Oakburn Early years centre

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

A few of our little Acorns were observed exploring the Rotational Schema. “Schemas are behaviours that children go through when they are exploring the world and trying to find out how things work” ( https://education.gov.scot/media/uv5i1ba3/schematicplaymar21.pptx ) please have a look at the website attached for more Schematic play information.

. The Rotational Schema is an interest in objects that turn.

The children watched the washing machine on a cycle. We provide resources for them to roll, like balls in paint, cars on the ramps and water cogs. We provided wind mills, bikes and balls for outdoors. The children were keen to make marks with the rollers in the play-dough we made, a child made a “ball” then “roll, roll, roll” (rolled it). The children were observed making “mud cakes” in our mud kitchen, a few children chose to make cakes mixing and measuring.

Our little Acorns were showing an interest in nursery rhymes. The children were keen to learn the actions to familiar songs. The children painted a box and created their own bus to sit in while we sang the “Wheels on the bus”.

This week in the courtyard, the children have been taking part in a variety of mark making activities. The children showed an interest in dinosaurs, so together we treated a dinosaur world for them to explore. The children used the sand tray to stamp the dinosaurs footprints and draw using their fingers, brushes and wooden sticks. One child said, “look I did my one” when he copied the first letter of his name in the sand.

 

As the children enjoyed transported the sand to the larger tray, we created a larger version of our dinosaur world and introduced sand cards for the children to copy patterns and shapes. Some children sprinkled the flour and said “it’s like snow!”

Following the children’s interest in the snow, we made cloud dough using cornflour and conditioner. The children measured the ingredients using scoops and mixed then together until they were happy with the texture. Some children chose to make snow balls by pressing the dough in their hands. We used the sand cards to explore more shapes and patterns which the dream copied on the tray.

We have been listening and preforming dramatic re-enactments of Goldilocks and the 3 bears! Using different sized bowls, chairs and beds. Then making the bears porridge in the mud kitchen. We were also writing the words we were using to describe what we were doing in the mud kitchen.