Oakburn Early years centre

Courtyard Kitchen Area😍

We’ve been using our imaginations to create our own cakes using a variety of different and interesting foods! The children suggested carrots, cucumber, pasta and noodles! What a tasty combination!🥒🥕We mixed, stirred, poured and used our senses to touch and smell.👃

Shirleyanne brought in some cookery and baking books from home and we used these to help us think about what else we could add to our cake creations…😍We realised that books can help us find out lots of information.🤩

Flour, pine cones and play dough were some excellent ideas!

We extended our learning by deciding to make recipe books using mini notes books and felt tip pens.🍰😋

We thought about what makes up a recipe and found a lemon cake recipe that used lemons and caster sugar!🍋🍋🍋The children used their note books to mark make and write their own recipes.📚

We then turned our attention to the kitchen itself and thought it would be useful to make some signs for all the appliances. We made signs for the cooker, pots, pans and the sink. Super fine motor skills on show!

On Thursday we added herbal tea bags to our kitchen. These proved to be very popular! The children used scissors to cut the tea bags and pour the leaves out. They mixed the leaves with pasta to create a pasta cake!Genius!🤩

Friday was especially creative with some super cake concoctions, using cotton wool, yellow play dough and glitter!🤩🙌What a wonderful week of exploration, discovery, creativity and PLAY!❤️

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This week we got a new castle for our small world area, however we didn’thave many characters who could live inside so we had a discussion about what kind of people would live in a

“A castle needs a king!” The children decided they wanted a king, a queen, princesses, princes, dragons and fairies! So we decided to create these ourselves using wooden dolls, paper, pens, felt and gluecastle?

 

These were the end results! What do you think ?

In the garden we were playing number pong. We were recognising numbers 1-5 in the ball and cup. The game was to pick up the ball and tell us the number and then find the matching number cup and try to throw it into the cup. The boys and girls were working on number matching, and number matching. Also working with hand , eye coordination to throw the ball softly into the cup.

The children expressed an interest in playing with chalk in the garden, I set up a small mark making station for them to explore 🌈 The children have developed their fine motor skills and turn taking.

One of the summer fun activities this week was nature day! Therefore, the children gathered together different natural resources whilst on their nature walk. I then set up an activity consisting of patterns and set out the resources for the children to create their own pattern following the lines filling the spaces with different natural items engrossing fine motor skills and engaging hand eye coordination when creating the pattern.

This week was the perfect time to get the paddling pool out! We had fun cooling down and splashing each other.

On our nature walks we spotted lots of flora and fauna, we took pictures and used them for a scavenger hunt the next day. We found horses hoof fungi, buttercups, slugs, acorns, hawthorn berries and roots from the tree. The children had discussions of all the different parts of the tree.

Some of the children collected different types of leaves from the wooded area to create transient artwork. We spoke about the species of trees, focussing on oak at the moment!

As part of ‘Nature Week’🌿🍀🌳we created our own nature gardens using leaves, twigs, bark and rice! The children had the brilliant idea of mixing green paint with the rice to create grass!GENIUS!🌟A great activity for developing fine motor skills too!

Later on in the week the children had the idea of adding pasta and dried noodles to our gardens! Why not?! We can be creative in lots of different ways!🤩

We also explored the garden to find other natural resources to add to our gardens. Grass, soil and stones were found to create more texture.🌿

We used our senses to discover and explore our outdoor area further, during our nature walks.🍀🌳🌿Beech Tree group found tree roots, a black beetle and a worm!🪱We used our gross motor skills to climb the garden steps and had to bend down to safely go under the tree branches and watch where we were placing our feet to negotiate the uneven terrain!🪵👣👣Such risk aware children! Fantastic!👏👏

On Friday we introduced play dough, numbers and flowers to our nature gardens.🌹🌷🍀Lots of different smells, textures and things to feel and look at. We used so many of our senses!👃👀✋Discovery, curiosity and exploration! Nature Week was AWESOME!😀🤩🌿🍀🌳

This week the children went on a nature walk to look for bugs, leaves, branches and other wildlife we could see.  We collected lots of branches and leaves for our own bug hunt where we used tweezers to lift the leaves to reveal any mini beasts which lay underneath.

This week in the Acorn room the children enjoyed using our arts and crafts area where they made pasta pictures and painting using bubble wrap, rollers and paint. The children enjoyed gluing and sticking with the pasta to create different pattern.

This week we also had play dough which the children enjoyed using our play dough tools to roll, stamp and cut up the play dough helping to develop their fine motor skills.

The children ‘Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs’ story to develop their number skills. The enjoyed putting the dinosaurs into the different sized buckets and counting how many could fit into them. We also used to felt numbers to encourage number recognition.

Today was our mudslide day during our nature week. We have been  exploring the great outdoors within our centre grounds. Our children have been turn taking, taking on leadership, being responsible, included, problem solved and developed new friendships.

We believe that outdoors has fabulous benefits to children and their health and social skills. It Is an environment where children feel free and independent. Our staff are enjoying this too !!

Here is a great article to read regarding the benefits of outdoor play. https://www.miracle-recreation.com/blog/why-should-my-child-play-outside-benefits-of-outdoor-play-for-kids/?lang=can