Oakburn Early years centre

This week staff have rotated to new areas in the nursery. Some fantastic learning has been taking place.

Art area

In the art area this week the children have shown an interest in butterflies and we explored different ways we could create them.

On Monday, we used sponges with an electric band in the middle to create imprints of the butterfly shape. Some children chose to use paint brushes to put the paint onto the sponge and some children chose to place the sponge directly into the paint before placing it on their piece of paper, pressing down and lifting up to reveal their butterfly.

On Friday the children created symmetrical patterns on their butterflies wings using collage resources.

STEM area

This week in the STEM area, the boys and girls have been helping to decorate the area and decided to make our own terrarium! We started by collecting some soil from our garden and fill up the tank. We then planted a variety of different seeds and picked some of the nursery resources to decorate the terrarium! Now we will watch what grows over the next few weeks and observe how our mini ecosystem develops and flourishes! This will teach the children about the environment and how to look after it, as well as, observing up closely how nature develops over time! Fantastic week my little scientists 👩‍🔬 🧑‍🔬🌱

Woodwork Area

This week In woodwork the children let their ideas come to life!

We started right from the beginning with some of the children who hadn’t been in the area before then worked up to making houses and even paw patrollers!

The children all showed lots of confidence while using the tools 🛠 and came up with fantastic ideas of what to make. I can’t wait to see what ideas come next week!

Outdoors

This week outside the children have been looking for bugs We’ve been helping take care of them and finding out the names of different ones, and where they live and what they do. We have been finding lots of bugs underneath long pots,stones and taken care of them by putting them in the bug Hotel This is been so much fun outside. Well done boys and girls for taken good care of the bugs 🐞🐛🪲🐜🕷️

Block area

The children have been busy in the block play area this week. They have shown an interest in transport and have been investigating how to build roads, bridges, tunnels and ramps. Children have been their developing teamwork skills as they worked together to create transport systems.

The Village

Welcome to our cosy campsite sensory area which is located upstairs in our ‘village’ area.

This week we have been developing our nurture area where the children can speak about how they are feeling. The area is based on our favourite book ‘The Colour Monster’. When it is finished the children will be able to select how they are feeling and log it with a coloured peg on some ribbon. It’s a perfect opportunity to start a nice chat, building peer to peer and adult to peer relationships. The children have also enjoyed drawing emotion faces on paper plates to add to the display.

We also have our campsite area with tents, cosy cushions and our favourite stories. The rest of the area will be made up of sensory tiles the children can explore with all their senses. 👀 ✋ 👅 👂 🏕️

We will keep you updated as the area develops!

Home Corner

This week I have been developing the home corner. I have added lights and a sensory fish lamp this was to create a calm cosy house area with interactive role play opportunities with a nurturing baby area and cooking area. There is now a dressing room with jewellery, brushes and dress up opportunities. On the outside I have created a role play outdoor garden to interlink with the house corner. We have a pretend camp fire, books, plants and comfy seating area with lots of story books available.

2-3 Room

Our little acorns have been learning about caterpillars. The children through books have been developing an understanding of their life cycle. The children were able to make simple choices of the colours they wished to use to decorate their butterflies, developing colour recognition. N.B said “caterpillars hide in leafs”. This led to the children sorting leafs into “big” and “small”.

Small World

This week in the small world area we have been exploring insects. We have been learning about the life cycle of different insects. The children created their very own bug houses and butterflies.

Forest School

We searched for sticks the length of our arms, found a flat area and scraped away the top layer of soil to save as many microorganisms as possible before lighting our fire. We then discussed how to light a fire safely and how to behave around a fire when lit. After having a shot of using a match to light a fire, we lit a bigger fire to cook our kebabs over. We then extinguished the fire with cold water and when cool, scrunched the charcoal up with our hands and scattered it around the woodland. Making sure we were leaving no trace of us behind. This was a very fun morning and it has been a lot of fun seeing the children develop and grow a love for the environment they were learning and playing in. Well done guys! 👏👏👏

Courtyard – Gross motor skills

this week In gross motor the children have been enjoying developing their balance and coordination skills along with some teamwork skills. The children made their own soft play course and to go on it you had to crawl walk jump and slide.

STEM area

This week the children have been exploring using tools, positive risk taking and design while using our cork boards, tacks and mini hammers. We have been enjoying this activity indoors and outdoors. ☀️

The children have been learning about staying safe around tools and sharp objects and have embraced being able to use tacks and hammers.

They have been designing pictures using the shapes and animals and have been so proud to show the staff their amazing creations! 🔨 🤩🥰

Expressive area

In the art area the children recreated their own flowers using paint and real life flowers. This experience encouraged social skills and fine motor skills f🌺🌸🌼🌻

Acorn room

This week we have been looking at different stories. We have been reading the tiger who came to tea, and the children loved making and decorating their own cupcake for the tea party. We also had some lovely flavoured teas which the children enjoyed experimenting with ☕️🧁

The courtyard – Block Area

This week in the block play the children have helped move and change the area. We decided to introduce a quieter space for the children to explore block play in a different way. This could be through jigsaws, drawing, or simply taking a seat after a long day building! With the hotter weather creeping in it has given the children a nice shaded place to relax in the courtyard. The children decided to place the pillows in the area and helped move all the blocks around! Fantastic decorators!

hope you all have a lovely weekend

Jocelyn

 

 

 

 

World of Work Week 👩🏼‍🍳🧑🏽‍🏭🧑🏻‍🔬👨🏽‍✈️👩🏻‍🔧

This week we have been celebrating world of work week where we have had visits from parents and professionals to talk about their occupation.
On Monday we had a visit from Julie at Glasgow Hospital Charity to talk to us about the teddy bear hospital.
The children learned lots about Glasgow’s children’s hospital and what doctors and nurses do to support and care for children.
Afterwards the children got certificates to say they had received their ted-ical degree.

On Tuesday we had visits from 2 parents sharing their jobs with the children.
This morning we had Vittoria from Honeybee Bakery showing the children what it’s like working in a bakery. The children had opportunities to decorate cupcakes, practicing their piping skills.

In the afternoon we had a visit from Victoria who discussed all about being a dentist and showed us how important it is to keep our teeth clean and healthy.
She then discussed different foods and the children had to decide if they were healthy for our teeth or unhealthy.
We got shown lots of tips on the best way to brush our teeth

On Wednesday we had a visit from Pamela who told us all about working in a shop and the role of staff with stacking shelves, using a till, using money and using an app in store to shop and helping customers. We then showed Pamela around our own Oakburn shop.

On Thursday we had visits from 3 parents.

In the morning we had Karina, a Speech and Language therapist talking to us about how the brain and trachea work and how these control our speech and other non verbal ways to communicate.

We then had Stephen talking to us about what it is like working on an off shore rig as an engineer and what/who he might see on his journey onto the rig.

In the afternoon we had James talking to us about what a civil engineer does on the railway, discussing bridges and tunnels. He then helped us build our own bridge using blocks in the block area

On Friday we had visits from 3 parents. In the morning we had Nikki, a Physiotherapist talking to us all about what a physiotherapist does, how to strengthen our muscles and bones after an injury and what it is like using prosthetic limbs and how these feel and work.

We then had a visit from Jaz, a scientist telling us all about what it is like to work in a laboratory and working with bacteria. We found out what bacteria is and how this helps doctors decide what medicine we need to make us feel better. We then made our own Petri dishes of bacteria.

In the afternoon we had Sarah, a midwife talking to us about how to look after babies before they are born and what machines are used to check on babies and give scan pictures.

A huge thank you to all our parents who volunteered to take part in our ‘world of work week’. The children had a great time learning about lots of different job roles and what these entail as well as sharing the jobs of their parents with their friends.

Acorn Room

The children were observed exploring the cars outside. The children were able to copy a few words and actions to the wheels on the car. This extended to the children mark making with the cars. R.B identified he made a “blue” mark. N.B was able to identify the shapes they drove to “circle”, “triangle”, “square”. A.T showed an interest in the “fire engine “. The children then chose a puzzle to sort. We spoke about people who help us.

STEM room

We have been discovering sound waves in the STEM area. The children have been using glass milk bottles filled with colourful water each filled to different volumes. The children have been investigating what sound each bottle makes when they tap it with a metal spoon, discovering higher and lower pitches. We also found out we had made a xylophone when all the bottles were joined together, making some lovely high to low and low to high notes.

Next we took part in the dancing rice experiment where we made rice move by the vibrations from the sound waves alone! Afterwards the children designed and made 10 sensory sound bottles which will be kept in the STEM room to be played with.

Courtyard – Construction

With the theme of castles still on everyone’s mind from last weekend’s celebrations, the children have built some amazing one’s for themselves! This one pictured was definitely a highlight with a “throne room”, “a queens bed”, and even a “slide to the royal garden”. 🏰 Working together and discussing ideas were key learning concepts of this experience, as well as, using their imagination! I’m so impressed with how well and complex the structures are becoming in the construction area! As usual, amazing job everyone!

Courtyard – Gross motor area

This week in the gross motor area the children have been enjoying hopping, balancing and jumping through different activities. They had shown an interest in hopscotch and using a bean bag to miss out numbers, the children also learned using you arms helps you to balance. The children had enjoyed risk assessing for themselves and understanding that they can ask for help if struggling.

Home Corner

We have started looking at different lifecycles in the story corner. The children have been using their handprints to make different bugs such as ladybirds and bees.

We also took another trip to the library where we found some lovely books about the lifecycles of different bugs. The children learned about road safety and how to keep safe when out and about.

Fine motor area

We have been learning about the Coronation 👑 of King Charles. We talked about what he would be wearing and the children have been designing fabulous crowns with jewels using their fine motor skills. 👑👑

The children have also been using their imagination and writing  skills to make a shopping list for all the things we would need for a Coronation party 🇬🇧 🎉. There were some fantastic ideas including balloons, crowns, bunting, crisps, juice, hot chocolate and lots and lots of dancing 💃 🕺

Have a lovely weekend

Jocelyn

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.