It’s been great to have a full week back at nursery to get into some deep play and learning. This week we have been developing our numeracy , literacy skills and knowledge through baking cakes and making playdough as well as much more!

On Monday Alfie and Sophie wanted to bake a cake so Mrs Williamson took in some ingredients on Tuesday and lots of us joined in the baking session. Measuring out the ingredients helps us to recognise numbers, realise that they are meaningful and develops our sense of quantity.

Alfie and Annie worked together to scoop butter into the bowl while watching for the scales to get to number 6.

Sophia then helped to add flour and water. Pouring the water gently into the bowl needs strong arms and hands and helps develop our motor control and hand eye co-ordination. Sophia helped to steady the bowl. Taking turns and working together helps us to organise ourselves and be aware of others.

We learned how to crack eggs into small bowls and discussed where eggs come from. All of us knew that they come from hens. Lottie noticed that when we mixed the eggs “dey aa turn orange”. She carefully poured the orange eggs into the bowl.

Once all the ingredients were in the bowl we took turns mixing. Mixing food in bowls helps develop our senses, such as smell, sight and touch. It increases strength in our shoulders, arms and hands needed for writing and drawing. Mixing ingredients develops our language skills as we learn new words and phrases such as “runny, thick, gloopy” and it develops our numeracy knowledge as we can mix fast or slow and right or left. After all the mixing it was time to put the cake in the oven and set the timer for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes we were excited to see if it was ready. Mrs Williamson taught us about being safe around the hot oven and how to check if the cake was ready.

And it was! A lovely round chocolate cake! We counted how many people wanted a small slice and then cut it into pieces. We ate a small slice of cake with some healthy pear slices and discussed what other food is healthy and why fruit is good for us.

We have also been very interested in making playdough this week and choosing different smells and colours to include. We’ve had mint, orange, vanilla and strawberry playdough this week! Again, making playdough with friends allows us to learn how to follow instructions, measure, count, discuss our ideas, take turns and develop our senses.

Once it’s ready our playdough has been used in many open ended ways.

We’ve measured “worms” and “snakes” and compared who had the longest ones.

We’ve also rolled playdough into sausages which is one of the ways we develop hand eye co-ordination and gross and fine motor control. Discussing our sausages, and comparing them, develops our communication skills such as listening and talking and numeracy skills such as awareness of shape and length.

We’ve used tools to cut our playdough, to make marks in it and to create different flavoured pizzas. Cutting it into different sizes is part of early learning about fractions, making marks in playdough is part of early writing development and creating different flavoured pizzas was a great addition to deepen our role play.

The pizza flavours were apple (green), pepperoni (red), banana (yellow) and strawberry (pink). All very delicious!

The mud kitchen has also been used for baking and making this week. Lottie and Jessie-Anne created some wonderful watery pies together.

Lewis, Stanley and Jessie-Anne created “soup” and “tea”. Using different shapes and sizes of containers develops our awareness of volume, shape and quantity.

The picnic bench cafe was very popular and a great place to learn literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing skills. There was talking and listening, discussions, sharing and turn taking, mixing and pouring and lots of imaginary play.

We also developed our literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing skills in other ways outdoors.

Thea and Lucas worked together to transport water. They agreed on the right amount of water and gave and followed each others instructions when moving it.

Cleaning bikes helped us to share space, take turns, discuss and decide on which parts of the bikes needed cleaned, which tools to use and which roles we played.

Some of us wanted to help Mrs Williamson to plant willows this week. We learned about the roots, the bark and the leaves of the tree and how special trees are to our planet. We helped to dig holes for the willows.

Digging holes with Mrs Williamson inspired some of us to continue this into our pretend play. Digging is an excellent way for us to develop shoulder and core stability and strength which we need for future writing and sitting. Ali and Harry used a rake and  big shovels to fill buckets with gravel for their “road”.

Sonny used the big shovel to dig for buried treasure.

We’ve also been developing our gross motor skills such as shoulder, arm and hand strength and our fine motor skills such as more specific finger and movements indoors through painting and mark making.

Not only does painting develop our motor skills, sharing paints together can be very relaxing and allows us to share creative ideas with each other. Painting and creating alone allows us to explore our ideas and tell stories in ways that are meaningful to us.

Making marks, lines and shapes in sand using different tools develops our early writing ability and engages us in fun ways to write and draw.

Pushing nails into foam to create “steps” encourages us to use a pincer grip which we need for writing as well as develops finger and hand strength.

Holding onto small containers and pouring ingredients between them develops fine muscle control and awareness of fingers and hands.

As you can see there has been a lot of learning through play during our first full week back!

We have also been excited to welcome three new pupils into nursery this week. A huge welcome to Tommy, Sonny and Jessie-Anne.