition, the fine motor skills was for the cutting the tissue paper for the tentacles and the children identified it looked like a semi-circle for the head. The children loved creating their own jellyfish and couldn’t wait to take them home.

A child said to me.. “ you know your not allowed to touch the tentacles because they sting you and hurt you”.   The children have been exploring sea animals all week and have gained some more knowledge about them.🐋🦀

 

Following a consultation with the children on Friday, our focus this week is varied and exciting! We are exploring fossils, the concepts of ‘big and small’ and boxes. What super ideas!🤩

On Monday we put our imagination hats on and made some super creations using recyclable materials including cardboard boxes, plastic tubs and bottles. To scaffold and enhance learning we added collage bits and pieces, sellotape, glue, felt tips, tissue paper and fabric.🌟We used scissors to develop our fine motor skills.😍

 

Tuesday was all about fossils! We made our own dinosaur fossils using salt dough…a combination of flour, salt and water. We needed to bake them in the oven for 3 hours!🦖🦕🦖We had to be very gentle pushing the dinosaur figure into the dough mixture..We were so happy that they turned out well!👏🙌

 

On Wednesday we explored the concepts of big and small, using boxes and bags…

Towards the end of the week we developed these concepts further when we discovered that the fairies had visited Oakburn and left their teeny tiny pencils! We had a look for things all around our nursery that were either smaller or bigger than the pencils!😍🤩

 

We have been exploring foods that grow above and below the ground.😋🍏🥕

We chopped and tasted apricots, pears, carrots, apples, tomatoes to name but a few🍎🥕🍑🍅🍐 and used our senses to smell a variety of herbs including sage, basil, parsley and rosemary!

We talked about the health benefits of such foods and used our senses to look, touch, smell and taste! Our kitchen smelt so lovely!

We were very risk aware using the blunt knives and completed our own risk assessment prior to using them. We talked about how to keep ourselves and our nursery friends safe when cutting, slicing and chopping. Brilliant!👏👌🙌❤️

We used ceramic tiles and felt tips to record whether or not we liked the taste of each food. The children came up with the great idea of drawing a smiley or sad face if they liked/disliked the food!😃☹️Genius!❤️

On Wednesday we made our own play dough and chopped herbs to add to it! There was lots of smelling, touching, rolling and moulding!😀Rong very kindly brought in some plums from her tree for us to taste! They were delicious!😋

 

Later on in the week it was time to put on our Chef’s attire! We made fresh fruit salad.🍏🍐🍑🍎We were very careful when using the knives and discussed the importance of hand hygiene prior to handling the fruit.What a super week in our courtyard kitchen!❤️👏

We have been singing the rhyme “Five Little Ducks”. The children have been using actions and props while singing the rhyme and have been practicing their numeracy skills counting backwards from