A tour of our learning this week :-)

18/03/2021 by Miss Sandison | 0 comments

It’s been another wonderful week of learning at nursery this week with children engaging in every area of the setting.

The outdoor space has been used to develop our movement skills, gross motor strength and balance through child built obstacles courses, See-Saw games and lifting. Being outside helps us to move our bodies and explore how to control them.

Maisie, Emmie, Annie and Micah built a balancing pallet and used it to climb on and jump off. The tried to land inside the big tyre and to balance on the edges of the tyre. They were great at assessing the risks and watching out for each other before they jumped.

Freya and Emmie worked together to build a balance and slide course. There was a lot of problem solving involved to make it safe as they realised the chute was too unstable if was set sideward on the hill. “This is better now, it goes fast but I stay on” said Freya.

See-Saw games encouraged everyone to share space, talk to each other and take turns this week as well helping everyone to participate in different kinds of energetic play. See-Saws need us to push hard with our legs and to balance!

Max, Micah, Freddie and Henry worked together to see how many could fit on the See-Saw and to see which side was heaviest and which was lightest. “Doo get on the back Henry becis I’m going up in the air!” Said Freddie. “Push up wi dee leegs Max!” said Micah.

We have started to prepare a new dry construction area this week. The children were fantastic at helping! They joined in lifting heavy blocks of wood to put onto the new tarpaulin. Lifting is great for building core, shoulder and arm strength which we need for writing and sitting at school. It also helps develop our numeracy skills as we discuss weight, shape and measure when comparing the different bits to lift.

The “peerie hoose” has been used as a school this week. Freya and Ertie used the map to discuss how to get to “School”. “I tink we need to go up yun way and dan turn here.” Ertie. “ok Ertie, do you think that’s the school?” When they got to school there was a lot of writing and mark making to do. “We need to write all wir letters.” said Freya.

Indoors we have also been very busy.

The block room has been used for a lot of imaginative play and for developing our literacy and numeracy skills.

Annie, Alfie and Lucas found the same shape of blocks and made “a circle track” (Annie) for the cars to drive on. We tried to count how many blocks had been used, it was a big number over 20! Once the track was built there was discussion and co-operation needed to decide on which direction the cars should go.

Ross and Bobby used the big blocks to build a car. Ross drove it at different speeds and welcomed passengers on board. Jim wanted to go backwards and the car crashed! Bobby and Ross fixed the engine. When Ross took the wheel again the car went very fast – “100!!” said Ross. It also had an autopilot button “so you dunoo need to steer the whole time” explained Ross.

And on the theme of wooden creations, there’s been a lot of boat building at the woodwork bench this week.

Using small beads and Numicon resources has been great for developing our numeracy and fine motor skills. We have explored threading, picking beads up using a pincer grip, clipping together using finger strength, counting, copying patterns and creating our own patterns. There has also been a lot of discussion about what we were making and the colours and amounts of beads being used.

We have also been developing our numeracy and literacy skills and knowledge in the sand and water areas.

Maisie, Lewis, Jordie and James worked together to fill different sized containers, share resources and create “soup” and “tea”. Ross and David spoke to each other about how full their containers were and how they might empty some water out. Experimenting with measure, investigating and comparing sizes and amounts, like the groups were doing in the water tray, and sharing their findings with each other is an important numeracy skill.

“Planting”, digging, scooping and sieving into number pots has created discussion about numbers this week. Some children tried to count the scoops of sand to match the number on the pot, some children thought the numbers might be how many days it took the seed to grow and some children thought it was the number of sandcastles you could build using the pot.

We continued our Spring creations theme this week too. Inspired by our planting from last week, watching our plants grow, and the spring books in nursery the children have chosen to create a range of colourful pictures using different techniques and using different painting materials.

Choosing and using different types of painting materials helps develop our writing skills and motor control too. Ali pushed the sponge down, learning how pressure effects the colour, Thea used the brush to paint vertical lines and David explored how using the different shaped sponges made different shapes on the paper.