Oakburn Early years centre

We have been up to lots of exciting things this week at Oakburn!

Home Room

Following consultation with the children, they decided to create a supermarket in nursery- Tesco!

So far, we have managed to collect empty food boxes, tins, fruit 🍌 🍊, empty shampoo bottles, toothpaste boxes and wire baskets for our nursery supermarket.

The children have been using their writing and numeracy skills to price the items by writing prices on sticky labels.

Some of the children wanted to make coins 🪙 for the tills. We looked at the shape and size of real coins and talked about what we need money 💴 for.

The children drew around the the real coins on silver and gold card and were encouraged to write ✍️the number of the coin on the back.

There has been fantastic role play and imagination in our nursery supermarket where the children have taken turns to be customers and shop assistants.🤩👏

Cosy Corner

This week in the cosy corner we have been looking at our favourite stories using different story stones. We have been looking at the 3 Little Pigs 🐷🐺 🏠. We have used the story stones to retell the story and look at different characters.

Expressive Area

In the art area we have been focusing on junk modelling. Today the children used loose parts, recycled junk, scissors, glue and sellotape to create their very own robots. The children worked the fine motor skills, problem solving and engineering skills to create their own robots 🤖

Acorn Room

After showing an interest in the “Jack and The Beanstalk” story, some of the acorns have been planting their own “magic beans”. We have been learning that sun and water will help them grow into beanstalks. We are looking forward to taking care of them to watch them grow tall like Jack’s!

Woodwork area

This week in the woodwork area we have been developing the area in the garden. We have raked the bark and then put down sand to help make the Astro turf last longer. We have also dug some holes to make a fence to make it into an lovely area 🤩

Courtyard – Block Play

This week in block play we have been reintroducing more gross motor activities! The children decided to build a structure that they can jump over and instantly it got competitive! So to record our jumps we added in a measuring tape! 📏 This allowed each child to record their own jump through number recognition with really heated up the competition! The children helped each other with numbers and were kindly giving others advice on how to jump really far! 🥇

STEM area

This week the children have been exploring water and buoyancy by designing our own tin foil boats. The children started by designing their boats using their mark making skills. They were then all given the same length of tin foil to bring their creation to life, using only their fine motor skills to mould their designs.

We had some amazing designs from traditional shaped boats to triangular rafts. We then tested the strength of our boats by placing pennies inside to see how many they could carry before sinking.

As we as being super fun this activity showcases the children’s creative skills alongside science, numeracy and communication.

🚤 💦 ⭐️

Snack Area

We have been making smoothies this week in the baking area using banana and strawberry (children’s choice) 🍓🍌. We also used a electricity connector so that the children could control the smoothie maker from pressing a button.  The children asked questions about how the electricity is passed through so we had a discussion about this.

Outdoors

This week out in the garden the children have been developing their gross motor skills playing football. The children decided to make their own pitch and worked together with me drawing it using chalk on the ground. We scored lots of goals!!

Stay and Play

Part of our stay and play sessions this week was planting in the garden! It may have been raining but that didn’t stop us getting our waterproofs on and heading out. We used our gross and fine motor skills using spades and trowels to dig up the soil and place the seeds in.
we had great feedback from our parents !

Hope you all have a lovely long weekend and we will see you all on Wednesday 3rd May 😁

 

Courtyard – Block play

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream 🍦 this week, the children decided to continue their interest in our favour summer treat- ice cream- and they asked for a shopping till in the construction area! This expands their learning so much by introducing the concept of money 💰 waiting patiently their turn, the children then put in their order and the shop keeper served them ice cream and told them a price (£100 may be a bit steep for ice cream) and the children exchanged plastic bottle caps and got their favourite flavoured treat! This experience covers all of the important aspects of early years learning! It covers numeracy with money exchanging, counting and number recognition. It covers literacy through the language the children were using to one another in their imaginative play. And finally, it covers health and well-being through the building of friendships in their play.

Amazing job everyone, I hope you all enjoyed your ice cream 🍦

Expressive Area

The rainbow fish 🐠 🌈

We created some stain glass window collage pictures based on the book the rainbow fish. The children worked their fine motor skills using the scissors to cut the tissue paper into smaller pieces and applying the sellotape on the pre cut hole in the paper. Once fully sellotaped I double checked for gaps and we flipped the picture round to start sticking with tissue paper. Once complete the children put some blue tack on their picture and chose a place on the glass fire door to see the sunshine through their ‘stain glass picture’.

Later in the week we created some salt paint

In order to make salt paint we required glue, salt and some food colouring. The purpose of this experience was to learn about absorption as they transfer their white art into a colourful creation. The children seemed to really enjoy this experience and love participating in science experiments 🧬 🧪.

Courtyard – Gross motor

This week in the courtyard we have been working on our number recognition and colour matching.  The boys and girls have been showing me that they are able to subitise when looking at the dice then they were able to confidently find the matching number.  Later in the week we played a colour matching scavenger hunt where the children found items of different colours then group them together.🤩

STEM area

This week the children have been observing their runner beans growing and also potting them up.

We have been using recycled pots alongside compost and sticks from our garden to support them to grow as big as we can!

The children were so excited to pot them up. We spoke about the different parts of our beans from the roots, the stems to leaves and how we would get flowers then runner beans.

After we potted them we put them back in our sunny window sill and gave them a big drink of water. 💦🫘🌱

Outdoors

With the sunshine showing a little more consistency, we are now able to get more of our gardening jobs done! ☀️ the children got their paintbrushes out and got stuck into our new fence around the allotment at the top of the garden! Choosing to paint it green, to boys and girls made an excellent job of it and it looks absolutely fantastic! So next time you have some spare time, feel free to come and look at all the hard work the boys and girls have been putting into their garden!

2-3 Room

The children have been showing a great interest in our “Runaway Pea” book. The children ask to read this book multiple times a day. On our termly trip to Milngavie Mannor, our local care home our little acorns listened and laughed as our friend Margret one of the residents read to the children. Margret was a teacher and said “it truly makes my day having a visit from you all, I love reading to the children it was my favourite part of my job when I was a teacher” Margret was a English teacher at Douglas High School. H.M asked to make “pea soup” when we read the book, so we worked together and made a list. The children then walked to the shops and used the visual shopping list to gather the ingredients. The children were able to help chop to make the soup. The children tried the soup. A few children said “thumbs up” and “yum” where others said “no thanks”. Demonstrating they are developing the ability to communicate their likes and dislikes. With the childrens interest of the Runaway pea we then set up a pea planting provocation. J.G was keen to explore with their senses, squeezing the peas and filling and emptying the plant pots. F.R with encouragement counted “1,2,3,4 peas.

Have a lovely weekend 🙂

 

 

 

Expressive Area

This week in the art area we have been working on fine motor skills and imaginative play. The children used their imagination to build and construct different items. LB made a castle using levels and natural resources. This activity influenced the curiosity approach and enabled children to use their imaginations and problem solving skills.

Woodwork area

As the weather has been nicer we have taken woodwork outside when we can.  The children have enjoyed hammering away in the sun and showing off their beautiful work 🤩

Block area

Reduce, reuse and recycle is at the heart of Oakburn! In the construction area, we have decided to reuse old pieces of board that used to hold together our courtyard shelves and have found so many more uses for them that are much more fun! Just this week they have been tables to build on, roads for cars, ramps and bridges! All of these ideas have came from the children which highlight their vast understanding of reducing waste by reusing these boards to create their own learning opportunities ♻️

The focus this week in the construction area has been building large structures! With their hi-vis vests and thinking caps on, the children have worked together amazingly to build wonderful creations this week! With the sunny weather creeping in this week, it has got the boys and girls thinking and inspired them to build a vehicle that serves everyone’s favourite summer treat- an ice cream van! Spending lots of time building it led to even more time serving us all our favourite flavours 🍦 this activity combined many key learning opportunities such as teamwork, gross motor skills, construction from imagination, and imaginative play. Well done builders 👷🏻👷🏻‍♀️

Acorn Room

The Acorns have enjoyed “That’s Not My…” themed sensory books – pointing out different facial features. We used the mirror to look at our own features such as hair and eye colour and made happy, funny and sad faces! 😁😊😋☹️

STEM area

Over the past few weeks we have been planting runner beans in our STEM area. The children have been loving this activity and watching them grow on the window. The children used clear zip lock bags, wet paper towels and runner bean seeds to create their growing environment.

Together we spoke about what our beans needed to grow and the children came up with some great ideas including water to drink and some lovely warm sunlight.

The children have enjoyed checking their bean growth each day and some are now growing out of the bag and have lots of roots, leaves and flowers starting to bud before the beans form.

After everyone’s beans start to grow we will be planting them in pots with compost and they will come home with the children so they can be enjoyed, harvested and eaten at home.

Please look out on the window for our beans when you are visiting the nursery next! 🫘🌱🫘🌱

Hope everyone has had a lovely Easter holiday and we will see you all next week 🙂

Jocelyn

 

Week beginning 27.03.23

STEM area

This week in the STEM area we have been using our technology skills alongside testing out our new beebot mats. If that’s not enough we were also making them ourselves.

The children came up with some amazing ideas and on Tuesday we decided to make a robot and a rainbow beebot mat as these were the most popular ideas 🌈 🤖. The children showed excellent imagination and creativity and produced 2 fabulous mats. After they were finished they programmed the beebots to go round their mat touching the pictures they each drew.

Using the other numeracy and literacy mats the children practiced their numbers 0-20, shapes, colours and also spelling their names.

Home Corner

This week the children have been making the home corner into an ice cream shop 🍦. The children have been using real cones and sprinkles, as well as playdough for their ice cream! They have been showing good turntaking by having turns each to be the shopkeeper. This has also developed their awareness of money 💰

The children also made a cafe, again using playdough as well as real items to make tea and cakes 🧁they demonstrated good sharing and team work when making their cakes. We used real tea bags to make tea with different flavours and smells 🫖

Snack area

We have been making delicious smoothies this week in the baking area! The children have been very engaged with this activity and have been choosing different fruits and yogurt to use, we have been using our pouring and measuring skills. ❤️

Courtyard – Block play

Sometimes even our builders need a break and what better way to relax than by sitting on the sofa! 👷‍♀️👷‍♂️ So our busy builders decided to build one, how fantastic! Working as a team and using their amazing innovation, the children discussed their ideas and got to work. They discussed the size they wanted it to be, some of the features of a sofa such as arm rests, and how to make it more comfortable by adding pillows! What an impressive build 🛋

Expressive Area

YOU CHOOSE

using your imagination let’s create something!

At Oakburn we are an ECO Friendly centre and we love using recycled materials such as junk modelling. The children used tape and junk modelling to build and construct their own creation. “It’s a boat with wings!” The children worked their fine motor skills problem solving how to connect the materials together ✈️🚀🏎🚢🏥🛠

Easter toddle 🐣

A huge thank you to all who joined us on our sponsored Easter toddle yesterday. We were overwhelmed with the amazing turn out from parents, carers and families supporting us on our toddle and then joining us in our coffee morning afterwards.

The morning was a huge success with a special visit from our friend the Easter Bunny who left the children a special treat for finding eggs on their egg hunt and creating some amazing Easter Bonnets

 

Thank you again for all your support !

Jocelyn

Outdoors

No matter the weather we are always outside! Despite the rainy week we have had, the children have still found creative ways to have fun! This time, the children asked for bubbly puddles to splash in and with the ingredients they made them themselves! This created endless fun for them on a soaking wet day!

Discovery area

This week in the discovery area we have been engaging in activities related to different stories. We read the story ‘supertato’. The children had to use their fine motor skills to free the evil peas from the ice. The children have also been using potatoes to make their very own supertato! 🥔 The children used stick on eyes and drew mouths and noses on their Supertato. We then had a selection of different materials and the children chose which to use for their cape 🦸‍♂️ .

Acorn Room

This week in the acorn room we have been loving our story of the month, “The Gruffalo.”

Everyday the children have had the opportunity to explore a different sensory experience that has related to the story. We have had ‘Scrambled Snake’ to ‘Gruffalo Crumble’, each experience providing the children with a range of sensory and fine motor challenges and curiosity.

The children have also enjoyed using the story spoons to act out the story as we read it together 📖🥄promoting role play and language development throughout.

Fine motor area

This week the children have been talking about the letters from their names. In the fine motor area we had letters hidden under pasta, rice and flour. The children could then search for the letters to see if they could find any letters from their names. They had great fun finding the letters and then trying to write the letter they found in the rice and flour. This was developing their fine motor skills, mark making and also letter recognition skills.

Block play

The focus in the construction area this week has been houses from around the world! The children has been building a variety of different houses based on both real and imaginary! We have been building our own houses, Elsa’s Castle, and even a unicorn house! It’s been wonderful to observe the children working together, and on their own, designing freely and creating and recreating models.

Art area

Within the art Area the children have been learning about Vincent van gough and his artistry. The children used a variety of different materials, learned about colour palette and still life. The children love copying and recreating their own takes of different famous images.

 

STEM area

Beanstalk update

This week in the STEM area we have been looking after our beanstalks (cress seeds) the children have been watering them and ensuring they are kept on the bright windowsill.

At the end of the week we decided to use rulers and our numeracy skills to see how high our beanstalks were! We have 4, 5, 6 and even 7cm high ones! The children then practiced their positional language by comparing their beanstalks seeing which was “bigger and smaller”.

Courtyard – Block area

Ninja Warrior Oakburn! The children decided that this week the focus was constructing their own obstacle courses and making them as challenging as possible! From ramps to bridges, the children excellently navigated across the course showing amazing teamwork and turn-taking skills. As the week has went on, the children has created more challenging obstacles with demonstrates that they can scale their own learning! Amazing work ninjas!

Art area

The art area have been working their fine motor skills through the use of scissor play and playdough building. Using different materials the children became creative to build and construct their own designs using straw and sellotape 🏠

Small world

This week in small world we have been exploring different animals. We have been looking at different jungle animals and where they live. 🦒🐘🦧.

We have also been watching some videos about these animals, and seeing them in their natural environment 🐘

We have also been looking at farm animals 🐖🐄🐓 we have also used natural materials from the garden to explore different textures.

Outdoors

A lovely surprise snow day at Oakburn in March has went down a treat in the garden! The boys and girls watched as they threw the sun up in the air and seen all the sparkling snow fall down! They also observed as the snow melted throughout the day and turned into water ❄️💦

Acorn Room

We continued exploring our colours this week by reading the colour book and also finding different objects around the acorn room. The children were encouraged to find different items to match the colour such as red. For red the children found a fire engine which matched the colour red.

Cosy Corner

Courtyard – Gross motor skills

This week in the courtyard the children have been exploring colours.  We have participated in activities around finding and matching where the children use the coloured foam mats and search for an item around the nursery that matches that colour.

 

Courtyard – block play

Recently, in the block play area we have introduced our “work in progress” signs. This allows the children to take a break and come back later which can stretch the experience out further! It also allows for the children to showcase their amazing structures that they have built and let them remain untouched until they decide to take it down! This gives the control to the children to decide what they do with their own buildings. Excellent work everyone!

STEM area

For World Book Day we have been using some of our favourite stories for inspiration. We used the traditional tale of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ to junk model the giants castle. The children used their creativity, imagination and construction skills to design and build their castles with recycled paper and plastics.

We also decided to plant our very own beanstalks (cress seeds). The children followed 2 part instructions when planting the seeds. They picked 1 cup, 4 bits of cotton wool soaked in water and 2 pinches of cress seeds. We then picked the bright windowsill to put our seeds to grow and spoke all about what plants need to grow well.

The children have enjoyed monitoring the seeds progress each day and we hope to have ‘beanstalks’ that we can measure soon. 🌱 🌱🌱🌱

Woodwork Area

This week in woodwork the children were talking about fairies 🧚‍♀️. We decided to create fairy doors for the garden. The children have been very creative when making their doors. They have added some paint, glitter, beads and keys to their fairy doors 🚪.

Home Corner

This week in the home corner the children have been trying some new flavours, first they were making some flavour teas, the children mixed and had a taste of each one. This moved onto the children wanting to create their own flavours we done this through making smoothies that the children said were yummy. On world book day the children wanted to create their own tea party using some more fruit and making their own cake after they made it the children sat down and had a tea party together while they listened to the tiger who came to tea 🐯

Story Corner

World Book Day – this week we celebrated world book day by dressing up as our favourite characters, wearing cosy pyjamas and sharing our favourite stories with our friends.  All the children enjoyed discussing their favourite stories and characters and sharing their favourite parts of the book.  📚

Acorn Room

In the acorn room this week we have been focusing on our colours using playdough, paints and pens 🎨. On Thursday we tied this into ‘World book day’ by reading ‘Elmer’ by David Mckee. The children used the coloured squares and glue to stick them on toys elephants to make their very own Elmer. We had some very colourful Patchwork Elephants by the end of their wonderful creations 🐘🎨!

Art Area

It was world book day this week. In the art area we have been creating our own stories based on representational characters from famous books or the children enhanced their own creativity by using their imaginationations to create their own stories. The children used their fine motor skills to draw and write their own book.

Garden

This week in the garden we had stay and play with the parents and they were able to join in and help make a den for the boys and girls to play and we were able to build on this by making it into a house and pirate ships

Literacy / Fine motor area

This week we celebrated World book Day. In the fine motor area we read The Three Little Pigs book, the children were then able to make houses from straws, sticks and wooden bricks. The children could identify the best material to make the houses with and demonstrated by saying “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down” . Some of the children then used the story stones to be able to retell the story in their own words, while changing their voices for different characters. Developing their language skills through role play and their fine motor skills while making the houses.

Snack area

This week has been stay and play where we have had lots of our parents/families visit our nursery.  During this time in the baking area we have made cakes and spoke about ingredients.  We have used our measuring, pouring and scooping skills then later in the week we made delicious fruit smoothies!

Courtyard – block play

Building bridges, tunnels and friendships! This week the children have been exploring different ways to play the game “the floor is lava” when they discovered how to build bridges with the blocks so lots of people can get on at one time! This transitioned very well into obstacle course construction and the ideas continued to expand! Through teamwork, the children decided to construct a large tunnel which was completely made by themselves! This was amazing to see! The ideas are limitless and the children are really beginning to see that! Fantastic work builders! 🏗

Courtyard – Gross motor skills

This week in the courtyard we have been trying out our new bowling set, the children have been practicing their counting, shapes and patterns when trying out different ways to set the pins out.  They have showed great control and coordination when rolling the bowling balls 🎳

STEM area

This week in the STEM area we have been exploring science and the changing state of water. The children have been discovering that ice is frozen water and when ice melts it produces water again. We have also been using salt and hot water to speed up the melting process.

During the experiment our mini scientists have been discussing whether we think ice will melt with no help at room temperature and whether we thought our room was warmer or colder than a freezer.

When we melted our ice the children then used their creativity and imagination to make love potions using the water, glitter and sequins. 🧪❤️💕💗 The children enjoyed this so much the next day we continued making lots of magical potions 🧪 🌸 adding glitter and some rose petals.

🐛🐜 🔍 Magnifying Experiment 🔍 🐛 🐜

This week in the STEM area we have been exploring magnification. The children have had lots of opportunities to use magnifying glasses and also microscopes. We have magnified small pictures and practiced our positional language and direction skills by telling our friends how to find our favourite objects.

Later in the week children were keen to use the microscopes and magnifying glasses to look at bugs so we moved our STEM area outside and found lots of worms to take a closer look. This focused on the children’s senses and them describing what they saw. It was also an excellent opportunity for them to get outside and enjoy nature within our nursery garden.  🔍🐛🐜

Snack

PANCAKE DAY!

This week in the snack are we have been celebrating pancake day by making and trying pancakes. The children helped to cook the pancakes using the hot plate. The children developed their risk aware skills by being safe when cooking. We created banana and blueberry pancakes. The children had the option of lots of toppings!

The Garden

With the sun finally starting to come out, our little gardeners have been very busy! In our lovely allotment area, the children have decided to plant some blueberries and blackcurrants! And to help protect the young plants, we have built a fence out of twigs which we have collected from all around the garden 🪵🍃🍂🌹💐

Fine motor area

In the fine motor skills area we have been copying patterns using the foam shapes and laces. The children have been threading the foam shapes onto the laces following the pattern cards. This has been developing their fine motor skills, shape recognition skills as well as colour recognition and counting skills.

The children then created their own patterns  for their friends to copy.

Home Corner

The children have been exploring the kitchen area using real food. We have especially been enjoying pasta! Exploring the different textures and types of pasta. The children have been building on their fine motor skills by using the tongs and cutlery.

Acorn Room

This week in the acorn room all the children took part in making home made pancakes 🥞. They all took turns in mixing the ingredients together and then adding the pancake mix onto the pan.

We had the pancakes with a selection of fruit and sauces at snack time 🍓🍌

 

 

Woodwork area

This week in woodwork we have been creating patterns using nails and different coloured beads. The children have been exploring different sequences of patterns using different materials.

Art area

This week in the art area we have been focusing on the historical famous artist Vincent van gough. Using the two famous paintings ‘A stary night’ and ‘The Sunflower’ the children used chalk to recreate their own take of these paintings.

 

Home corner

This week in the home corner the children have loved exploring the kitchen. We have incorporated real food into the kitchen for the children to explore.

Baking area

In the baking area this week we have been exploring different vegetables and what we can make with them. The children chose to use bagels and suggested we make pizza bagels using tomatoes, peppers and cheese.  The children developed their fine motor skills as well as keeping themselves safe while using a knife to cut the vegetables.

Small world

In the small world area the children have shown a strong interest in dinosaurs 🦖 starting the week they explored “Dino land” and from that the children were looking at the shapes of their feet. They moved onto printing their feet the next day and looking at the size of real dinosaurs foot prints, the biggest one in the world being a sauropod at 5ft9 👣 the children wanted to know who was the same size as that so getting the measuring tapes they started measuring staff in the nursery, with Hannah being the closest in height “that’s a huge footprint” most of the children said. We measured our friends as the t-Rex print is 3ft3 which a lot of our friends in the nursery are the same size as.

STEM area

This week in the STEM area we have been enjoying learning about electricity. We have been finding out we can get electricity from fossil fuels/power stations, wind, the sun and water.

The children have also loved having a go at making their very own electrical circuits. We started with basic circuits and then some of the children were able to extend these to add switches, along with more than one light bulb.

Courtyard – Block play

Houses come in all shapes and sizes. Can you make your own? The children have shown an interest in houses recently and we have been discussing how all of our houses look so different. Taking this interest forward, we have been designing and building our very own houses in construction! The children have shown a great level of ability to plan ahead and discuss their ideas before building! We have even been drawing our houses before we build which is excellent to see! Amazing work builders, keep it up!

Acorn room

The children were observed hiding in the woods. The children laughed as they hid behind the trees. L.F scaffolded the learning by leading a game of hide and seek. The children were able to follow the simple instructions of the game. We added numeracy by counting 1-5. A child said peek-a-boo, L.F supported this interest with providing colourful scars. A few children were able to identify the colours “red”. With the children’s interest of hiding. L.F provided books, that support this.