Oakburn Early years centre

Fine motor and Malleable area

It’s been an extremely busy week in the fine motor and malleable areas! Lots of creativity, imagination, exercising our finger muscles and making a mess!😆👏👏👏

In our malleable area it was all about mixing, stirring, pouring, sprinkling and concocting! We used cornflower and water to make gloop and created our own potions using porridge oats, lentils, pasta, teabags and water!🤩

At our fine motor station we did an abundance of mark making using a variety of media, including felt tips, crayons, stampers, chalk and pencils!🙌🤩We even created our own Oakburn Office which has been a big hit! Lots of important business going on there!🤓We also explored weaving using pipe cleaners, which proved to be a tricky business!

Some of the children helped with our numeracy display on the resource cupboard. Super number formation.

To end a super busy week we made an alphabet line! This idea came from one of our children and I think you’ll all agree it looks AMAZING!👏👏👏

The Courtyard

The summer weather may be coming to an end but we’ve kicked off the first full week of the new term with lots of new sports in the courtyard! The children have been testing their skills against friends with our new homemade basketball hoop! 🏀 Together, we have been seeing how far we can throw from, how many hoops we can score within a time limit and challenging each other to who can score most! The gross motor skills that the children are displaying have been nothing short of amazing! We’ve also shown a strong interest in both golf and tennis so the children came up with the idea to combine them. ⛳️ 🎾 Using small cones to hold the ball in place, the children use the tennis racquet to see how far they can hit it! Their hand-eye coordination has been so impressive and what’s even better is that this was a team and child led idea!

Snack area

We have been very busy in the snack area this week. The children have been practising using the knives to help prepare snack. We have been chopping lots of different things, such as, cucumber, apple and banana. The children have been learning how to stay safe while using knives. 🥒🍎 🍌

The children have also been making fruit smoothies for snack! We had strawberry and banana smoothies and the children did a great job making them 🍓 🍌

the children have been developing their independence and self-help skills as ‘snack helpers’!

They showed good fine motor skills and risk assessing as they safely cut fruit into smaller pieces for snack, and into shapes using the cookie cutters.

They have been showing their independence through setting up snack, by placing the dishes in the correct places, filling up the cereal and jugs when there wasn’t much left. Thank you to all our brilliant Oakburn helpers 👏⭐️

Small world area

This week we have been exploring under the sea, the children have been fantastic at naming our sea life creatures 🦈🦭and even talking about how we can keep them safe. We spoke about how the rubbish under the sea is really hurting our animals and that if we remember to bin our packets and bottles we can keep them safe🗑.

The children have also been blasting off into outer space 🪐 they have been to lots of different planets and even teleporting to different worlds. The children have been practicing counting backwards from 10 getting ready for the rocket 🚀 to shoot off on its next adventure around outer space.

 

Construction area

At the beginning of the week in the construction area we have been looking at buildings – shapes, structures and where these buildings come from.  We looked at the Eiffel Tower from Paris, leaning tower of Pisa, The Taj Mahal from India and Empire State Building in New York City! The children have been creating their own structures using the blocks.

Later in the week we created our own dinosaur Jurassic adventure using the train tracks, the children were able to identify different dinosaurs including raptors, Tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops and stegosaurus.🦕🦖

Expressive studio

In the expressive studio we have been focusing on transient art – using loose parts to make creative pictures and models. OW made a fantastic robot!

Acorn Room

This week in the Acorn room the children were developing their fine motor skills using spoons and different bowls to scoop beans during sensory play whilst exploring the concept of hot and cold.

At the Acorn Beach the children explore weetabix sand and rice water using. The children used large scoops as spades to scoop up the sand and water to fill a bucket, hide the sea creatures and explored numbers 0-3.

 

Some of the acorns have been building on their fine-motor skills through mark making using various types of media such as salt/oats, digital drawing and chalk!

 

 

This weeks theme was “All around the world”. Celebrating and exploring different things about countries around the world.

Monday we celebrated the UK – Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.
in the construction area we explored famous landmarks from around the UK.  We talked about each of the landmarks and where they were we then recreated these landmarks using the wooden blocks. Some of our creations have been wonderful! 🤩 well done everyone!

Inside we read ‘the teeger that cam for tea’ – it had lots of Scottish slang in it where we had to guess what the word meant. Afterwards we had our own Scottish tea party for the Tiger

Tuesday we celebrated Spain 🇪🇸

The children have been using coloured rice to make some Spanish paella. It almost looked good enough to eat!🇪🇸🥘.

We watched some Dora where we learned Spanish words and repeated them back.  We learned some fun facts on the interactive board with Professor 👨‍🏫 propeller . Which we managed to find out Spanish foods , words and places.

Wednesday was America and Canada day 🇺🇸 🇨🇦

In our acorn room we were recreating the American flag using a range of different materials, playdough, rice and arts and crafts. These provocations gave the children a chance to strengthen and develop their fine motor skills and build on their knowledge of shape, pattern and colour.  

In the 3-5 room the children used different resources to make their own Captain America shields!  The children’s did a great job and they look fantastic hanging up 🇺🇸

Thursday we celebrated Italy! In the acorn room we were developing our fine motor skills making pasta jewellery using colours from the Italian flag. We had to thread the pasta on to the pipe cleaners.
we also made our own spaghetti and pizza spreading, pouring scooping and mixing all the ingredients together.

In the 3-5 room we discussed some Italian words, finding out what they meant and repeating them back to one another. We then matched them with their English word on the tuff tray.

In the kitchen we made PIZZA ! We made our own dough with all these ingredients.  After it was all mixed and into the bowl we left it for a few hours until the dough had gotten bigger due to the yeast.  Whilst we waited the boys and girls got busy making the tomato sauce, they cut up tomato, carrots, celery and garlic then blended it and added some basil creating a lovely sauce 🍝

We made some extra dough so that we could get creative and make mini pizzas using colourful sticks and shapes

On Friday we celebrated Denmark

in the construction area we explored famous landmarks from Denmark We talked about the size and shape of the buildings and recreated these landmarks using the wooden blocks.

we were lucky enough to have a parent helper in – Karina who helped the children make Danish pastries. The children had to use their fine motor skills to spread and roll the dough. Afterwards Karina taught the children number 1-3 in danish. They children loved having her in.

This week at Oakburn was nature week 🌲 🕷 🐞
on Tuesday it was a hot day so the perfect day for a water slide. The children took turns sliding down the wet soapy slide – as did the adults! We even had a water fight too.

On Wednesday it was wildlife day.
We were lucky enough to have Katie (carols daughter) bring in some of her bugs and insects. The children had so much fun investigating and handling the creepy crawlies.

Thursday was Camp fire/den building day. The children were involved in building the camp fire. They collected wood and twigs and Hannah talked us through how to light it. We discussed how to keep safe around the fire and we knew not to cross the big circle around the fire and to stay on our seats. We toasted marshmallows. They were very tasty.  🔥

Friday was mudslide day. It may have been a bit cooler but that didn’t stop the children getting covered in mud!

Indoors 

The children have also been looking at The Gruffalo by Julia Donaldson and there have been some fab discussions about different animals that we may find in the woods. 🌳

One of our aims as a centre is to transition as much of our indoor learning to the outdoors. Anything that can be taught inside can be learned outside. However, with nature week taking over this week the children decided to bring the outdoors indoors. We started by collecting natural resources from the outdoors and brought them into the home corner to decorate and create an indoor fire pit! The children then chopped up some fruit and veg and they cooked it over the “fire”. This allowed for an abundance of learning that stretches from gathering skills to fine motor knife skills to harnessing their imaginations. The children have done so well and got really involved with nature week!

Nature week has been a big hit within the Acorn Room and we have had lots of exciting experiences set up for the children 🪵🌿!

The children enjoyed a bug hunt in the tuff tray hunting for the large bugs before a visit form Katie the bug specialist 🐞🕷! We had an indoor campfire which we had group time around and sang our favourite songs 🔥🎸! On Friday we even made an indoor mudslide for our people to slide down 🛝.

hope you all have a lovely weekend. Next week is All around the world 🌎

This week at Oakburn Nursery was Imagination week!

On Monday it was pyjama day! It was such good fun coming to nursery dressed in our night wear!😴

We had a very special surprise waiting for us when we arrived..A brand new garden resource had been erected over the weekend..A teepee!⛺️

To tie in with pyjama day we put a cosy blanket, books and teddies inside and read bedtime stories!🐻📚I think the teepee is going to be a firm favourite with many of our children!

On Tuesday it was music and movie day!

Outdoors we played musical instruments and made our own music using pots, pans and spoons!😆👏🙌It was quite loud!

In the art area we drew our favourite movie characters! We discussed the movies they were in and why they were our favourite. The children showed great turn taking skills listening to each other and sharing their opinions.

On Wednesday it was our teddy bears picnic. The children all brought in their favourite teddy and we set up a picnic spot in the courtyard and in the garden. The children enjoyed pancakes and jam to share with our teddies!

On Thursday it was bake off day.
we had children baking in 6 different areas of the nursery and here are the entries…

1. The Garden

the children dressed up as little bakers and made a chocolate orange cake mixture following a recipe. Using their numeracy skills, they correctly measured the right amount of each ingredient and after the mixture was made the children scooped it into whole orange peels and then they were cooked on our fire pit outside! This emphasises our outdoors natural approach to activities as well as using our imaginations to make cakes in an interesting way.

 
2 – Baking area

In the baking area the children helped make a yummy Victoria sponge. Again children used their numeracy skills carefully measuring and spooning out the correct ingredients.

3 – 2-3 room

in the 2-3 room we made fruit muffins. The children enjoyed pouring the mixture into the cup cases and using the wooden spoons to do lots of mixing, developing their fine motor skills.

4 – construction area

in the construction area We created a cake tower using homemade vanilla, chocolate and berry cakes that we made together. We used icing to stick all of the pieces together and created our cake structure, showing our great engineering skills.

5 – The garden pt 2

The children loved making mud pies in the garden using mud, dried pasta and anything else they could find! We then decorated our mud pies using bright coloured materials

6 – Malleable area

In the malleable area we explored baking in different ways using different textures and ingredients. The children mixed, stirred, moulded and rolled the play dough to make fabulous play dough cupcakes.

we hope you voted in our Oakburn bake off competition!

On Friday we finished the week by having a games week. The children got plenty of opportunities to develop their gross motor skills by taking part in games such as what’s the time mr wolf, ball games and parachute games.
We finished with a big game of hide and seek around the nursery  even the adults joined in too.

hope you all have a lovely long weekend and we will see you all on Tuesday 19th 😃.

Construction area

This week in the construction area we have been learning the names of each different blocks. We did activities such as matching the blocks to the correct shape drawn on the tuff tray and tracing around them showing our mark making skills. The children also got their hands messy using cement to stick all our blocks together. It was lots of fun.

Outdoors

Over the past few weeks we have been looking at our resources and seeing which ones needed a good clean!💧💦💧💦The children decided the mud kitchen at the bottom of the garden should have a good scrub!

Armed with soapy water, scourers and brushes we set to work! Lots of gross motor skills at play here, including using our arm muscles to move the brushes and scourers around! It was hard work! The children were fantastic! I observed a real desire to persevere and get the job done!🙌👏🌳

We discussed the importance of looking after our equipment and resources and how we all had a right to play with things that were in good condition and cared for!❤️Thank you to everyone who helped make our mud kitchen sparkle…..before it got covered in mud again!… 😆Which is of course the whole point of a mud kitchen!🙌

‘Animal World’ is coming on a treat, however some of our resources got broken, so we replaced them! We have some lovely new additions, including frogs, snails and gnomes!🐌🐸🐌🐸🐌We love having a small world area outdoors! Lots of opportunities to role play, discover, be curious and use our imaginations!🌳🤩

We are developing a sensory area in our outdoor space!🌳😍The children asked for things they could twist, squish and pop! Look at all of our new resources!🙌By playing with these we are developing our fine motor skills, exploring the sense of touch and having access to equipment which encourages mindfulness and relaxation!❤️

We are continuing to develop our mark making area… We hope you like our homemade chalk boards!❤️Fine motor skills at the ready!🤩

Garden part 2.

The children have been busy planting seeds for our wild garden! The children used their gross motor skills to turn the soil using the spades before planting the seeds and watering them.

Garden part 3.
The children have been developing their fine motor skills chopping different vegetables using knives! We discussed how to use the knife safely and talked about what different things we could make using each vegetable. “Carrot soup” – AL.

Music area

We have been focusing on numbers this week in the music are we have been introducing numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5 😊. We have been exploring numbers and songs with numbers like one two three four five once I caught a fish 🐟 alive .

Baaa baa black sheep 🐑

Five current buns in the baker 👩‍🍳 shop .

We have introduced some environmental print using some vinyls and our number line piano 🎹

Woodwork area

We have been building our own fence! We started off by measuring big planks of wood and using our mark making skills to make lines where the wood needed to be cut. After we used the saw to carefully cut the wood into smaller parts. We discussed how to keep safe when using the saw. The children showed great gross motor skills sawing backwards and forwards.

Courtyard

In the courtyard we have been looking at The Tiger who came to Tea by Judith Kerr 🐯🫖 .  The children have enjoyed role playing with the tea set and characters from the book.

The children also tried some different flavoured teas 🫖. They enjoyed tasting  the different flavours and guessing which flavour each tea was 🍋🍑

Small world

In the small world area the children chose lots of different book to recreate the stories using small world resources re creating and interacting within the different characters each story portrays.

One focus I portrayed in the small world area was people who help us. Learning about what to do in an emergency situation and the number to dial. We spoke about what each emergency service job role contains and how important they are. We were even lucky enough to get a visit for our focus from the firemen!

 

Malleable Area

In the malleable and baking area over the last few weeks we have been developing our mark making skills and looking at healthy eating. The children have grown in confidence when identifying numbers and some are able to write out their age on different mark making resources.      The children have been talking about fruits and vegetables that are good for us and what they like to eat in their homes – bananas, strawberries and carrots are some of the favourites. We used some of these fruits to make smoothies and fruit salads, while cutting up the fruits the boys and girls practiced their fine motor skills and coordination along with keeping themselves safe while using the knife.

STEAM area

We have been super busy in the steam area recently. We went on a walk to Lennox park to collect some of the things we needed to make a terrarium. Whilst walking to the park we spoke about road safety and waiting for the green man. We needed sticks, soil, rocks, water from the river and moss.  We used little bags to collect all of the items and when we got back to the nursery we put all of the items into a tank. We then got magnifying glasses and had a look inside to see what we could see. We saw a worm, slug, spiders and some other little bugs 🐜

We have also been busy learning about how to keep our teeth clean. We spoke about how if we don’t brush our teeth plaque begins to build up causing our teeth to become yellow.  We used the big toothbrush and toothpaste, moving it in circulars motions to get all the dirty bits 🦷  🪥

Literacy area

In the home room we have been developing our fine motor skills through weaving. We used scissors to cut the wool and then carefully wrapped it around, over and under pieces of cardboard, creating some lovely patterns.
2

Acorn room

The children have been developing their fine motor skills using trays with flour, salt and rice. The children used their hands and fingers to make marks in the different trays. The children also chose to hide the mini beasts in the different trays for their peers/staff to find them.

In the courtyard we have been very busy exploring and learning different colours. We used many different materials and resources to explore and mix colours together to see what we can create and matching objects up to their matching colour 🎨!

Spring has sprung! This week we have recycling old wellies by planting pretty flowers in them. We filled them up half with soil and planted pansies in the top. We also filled our smaller planters with soil and planted onion bulbs.

 

The children have enjoyed exploring the trees we have growing in our garden, watching the colours quickly change in the last week. The blossom has blossomed and the green leaves have appeared. We have been climbing the hazel trees which have lots of branches to climb and swing on.

 

This week we have been talking about cakes we make in the house, we decided to make cupcakes with different flavours- vanilla, orange and lemon, they were all very delicious! We will be exploring different baking stories next week.

This week the children have been exploring their senses as they made vegetable soup.  🥦🥬 The children used their touch to feel the different textures of the vegetables, smelling the different aromas and the sounds the vegetables made when they chopped, mixed and grated them.  As a group we discussed the responsibility we all have when in the kitchen while using the equipment and how we safely handle the equipment.  This activity also supported the children’s maths skills as we had to read numbers on the recipe, how many of each vegetable we required and how many sections the vegetable was chopped into.  It was a great conversation starter for the children as well as they discussed who had tried and who like what vegetables. This was also great way to encourage healthy eating 🍅🫑

 

Our Makaton signs of the fortnight are ‘Please’ and ‘Thank you’ as are feel free to practice these at home. ❤️

 

 

The children have also been showing an interest in sea animals at the moment so we have been exploring this. We have been looking at all different sea animals and finding out some interesting facts about them. 🐠🦈🐙

 

 

 

This week in the courtyard we have been discussing our favourite story books. The children chose their favourite story to read and we have started to create a display of all of our favourite stories! Please feel free to share a picture of your child with their favourite story and I’ll add it to the wall 📚.

 

In the stem area this week we have been looking at what’s magnetic and what isn’t. We used the basket of different types of materials. Children were using good describing words like heavy, light, small etc.

 

 

 

We were so surprised to have a visitor who was looking after her 3 babies, behind the fence!🦊🦊🦊A fox! She was so well behaved as she watched over her little ones. The children were intrigued to look quietly!🦊🦊🦊

 

We wrote a letter to Rachel, our Housekeeping Assistant to ask if we could please have some more fruit from the kitchen!🍓🍎🍊

During a group time consultation the children shared some brilliant ideas for outdoor experiences and in particular the mud kitchen.🌳🤩

We discussed creating a fruit shop and making jam! We took some fruit outside and made orange jam using forks!🍊🍊🍊We mashed and chopped and tasted!😋

 

 

 

 

 

Our little Acorns have been very busy this Easter. The children explored a variety of experiences that supported them to learn through their senses. A few children’s next steps were identifying simple colours, we supported the children to achieve this as we provided coloured eggs for the children to match. The children have been developing their numeracy skills, counting 0-5 and identifying numbers 0-3. The children have been engage with role play, which has been supported with a variety of loose parts and malleable materials.

 

 

 

 

 

Last week we had a fabulous Easter 🐣 we played games , did some dancing and even had a special snack all together in the courtyard 😊. This was soo much fun. We all received an Easter egg 🥚 from the bunny who set up a magical Easter egg hunt in the garden ❤️.

The boys and girls have been fully engaged in the stage area . We have had some fantastic performances, the boys and girls have enjoyed using our instruments 🎸 and taking turns to be on stage ⭐️ as well as part of an audience 👏👏. Well done everyone 🥰

 

 

Acorn room .

In the courtyard we have been following the children’s interest in our story book ‘Stick Man’. The children used loose sticks to build their own stick men learning about body parts needed to create the stick man – two arms, two legs, one body and one. The children followed on their stick man interest by painting using sticks and using our easel to markmake stick people drawings.

To develop fine motor skills there was a chance to practice using our large tweezers to pick objects up. We could also use the objects to create patterns and learn about big and small.

In the Acorn room the children have had a big interest in numbers recently. We have started to introduce number recognition as well as counting in sequence. For our little 2’s we are focusing on numbers 1-5. Providing them with objects that they can recognise numbers within, ie a clock. ⏰1️⃣2️⃣3️⃣4️⃣5️⃣.

After admiring themselves in the mirror and pointing out different facial features, the children were offered with the opportunity to explore different facial expressions using the mirrors. The children used emotion stones to talk about different feelings including happy, sad, angry and silly. We spoke about what makes us happy or sad – recognising that different things can make us feel different ways 🤗

Children are encouraged to add and count more blocks to the line to make dominoes. They are supported to measure and test the distance between two blocks. They are also encouraged to add blocks of different sizes and shapes.

This week Oakburn has a new stage 🎶 it has been very popular with a variety of musical instruments 🎸🎹🥁🪘lights and pom-poms for any aspiring cheerleaders.

Kirsty feels it is very important for building confidence and self esteem as well as having fun ❤️

This week in the woodwork area we have been focusing on junk modelling. I provided lots of different materials, cardboard, plastic, fabrics and loose parts such as bottle tops, corks and metal. The children used their creativeness and imagination creating rockets, towers, campervans, caterpillars and castles. The children worked well together, helping each other stick the materials together.

This week in the courtyard we have been developing our literacy area! Our authors of the month are Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart who write the fabulous ‘You choose’ books 📚. The children have been discussing their favourite stories and we have had a lovely time reading them together 📖.

 

Also, our makaton signs of the fortnight are currently, ‘happy’ and ‘sad’. Please feel free to practice these at home ❤️

 

In STEM area with week we have been doing some investigating using magnifying glasses and looking for bugs 🪰🕷🪲

We have been exploring our senses using our feely tubs and using lots of different describing words 😁

We also created a box which we painted and are going to use as a blindfolded sensory activity using all of our 5 senses 👃👄

 

 

Week commencing 28/03/22 – Outdoors-Small world and expressive arts area🌳🌿🌱

We have been exploring ball and gross motor skills, colour recognition, gradients, speed and force! So many scientific concepts!🤩We were kindly donated some ball pit balls which led to discussions around speed, direction and positional language!🌳❤️⚽️🎾

We used pipes and a stand to investigate the speed of the balls travelling down the tube, depending on how the tube was positioned!

 

We soon discovered, the steeper the gradient, the faster the balls travelled!👏🙌

We are also continuing to develop our small world area. Some of the children requested vehicles.🚗🚌🚜🚚We added some wooden cars and trucks and will continue to develop this area further in the coming days and weeks…🌳❤️

Towards the end of the week the children suggested bringing chalk outside which led to mark making in a variety of ways, using black paper and a wooden pallet!🙌👏

The children have been developing their fine motor skills, hand/eye coordination and strengthening their hand muscle while exploring the threading activity.  The children then used the foam beads to continue on with the patterns with some children able to continue on with three steps patterns. The children then got creative designing their own patterns.  ❤️🧡❤️🧡❤️🧡❤️🧡 

In the small world area we have been focusing on people who help us learning about the importance of fire fighters and their job roles. The children had fun in a tasting experience using the yoghurt as an alternative to paint. “Mmm strawberries!” We are going to continue looking at all the different people who help us and what to do in an emergency situation 🚨

 

 

Continue reading “Week commencing the 28th March”

The garden

 

This week in the garden, the children have been showing an interest in colour mixing and painting. We have been learning what colours we can mix to make different colours 🎨. Our garden has been looking nice and colourful with everyone’s lovely artwork! 🖼

On Thursday, we also had lots of fun playing with the snow! We had a snowball fight and built a snowman called Sammy⛄️!

The home corner
This week the children have shown a particular interest in role play tea parties and cafes 🍰☕️

We have seen lots of lovely independence as the children self selected their resources, set up the table and served themselves and their friends 🥰 They took particular care with the babies,

In the home corner we have been learning how to take care of babies 👶 We have been feeding them, changing their nappies, putting their clothes and putting them too bed. We even gave them all a big bath 🛀 we have also been talking about what kind of foods they eat.

Small world – discovery

This week in malleable and small world we have been very busy ! We have been exploring the farm animals 🐖🐄🐂🐴. The boys and girls have really enjoyed this . They have been using the animals to sort into groups and count . This has been great fun. We have explored the size of animals 😄 and the noises that they make. We have spoken about the different foods that they may eat.

We sang  🎶old Mac Donald had a farm .

We also have been playing with safari and jungle animals 🦁🐆🐒🦓. Reading the lion who wanted to be loved story 📚 again talking about each animal what they like to eat and what nosies they make . The boys and girls found this really interesting sparking some interesting conversations 👏.

Malleable Area

The malleable area has been used for pretend baking with some inspiring chefs 👩‍🍳🧑‍🍳 the boys and girls have particularly enjoyed having some extra flour, they have rolled and patted , made pizzas 🍕 and cakes 🧁. Well done everyone for having soo much fun at our nursery ❤️

STEM

This week in the STEM area we have been exploring our 5 senses. We made a mind map to share our ideas of what we think our 5 senses do. We then participated in a range of different activities where we were blindfolded and had to rely on guessing what was in front of us using only one sense at a time.

We collated our information and used our mark making skills to write our answers.

The courtyard 

This week the children have been talking about farm animals as one of our nursery friends had visited a farm. 🐴🐔 We created the Oakburn alphabet farm with lots of things you would find on a farm.  We made alphabet stones that we used to spell out the names of animals.  The children developed their letter recognition and the sounds of the letters in the alphabet.  The children played cooperatively sharing and taking turns of the letters and the animals.  We also enjoyed singing Old MacDonald while playing with the animals making lots of funny noises 🐮🐷

Fair Trade fortnight. 🐛🦋

It is Fairtrade fortnight starting this week, the children have been learning all about where foods come from, who grows the produce and how to look for the Fairtrade symbol.  We looked at a video of Pablo the super banana and the children are now going to look out for the Fairtrade symbol when they are shopping with their families! 🤩

Garden – week beginning 7.2.22

This week in the garden, the children have been very interested in the story, ‘We’re going on a bear hunt.’ We listen to the story on the speaker while doing our own bear hunt through the garden! 🐻

We also made a mini bear hunt to match the story. The children enjoyed walking their character through the grass, and mud etc in time with the story. 🐻💧❄️  Our children have the best imaginations! ❤️

Woodwork

In the woodwork area we have been focusing on Valentine’s Day! We made wooden hearts using hammers and nails. allowing children to use real tools and have real life experiences gives children a real sense of achievement and empowerment. The children have the chance to risk assess, develop hand eye coordination and develop their concentration skills.

 

Courtyard

This week in the courtyard the children have been interested in making their own obstacle courses.🧱⚽️

Whilst working hard and the children creating their own vision, the benefits are as follows:

• Strength and Balance, when children encounter obstacles in an obstacle course they develop and enhance strength and balance.
• Memory and Problem Solving.
• Sensory Processing.
• Motor Skills.
• Coordination.

The children are also valuing opportunities to make friends and be part of a group in a range of different situations.

The children were speaking about more benefits as it can keep the children fit and healthy ensuring they eat some fruit and vegetables too.🍓🍎🥒🌽🥕

These activities encourage children to be independent and lead their own learning, which the children were more engaged and interested as it was all their own ideas and vision.

Using a variety of new words for some children such as jumping high, balancing on the blocks, and using concentration for a longer period of time.

Acorn Room. (2-3 room)

 

The children were provided with a range of experiences to support their next steps of achieving particular learning outcomes in Realising the ambition: Being me, celebrating Valentines. There was discussions about people we love and why we love them.

A few children chose to use their self help skills, to peel and chop a banana.

The children scooped and measured creating  “love soup” and role played as they fed it to the dolls.

A child showed an interest in our water tray, we added ducks and pink glitter. This sparked the children’s curiosity of colours, identifying the coloured ducks. A child was able to count them.

Following the discussion of who we loved, we created valentines pictures for our loved ones. A few children were able to count their finger marks, of how many spots were on their bug.

Happy Valentines for Monday, you are loved.

After showing an interest in transporting, some of the children have been building on their fine-motor skills through various threading and sorting experiences using loose parts.

Have a lovely weekend!

Erin 🙂

Garden

 

We continued to develop ‘Animal World’ at the bottom of the garden.🦫🐿🌳🌿🌱

The children wanted to add pine cones to ‘to give the animals food and we can pretend the cones are eggs that have babies inside!’… ❤️

To extend learning we then looked at mathematical concepts such as pattern and addition! How amazing that our wonderful children can enhance their knowledge of numbers outdoors!👏🙌🌳🌱🌿

We used pine cones to create addition columns and used leaves to then create a two step pattern…Pine cone, leaf, pine cone, leaf….WOW!👏🙌

Towards the end of the week we used paint to add a little bit of art and creativity to our outdoor area!🎨🎨🎨 We rolled pine cones in blue and yellow paint to explore colour mixing and used lollipop sticks to mark make!👏

This week at Oakburn –

Baking Area

This week in the baking area we have been making vegan scones, the children have been practicing their measuring, pouring, mixing and counting. We are doing this daily to allow children to experience the in-depth life skills that come with baking, the children will build confidence independence and responsibility over time and we hope that with the continuation of this experience we will have very confident little bakers who can make their own scones very soon. Well done everyone, the scones look yummy!🤩

Woodwork workshop.

This week in the woodwork area we have been designing our own self portraits. The children used a mirror to identify different parts of their face. They then went on to draw what they could see in the mirror! The children used their imagination to pick what loose parts that they would like to use for their eyes nose and mouth. The children will then make their self portraits come to life by creating them in wood work next week.

Expressive Area 

In the art area this week we read the story ‘Stickman’. We then progressed by developing the character stick man from the book. We went on a nature hunt and collected sticks and leaves and put them into our basket! Next we came back inside and crafted our own stick man! We used our imagination, memory, creativity and curiosity skills throughout this experience.

 

Every child experiences a sense of wonder- science 🧪 

This week we showed a great interest in science experiments. We decided to conduct science experiments using vinegar, baking soda, paint, cola, ketchup and mentos! The children developed their sense of wonder, problem solving, risk assessment, team work, leadership, and turn taking. Ought many great skills were developed we have had so much fun watching reactions take place, explosions and creating their own volcanos! 🌋 

STEM Area 🧲 

This week in the STEM area we have been investigating simple types of forces and learning about their effects using magnets!

We have been using magnets in different activities involving ice and paint. These have been great to explore and to get a simple understanding of how magnets work!

We then lay out a range of different materials and the children had to sort them into if it was magnetic or not. We displayed our findings on a graph using our literacy and numeracy skills.

Oakburn home

This week in the home corner we have been busy making our own recipes books and filling them with things we like to make and bake at home and within the centre. We have observed and asked questions whilst looking at recipes and when creating our own we used our little fingers to practice our writing skills.

We also has some discussion about things that we have in our own home, we thought of somethings that could make our dining table look more like ours at home, the children decided to make some beautiful flowers out of lollipop sticks and tissue paper and they have turned out bright and beautiful.

 

The courtyard 

In the courtyard we have been celebrating Lunar New Year, known as Chinese New Year. We have been looking at numbers 1-4 and learning how to write them  using paint.

We also made special traditional red envelopes and, At Lunar New Year, it’s tradition to give the gift of a bright, beautiful red envelope (known as 紅包, hóngbāo) to your friends and family. … These are filled with money – and symbolize good wishes and luck for the new year ahead. The importance of the hóngbāo isn’t the cash held inside; it’s actually the envelope itself.

We are responsible citizens 

Some of the children have shown great interest in reading our recycling books this week.

We have learnt why it’s important to recycle and what happens to the materials when we recycle. The children talked about what and how they recycle at home.

We made our own boxes, using recycled boxes and painting them blue – for paper recycling, orange – for plastic recycling and green- for garden waste.

We gathered a pile of recycling and the children took it in turns to sort it into the boxes.

The children have shown that they are fantastic responsible citizens ⭐️by understanding the importance of recycling to help the planet 🌎!👏

Our little hands are busy getting stronger.

 

This week we have been working on our fine motor development. In early years it is so important to work on the muscles within our hands and arms as it prepares our little people for when they begin to write, by providing wide ranges of fine motor experiences children can work on strengthening their muscles making holding pens/pencils easier to use when they progress into school.

This week we experiences weaving which included great concentration, some problem solving and hand eye coordination. We then progressed this onto using litter pickers and linseed to collect some little and large Pom poms this was a real favourite for the children and offered some support and challenge to their learning, next one of the children had said one of the green Pom poms was a shiny apple, we decided to add some fruit to a tuff tray and try using knives to cut it, offering bananas to start as they are smoother to cut through and offering challenge via apples and cucumbers, with some children we also discussed 1/2 and whole sizes.