Oakburn Early years centre

This week in the Acorn Room we filmed our Christmas songs to show you the songs we have been learning in nursery. We hope you enjoyed watching and listening to our videos.

On Thursday we had our Christmas party and a very special visitor came to see us. At our party we did some dancing, played musical bumps and enjoyed a party snack then we saw Santa 🎅🏼. 

The children used the glitter flour to mark make in the pretend snow using sticks, acorns and their hands. They made big & small lines, circles and enjoyed feeling the texture of the flour in their hands.

 

 

Acorn Room

The children in the acorn room have been busy this week continuing their learning through Christmas based activities. The children made hand print Christmas trees,  explored their senses with our shaving foam snowman and explored different shapes when helping decorate a hat for our elf!

Construction Area

This week in the construction area the children explored a winter wonderland! On the run up to Christmas this experience allowed the children to work on shape and number recognition as well as learning about animals who live in cold climates.

Courtyard

I set up a blank canvas of a Christmas Tree using tape and set out some loose parts for the children to decorate the tree with.  Using these open ended resources together as a part of transient art children explore shape, positioning, space, colour and texture

In the courtyard kitchen the children we have been using our creative skills to make Christmas decorations for the nursery! What do you think?

Malleable Area

This week the children have been baking gingerbread men and Christmas tree shortbread for our Christmas bags. The children used their fine motor skills mixing all the ingredients together. We explored measure weighing each ingredient. The children were able to listen carefully and follow instructions as we followed the recipe.

More malleable fun! The children used shaving foam, glitter, pom poms and pipe cleaners to decorate Christmas trees. Exploring different colours and textures.

Expressive area

We have been creating Christmas decorations for our expressive area. We made a ‘Merry Christmas’ sign using lots of sparkly materials. The children also used different shades of green tissue paper to make a Christmas tree the used lots of sequins to decorate it.

We set up a writing station where the children could use their mark making and writing skills to write a letter to santa! We told him all the things we like about Christmas then signed our names at the end and posted it in our box. We had a lovely festive week.

We decided to make winter potions using oranges, pinecones and cinnamon sticks. The children enjoyed measuring out the ingredients and pouring and emptying the liquid into different sized containers.

Discovery Area

We really got into the festive spirit this week. Santa’s workshop arrived and we were busy wrapping presents and writing cards!

On Wednesday we enjoyed Christmas Lunch! It was delicious! Our tables were very festive.

On Thursday and Friday we had a visit from Elf on the Shelf! She decided to mess up all the fruit in the kitchen and wrap up some of our nursery resources.

Have a lovely weekend !

 

Expressive Area

This week in the expressive area we have continued to explore our interest in transient art. We have been decorating little Christmas trees with a range of different loose parts. Each one was beautiful and unique!

Lots of children have been interested in mark making! We decided to use a range of different tools and different surfaces to develop our fine motor skills.

We have been developing our curiosity skills as we explored shredded paper. We were able to identify letters and numbers that were hidden throughout. We also developed our fine motor skills as we used tongs to retrieve the pom-poms. Some of the children said the shredded paper looked like snow!

Courtyard

This week the children have been getting into the festive spirit at Oakburn EYC. With the help of Hannah we have decorated both our Courtyard Christmas Tree and our HUGE outdoor tree. They look amazing!

On Tuesday we celebrated St Andrews day. We used different colours and sizes of paper to create our own tartan kilt. We discussed patterns and many of the children were able to follow a pattern using 2 or 3 colours.

It has been a very icy week in our garden and the children have enjoyed exploring the ice. This led us on to having a discussion about snow and when the snow would come. Using the iPad we had a look at pictures of snow and snowflakes. We created our own snowflakes using loose parts and cork boards. Through this activity we discussed symmetry and how to make symmetrical patterns.

Discovery Area

In the discovery area we have been focusing on our fine motor skills and this was the perfect opportunity to make paper chains and Christmas decorations to hang on our trees.

For St Andrews day we made wool patters, danced to Scottish music and read stories.

Towards the end of the week we explored loose parts introduced through a Christmas theme.

Malleable

In the malleable area we have been exploring shape through playdough. The children developed their fine motor skills as they manipulated the playdough in their hands, rolling, pressing and squeezing it. They then used our cutters to make it into a shape of their choice

2-3 Acorn Room

It is officially Christmas month within our acorn room. We have been very creative making our Christmas surprises for our families. We have had sensory experiences like our reindeer food provocation. A few children were able to identify the colours of the magical drops and count them as they added them to their bag. A few children chose to make Christmas trees with their hands. The children are learning our Christmas songs and are beginning to copy a few words and follow a few of the actions.

Just a reminder we are looking to create and igloo. We would appreciate if you brought in your finished milk cartons. Thanks in advance.

Have a lovely weekend!

 

 

 

Discovery area

This week in the discovery area we have continued to create our ‘Oakburn Children’s Rights Tree. We needed to make more hand prints for leaves and environmental print signs for each key group. Our special tree is coming on great.

We have also been mark making using a variety of different media including scratch cards. We have learned that we don’t always need to use pens and pencils… A lolly stick can be a super tool for mark making. GENIUS.

Towards the end of the week we have been making something for our families… Which is…

Elsewhere in the discovery area we have been enjoying exploring shapes. The children have been helping to make some lovely shapes to hang from the ceiling. We have also been looking for different shapes throughout the nursery. We have been playing the board game Insey Winsey Spider which focuses on shape recognition.

STEM area

In the STEM area this week we have been doing some measuring and learning about inches, mm and cm. The children have been loving measuring things around the nursery and even each other!

We have also been continuing to develop our weather wall. We have added a range of different weather types so that children can come in and record the weather each day.

Outdoors

Outdoors this week the children have been hunting for sticks in the garden to make their own stickmen. We collected different sizes of sticks and talked about the different body parts we would need. “Mines needs long legs” – ED. ES wanted her stickman to be purple so we added different coloured paint and googley eyes to extend the provocation. Afterwards the children wanted to listen to the story. We discussed some of the rhyming words throughout the story and the children were able to identify rhyming words of their own.

It has been a freezing week which has provided us with lots of exploration and investigation of ice and how it changes form. We have been smashing the ice by throwing, jumping, stomping and hitting it. We have also been discovering ways to make it melt. Please remember to send hats, scarves, gloves and extra layers in, to keep us extra cosy!

We found forest creatures in the woodland and came up with a  hide and seek game which allowed us to explore the environment in more depth. Finding lichen, we learned that it produces oxygen, which humans need to survive. This led on to a conversation about looking after our environment and how we do this.

A delivery of trees of trees have been dropped at Oakburn, which we will be planting over the next couple of weeks.

 

Construction Area

This week in construction, the children have been making Christmas decorations through wood, cardboard and arts and crafts.

Courtyard

In the courtyard this week we have been thinking about Christmas! The children have been choosing their favourite colours and designs… You will all love what we have been making.

Malleable

In Malleable area we have been exploring ‘PIZZA’. The children created their own pizza using playdough. We then created a survey to find out what our favourite pizza was. Tomato pizza was the most popular. The children then helped to prep real vegetables to make our own pizza for snack.

Acorn Room

This week in the Acorn Room we have been learning about shapes and numbers. The children used the ‘Dotty Dinosaur’ game and shape sorters to work on their shape recognition.

We read the story ‘Millie Mae in Autumn’ to learn about the weather and used leaves we found from the garden to count and glue on to our pictures. We looked at the different sizes of leaves, comparing biggest and smallest.

We have begun our Christmas activities that we are looking forward to revealing with you soon.

Have a lovely weekend!

 

 

Our little acorns

In our Small World area the children were learning about numbers 0-6 using our tuff tray with a chalk road and parking the cars into different numbered spaces.

The children were continuing to develop their mark making skills using porridge oats and glitter. This activity also allowed the children to develop their fine motor skills by scooping the oats using measuring spoons and and mini ladle.

A few children chose to engage in multiple mark making experiences and were able to mark a few simple shapes, patterns and numbers.

This week in the courtyard, our little acorns have been very busy exploring some shapes! We have used 3D shapes to match up to our 2D shapes. This then took an interesting turn to some pizzas. We cut out some smaller shapes to make our very own pizzas. At the end of the week, the children had the opportunity to bake their own bagel pizzas. Using our culinary skills we created some fantastic and tasty pizzas 🍕!

On Friday we took part in some ‘pudsey’ activities to celebrate children in need.

Discovery Area!

On Monday we focused on road safety using the Ziggy books!.. We discussed the importance of thinking, looking and listening before crossing the road and holding a grown ups hand!🚦We talked about how good walking is for our health🙌

We also thought about counting back! A concept that can be a tricky business!😀We used the dolls to demonstrate the song.. ‘There were 5 in the bed….’This was a fun and engaging way of learning to count back 5,4,3,2,1,0 !🙌🤩It’s healthy to give our brains a good number workout😍

On Tuesday we explored feelings and expressing our emotions and why this is so important for our mental health❤️❤️❤️We created a friendship and feelings wigwam and ‘Flora the feelings’ puppet paid us a visit to help us talk about how we felt!😀😍☺️We also made an interactive feelings board, inspired by the ‘Colour Monster’ book😀

On Thursday we made our own zebra crossing!🚦Collaborative working, team building and road safety awareness! The children did an amazing job!🙌🤩The sellotape proved to be a tricky business!😍I was very impressed by the children’s traffic light knowledge!🚦

On Friday it was all about moving our body to music! Dancing can help us to keep fit and makes us feel good too!🙌🙌🙌What a terrific healthy week we’ve had!❤️🤩❤️

We also added environmental print to our mark making area and updated our learning wall! Thank you to the children who helped with this! FANTASTIC!❤️🙌👏

In the stem area this week we have been learning about shapes and matching them on the mat. We have been talking about their names and how many sides they have.

We have also been talking about the weather a lot so we have decided to start a weather wall to record the weather. The boys and girls have been helping with some writing and creating pictures of different types of weather so when it’s finished we can point an arrow corresponding to what it’s like outside that day ☀️🌧⛈❄️

Expressive area!

This week we been talking about Pudsey bear 🐻 and what he represents. The children made Pudsey bear faces and added pom-poms as the spots on his eye patch. This supported the children’s numeracy skills as they counted out the spots.

Following on from the children’s interest of dinosaurs, we made a dinosaur stomp race track.  🦕The children used paint to stomp the dinosaurs to the finish line, racing each other.  The children also used the footprints to play a dinosaur bingo game.  We would call out a number and the children would stomp the painted dinosaur on to the correct number. 🦕We also made a muddy swamp for the dinosaurs to splash about in. 🦖

Literacy area

Our rhyme for the last fortnight has been Incy Wincy Spider 🕷. The children have been enjoying singing the rhyme with actions and we made an Incy Wincy song sheet for the cosy corner. The children have been moving the spider up and down the numbered drainpipe as they sing 🎶 the song and adding raindrops 💦and sun ☀️ at the correct points in the rhyme.

Outdoors
This week outdoors we have been focusing on shape. The children were using our new jigsaw stones to complete the shape puzzle. What shapes could we make by matching up the lines?

From this we decided to use a range of loose parts to make our own shapes. “I’ve made a circle” – EC.

We then used shape view finders to see what we could find in the garden that matched each shape. We talked about how many sides each shape had.
“This tyre is a circle” – SS

Construction

In the construction area I set up a small world provocation with many different constructing opportunities. The. Children helped to connect the train tracks together, built and constructed bridges, buildings and learned about road safety through signs, road markings and ziggy!
The children have also been engaging in some role play through the use of block play cementing their own bricks using tools and shaving foam to build their own towers, buildings and houses! 🏠 🧱

We have also been learning about recycling and how it helps our environment by sorting and recycling the correct materials into their own groups. ♻️ 🗑

Courtyard experiences

This week the children have been continuing to explore some stories by our author of the month, Julia Donaldson. We read the story A Squash and A Squeeze, where an old lady asks for help with her small house. The children used the building blocks to build their own small house. They used problem solving, and teamwork to put it together in a way that the blocks would stay standing. 👏

We celebrated Children in Need by making our own Pudsey faces with transient art. The children used their fine motor skills to position the items to make up the face ☺️ We spoke about Children in Need as a charity, and how they help children all over the country to stay safe, healthy and happy!

The courtyard kitchen

We have been developing the courtyard home corner this week, the children  have had lots of great ideas.  We made the area more open and put up some lovely lighting to make this area more cosy now the darker mornings and nights have come!❤️

In the courtyard this week we have been talking about how we get to Oakburn and the different modes of transport. Each day we have added a mode of transport to our area, speaking about safety on the roads, holding an adults hand and things that we may see on our journey to nursery. We even added some road shapes, to encourage our shape recognition through play. The children have also been busy creating their own traffic light and are able to identify the red as stop and green as go!

They have also been talking about ice cream and the different colours, we have identified our favourite colours and used this to create a sensory experience for the children using shaving foam! A favourite was strawberry ice cream 🍦🍓

In the Art area the children have been using different resources to develop their mark making and fine motor skills and different shapes. We used flour, salt and glitter to mark make with our fingers and try to draw different shapes. We used the dinosaurs to make footprint paintings counting how many steps the dinosaurs 🦕 needed to cross the page.

A few children were keen to explore our sea animals, the adults scaffolded their learning with a creative provocation and jigsaws. A few children developed their fine motor skills as they manipulated the pieces into place. G.M was able to make number “1”, a “circle” and a “rainbow” in the paint. C.M was able to sing the 5 little duck song with encouragement. The children participated in a relaxing sensory light experience as they learned the sea animals.

 

In the malleable area this week we have been exploring ice by saving superheroes. The children worked together as a team to discover ways we can set them free. We used warm water and tools to break through them. We discussed words such as melting, temperature, freezing, solid and liquid.

We have been discussing how to keep safe from germs by washing out hands regularly. 🦠 We participated in a hand washing experience in the water tray, washing the hands properly to ensure there were no germs. 🧼 We have also been discussing our mental health and emotions, exploring how we feel each day. We have shown this by making self portraits using our transient art, we looked into the mirror and talked about if our faces looked happy, sad, angry etc. 😁

 

This week in the expressive area, the children have shown an interest in mark making. To support this interest, we have been designing tiles for a tile gallery to showcase the children’s lovely work. We have been using acrylic paint pens and tiles to design our own individual tiles. 🎨

We have continued to explore our interest in mark making as we have been mark making with a variety of materials. We have been mark making with paint and chopsticks this week, some of the children have also been mark making by dipping their fingers into the paint.

We have continued to explore our interest in mark making as we have been mark making with a variety of materials. We have been mark making with paint and chopsticks this week, some of the children have also been mark making by dipping their fingers into the paint.

 

This week in the Expressive Area, the children have continued to show an interest in babies and caring for babies. We have explored changing the babies nappies and dressing the babies this week, the children have really enjoyed learning some of the skills required to look after a baby. 🍼

This week in the construction Area we have been focusing on health week! Therefore, using loose parts and real potato’s we created our own mr and mrs potato heads! The children seemed to have really enjoyed this activity therefore, I brought in real potato heads for the children to construct through symbolic and schematic

This week at Oakburn it has been health week. The children were interested in making smoothies. Learning about eating the right foods to keep us healthy.🍌🍎🥝.

The children helped to prepare the ingredients cutting into small pieces and adding ingredients of their choice. Some children told us they shopped at Asda and Tesco and they help choose their own healthy snacks.

The children were very engrossed in this experience and told me we have to wash hands with hot soapy water, then sit nice and use one hand to hold the ingredient and use the other hand to chop the ingredient safely, using the green chopping board as that is for fruit and salad ingredients.🔪🧑‍🍳