On Tuesday we were lucky enough to take all the boys and girls that would be moving on to school after the summer, to the science centre. This trip was suggested and even organised by Jack (one of our enthusiastic junior scientists) and would mark the end of a really successful focus on learning about space, planet earth and human life.

We all travelled up together on the bus.

We waited while Claire let the scientists know we had arrived.

We went straight up the stairs to get ready for the planetarium.

We applied our previous learning to name the planets on the wall. Some of them looked really different as they were in colours we didn’t expect.

“We learned about planets – like Venus” – Christiana

We learned about how planets orbit and actually spiral inwards slightly towards the sun by experimenting with wee balls and a big bowl.

Soon it was time to go in to the planetarium to learn about space.

Our children were the real stars of the show however! Among lots of other schools and nurseries our children stood out as the most engaged, best listeners and those with the greatest depth of understanding. (I know I am a little biased but it’s true!!)

The audience was quizzed on their knowledge of the sun.

“It’s a giant ball of fire” -Libby

“It’s very hot” – Zach

“The planets go round it!” – Riley

“It has a happy face”  “It has jaggy bits coming out of it” – other school pupils

We were also asked what we knew about stars.

“They make constellations!” – Gabriel

“They are suns” – Noah

(The presenter was actually looking for someone to say “they twinkle” and was surprised at our answers!)

We pretended to travel to different planets and had a closer view of them, and at how the Sun and Earth look from them.  The Sun just looks like any other star from Pluto!

We were asked if we knew who had been the first person to walk on the moon?

Noah applied his previous knowledge to try and answer  despite being unsure, he took an educated guess :  “Tim Peake?”

When we were asked to find the Pole Star Riley found a possible candidate,

“It’s not twinkling. It must be a planet!” He had found Jupiter!

“There was a lion and bears” – Jack

After the Planetarium, we went and had a little play around the science mall. There were a lot of things to do and learn!

There was a fabulous big construction site to help children explore weight and physics of force and gravity. We had great fun working together and using those big gross motor skills to move the giant crane and bricks.

Another big hit was the water station which had water pumped through various pipes that you could release with a range of different kinds of taps and valves.

We explored air movement using scarves.

 

These fabulous exhibits were in the middle of a great big play ship which had real ship features…

We were able to increase our understanding of our bodies and how they work after lunch.

We also explored energy.

And sound…

But all too soon it was time to head home on the bus, tired but happy.

We had a great time on our outing, learned lots and shared a lot of our knowledge with others. We hope you have heard all about it, or that this has triggered some good learning discussions.

Please share your child’s memories of the trip and any learning they shared with you in our comments. Or if you’d like to let us know anything – any suggestions or things you liked about the trip or this blog please leave a comment!

If you’d like to build on your child’s learning about space and stars then why not check out the CBeebies star gazing information?

Or if you’d like to extend their learning about bodies why not visit  the National Geographic website or the Bodyworks site from the science centre.

Outdoor learning is a big part of our nursery here at Bluebird. In fact it is an integral part of the curriculum for all children. We are lucky to have the bus that ensures we all get out and about Inverclyde every week.

These outings are great for children’s health and wellbeing, getting out and about in the fresh air and being exposed to daylight rather than artificial light all day.

There is a huge amount of learning to be found in even the most simple trip to the park, the woods or even as we did today, the cemetery!

Firstly there is a lot of opportunity for fine motor development and independence skills (both very helpful for getting ready to write and learn at school), just with getting coats and shoes on to go out.

The park gives us plenty of chances to move our bodies and learn how the work best, but that isn’t all. We have to use social skills to take turns and work together…

And we also can explore aspects of science when we are out and about! Biology when seeing animals in their natural environment and Physics when playing in the park!

We even use our imaginations and develop stories or scenarios to role play when we are out…

But the focus today at the cemetery was most definitely on developing Language skills!

We explored lots of sound words when scrunching through the leaves as well as sharing our reactions to the sensation of walking on different surfaces – mud, leaves, grass, moss, hills, sticks, gravel, concrete.

We learned new names for plants that we could see such as the monkey puzzle tree and the ivy as carved on a headstone and growing on the wall.

“Look! I’ve found moss!” – Layton  “There’s a monkey tree!” – Noah

We looked for letters and words that we recognised – finding Gabriel’s name on a tomb stone and a stick in the shape of the letter S.

We were able to read environmental print with the stop sign.

We used our higher order thinking to remember previous visits, investigate things that had fallen from the trees and apply previous knowledge to the cause of holes we found in the ground (could they be Easter Bunny tunnels?!)

But the learning of the day, in fact the quote of the day was Noah’s incredible reading of a memorial. He used his fabulous reading skills of using picture clues to help him read the words……..

(Sorry for the poor quality of the photo but staff may have been shaking with laughter). The memorial featured 2 white doves with olive branches in their beaks.

“It says “Eagles love vegetables”!” – Noah

Who’d have thought there could be so much to learn out and about!