Forgewood Family Learning Centre

We are having a Easter Party on Friday 31st March. Normal session times with games dancing and party snack. Easter bonnets are optional. Our spring hamper will be drawn at party. Tickets are available for £1 a strip all donations go towards the children’s Easter treat.

The centre closes on Friday 31st March and opens again Tuesday 18th April for spring break.

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This week we had a visit to Parksprings care home, we decorated eggs, sang songs and had good fun while caring and sharing with our new friends.
We have been outdoors in the snow and sun this week too. We have been working together to find items to make pictures, co-operating playing games and sharing the ball.
We have been exploring the clay and other materials such as gloop in the art area, exploring the new building materials and newly developed small word area.

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The children have been making friendship bracelets and discussing who they want to give it to and why. We are helping each other to get ready to go out and play and learning about being good friends.
They have also been making play-dough faces and talking about feelings, what makes them happy and what makes them sad. We have been working as a team to build jigsaws and make things with the blocks and junk materials.
We are trying very hard to look after our environment, we have begun litter picking outdoors and indoors we are becoming responsible in looking after our toys and nursery by sharing things and tidying up. We have a new tidy up song which goes along to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star which we are learning as we tidy.

The Children in the the toddler room have been enjoying listening to the story of Postman bear. They have been interacting during the story by lifting the flaps on the pages and looking at the pictures and pointing out what they see. The children have been learning about the different animals and characters in the story through puppets and songs and enjoying using the puppets in their play. There have been experiences on offer linked to the story for the children to participate in. We have been practicing our mark making skills and drawing by making party invitations and birthday cards for Postman bear, we walked to the postbox to post our cards and then we painted our own postbox for our playroom. The children also helped to bake a birthday cake for Postman bear, listening carefully and following the instructions given to them. The children decided how many candles to put on the cake and helped to count them before singing happy birthday and having a party for Postman bear.

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In the construction area this week children have been exploring new small world resources. Practitioners have introduced a small wooden pirate ship and Fireman Sam resources which are proving to be very popular.  Practitioners have been working closely with the children encouraging them to take care of the new toys and share them with their peers. Within the music area children are continuing to enjoy exploring a variety of musical instruments, such as symbols, drums and shakers which were kindly donated by the Music department of Braidhurst High School when the children paid them a visit this week.  The children have been using these instruments, cooperating and working as a team in creating a variety of sounds and music.

In the creative area children have been exploring a variety of sensory experiences such as,  flour, dry sand and water where they have been supported by practitioners to take turns and share resources. Children have been creating handprints with paint,  learning the importance of using ‘gentle hands’ when playing and sharing with friends. When dry they have been encouraged to cut out their handprints to represent leafs which will then be used to form part of our friendship tree.

Within the writing area and story corner the children have been exploring a variety of new vocabulary discussing what these words mean. There has been lots of conversations about caring, being kind and sharing. The children have had the opportunity to recreate these words using magnetic letters and writing them using a variety of media. In the story corner we have been looking at feelings books, exploring feelings, sharing our ideas on what makes us happy and what can make us feel sad.

As we learn about caring and sharing, children exploring the maths area have had lots of opportunities to play table top games giving them the chance to wait their turn and work cooperatively. Children have shown a particular interest in the counting caterpillar game and the pirate snap game. They have had lots of fun trying to be the ‘snap champion’.

Within the outdoor learning environment children have had the chance to participate in woodland walks. During these walks they have been working together to create their own “journey sticks”, together the children share a basket to collect their own natural materials that they want to attach to their journey stick. Children then use their journey stick to reflect on their nature walk. As the children learn about caring they have been encouraged to care for our nursery garden as they find and pick up litter and care for our beautiful flowers and plants.

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World Book Day Celebrations.

The children had great fun dressing up and reading their favourite stories to their friends.
Well done to everyone, lots of effort had been put in to costumes and remembering to bring books what an enjoyable day for all.

Celebrating World book day, if your child doesn’t want to dress up please do not force them. If they have a Disney outfit or superhero costume these are relevant and there are lots of lovely ideas on the world book day website. Mind and bring your favourite book along to.

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In the creative area the children have been experimenting using spaghetti as a writing tool, they have also been finding letters from their names and recreating them on the mats with play dough. They have been taking turns to mix the powder paint and share the colours they have mixed.

We have been listening to a variety of music from other cultures and countries as we celebrated a Polish celebration named “Fat Thursday”. We have had the opportunity to explore a variety of instruments and the sounds they make.

“Fat Thursday” was celebrated with lots of lovely cakes pastries sweets crisps and fruit! Thank you to all everyone who donated food, the children’s faces were a picture when they saw what they could have on this special day rather than their usual piece of fruit! Paczki and Faworki were on offer and most children tried these special Polish treats.

Lyndsay our dental health co-ordinator was out to make sure we were brushing our teeth after all those special treats!

Board games have been played both in our literacy and maths areas encouraging children to take turns follow the rules and complete the games they are playing, whilst learning letters and numbers.

The children have been out in all weathers and have been keen to explore the snow and ice. The children are encouraged to be independent in dressing and to wear appropriate out door clothing, however we are aware that they can still get wet, we ask you to provide a change of clothing on their pegs as we do not keep items of clothing in the centre. They have been searching for items in a number hunt and exploring the nursery grounds.

Over the last few weeks the children in the toddler room have been listening to the story “The 3 little pigs”, some children have been joining in with the story and the repitition of parts. They have been using puppets and props to re-enct parts of the story and particulary enjoyed pretending to be the wolf that huffs and puffs and blows the house down.
We have been extending the story by having straw, sticks and bricks in the construction area for the children to build with and create their own structures, and using mathematical language during our building such as more, tallest, longest, etc and counting our materials as we build with them.
In the art area we have

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been using the different materials to create pictures by printing, sticking etc and used real cement to join our bricks together to build houses for the pigs.