Wonderful walks help us to learn.

11/06/2021 by Miss Sandison | 0 comments

This week we have continued with the momentum that we built up during the sponsored walks last week and have spent a lot of time learning and walking outdoors this week. A HUGE thank you to all donations from the walk. We raised a fantastic £541!! Some of this money has been spent on buying caterpillars already and the children would like to spend some on adopting a lion, getting more diggers and trucks for indoors and outdoors, small cars and vehicles with trailers. All of these are great ideas and things we need!

The caterpillars that we bought turned into butterflies this week which has been very exciting and interesting.

The beautiful butterflies stimulated a lot of discussion which is great for developing our talking and listening skills. Freya commented “they ir fluttering!” and Maggie said “We need to let dem oot so dey can fly awa”. Elsie asked “What happens if they land on your head?” and Lottie wondered “When can I touch dem?”

Miss Manson found the instructions and information booklet to help us find some answers. While we waited for our lunch we learned that butterflies like to eat fruit such as oranges and they like sugar water. We learned that they need time to flutter their wings to dry them after coming out of the chrysalis before they can fly.

After lunch the butterflies got to have their lunch too. James, Maisie, Henry and David helped Miss Manson to follow the feeding instructions step by step. Using books and written materials in real life contexts is a great way for us to realise the importance and function of reading and writing. Caring for nature is important for our social development.

Showing interest in specific things and asking questions helps staff to plan our learning experiences. After observing our interests in the butterflies and listening to our conversations in play we walked to the “Secret Garden” to see what creatures we could find. The mist meant we didn’t see any butterflies. James remembered “they don’t like getting weet.”

Back at nursery some of use chose to look at non-fiction books and the Smartboard to find out more about butterflies. William explained the steps that our butterflies had gone through from caterpillars. “They start in the egg on the leaf and then they are caterpillars that eat and get fatter and fatter then they go in the cacoon and now the butterflies are here and they are beautiful!”

Joanna watched a butterfly clip. She commented “yun butterfly has a pattern lik a zebra”. Ertie remembered what he learned earlier, “She is flapping her wings to dry dem and dan she can fly”. Being able to share knowledge, ideas and experiences are important literacy skills that we learn when we play and discuss our interests.

Our beautiful butterflies have re-ignited our interest in other small creatures around us. Freddie found slaters and a spider while playing outside. He managed to carefully get them into the magnifier to show his friends. Appreciating all nature around us is an important part of our development as it helps us to develop our awareness of living things and to develop empathy, kindness and care.

William noticed that there were three slaters and just one fly. He wondered if the spider would eat the slaters? He thought the spider was “beautiful” and commented “she’s small, maybe she will grow bigger.”

Miss Stewart wondered what ate spiders. After some discussion it was agreed that birds eat spiders. Micah pointed out that spiders themselves eat flies. William didn’t want the birds to eat the spider so when we released the spider we hid it under some leaves near the nursery door.

After listening to the conversations around what spiders eat Henry wondered “do spiders bite?” He was reassured to hear that being gentle to the spider and keeping the box still would help the spider feel safe and so it shouldn’t bite. Recognising that all living things need to be treated with care and respect helps our emotional development as we become aware of feelings outside our own.

An animal that many of us did know bites is a lion. Last week when learning about predators through our dinosaur interest we learned that lions are endangered. Emmie pointed out that “Lions ir nearly extinct lik dinosaurs.” This made a lot of us feel sad and we wanted to find out more. We asked questions such as “Why ir dey nearly all extinct?” Ross, “Why does folk practice hunting dem?”Freya and “How can we help d lions?” Freya and Ertie. This week we found out more about lions by choosing to watch clips on the Smartboard. Some facts we found out were “dey hae sharp teeth” (William), “dey eat meat” (Jordie), “dey ir big and strong” (Joanna) and they “roooooaaaar” (Lucas). Learning to appreciate nature that lives in different environments helps us to develop more awareness of the wider world which is an important part of our social development.

Exploring and discovering the interesting features of our own local environment is also very important for us as it helps us to develop an awareness of the world around us. Miss Roberston explained that we have animals nearby that also need to be looked after. She wondered what animals we could think of. We came up with some great answers such as whales, birds, worms, sharks and seals. Miss Robertson found out that we could sign up for “The Big Beach Clean” to help our local environment which some of us thought was a very good plan. “Yes then we can put rubbish away” (James), “We can clean up bruck” (Freya), “Pit it in the bin” (Elsie).

Being part of “The Big Beach Clean” has really helped us learn about why it’s important to care about our environment. All of us chose to watch short clips on the Smartboard to learn about the dangers of litter in the sea. Jordie noticed there was a hammerhead shark in the video, Emmie noticed that “litter is stuck to him” and James exclaimed that “His friends ir going to help him!” when the sea creatures helped a whale.

After watching the clips Joanna commented that “We want to save the animals, sharks and whales” and Alfie and Freya agreed “We need to stop the animals fae spewing” (Alfie), “They will get sore bellies if they eat the plastic” (Freya)

When asked if anyone would like to go to the nearby beaches and clean up some litter everyone said yes! Walking around our local environment helps us appreciate nature around us. Walking with a partner helps us to be aware of, and share, personal space and to work as a pair. Walking on the pavements and following road safety rules helps us develop important literacy skills such as listening to, processing and following instructions. Walking on quiet off road routes helps us become aware of plants, lichen and insects around us. Being able to compare these things and talk about their features is part of developing our numeracy skills and awareness of the world around us.

Our time at the beaches this week was spent finding litter, finding interesting things such as shells and sea-glass, sitting down to enjoy snack together and playing freely. The wonderful thing about learning through play is that it can happen anywhere and at any time! Playing at the beach helped us to link our concerns and interests about animals and creatures to a real life contexts.

When we returned from our walks Miss Stewart laid out some of interesting finds such as shells, sea-glass, patterned pebbles and dry seaweed. Joanna and Sophie talked about the beach near their house which has sand and not stones. The items were left outdoors for everyone to play with and explore freely. It is important that we are given time to play with interesting objects throughout the day so that we can follow our own lines of enquiry and individual interests.

Indoors (once it had been cleaned) some of us chose to learn about the litter we had found on our walks. Exploring these items helps us find out about the past and develops our understanding of time. One item we found interesting was a crisp packet that was 10 years old! Freddie said “dat is really auld!”, David agreed that “It is a big number!”. We tried to understand what 10 years means, “I am five” said Maggie, a lot of us are five in nursery. It was surprising to think that the packet was double that age! “The packet is been in the water for a right lang time” agreed Emmie.

By listening to our questions and observing our ongoing interest in litter, the sea/beaches and animals/predators throughout the week some spaces in the nursery were set up with these in mind.

Old bottle tops, corks, plastic rolls and fruit netting were re-cycled and re-used as part of creative play and learning.

Freya and Maggie printed with the lids, creating shapes and mixing colours and shades. Lucas rolled the plastic to create wavy patterns and lines on paper.

Annie and Ertie pushed the corks down onto the paper. “Dey look lik bubbles” said Annie, “yeah dis is seaweed and bubbles” said Ertie. Creating pictures that are linked to our observations is a way that we record our personal experiences across the curriculum.

Picking up lids and “fiddly” objects helps develop pincer grip which we need for holding pens and pencils.

Annie and Elsie asked for paintbrushes as they had specific ideas that they wanted to put on paper. Painting is a great avenue through which we can express our ideas and feelings.

Painting and drawing on vertical surfaces develops our shoulder, arm and wrist strength ready for writing.

The Tuff tray became a sensory exploration area with the ocean in mind. Being able to identify our senses and use them to explore our world is important for our cognitive development.

“My hands ir blue lik the sea!” (Ertie), “It feels saft and foamy” (Jordie) “It’s lik the beach” (Alfie) “There’s a killer whale in the sea!” (Ross). Having time to play like this helps us to use our imaginations and to better understand our reality. It also gives us opportunities to explore our ideas and link what we have learned in real life situations.

“I’m pitten the bruck in the bin, it’s goin aa through the sea.” (Freya)

Squeezing out the foam was hard work on our hands too! Being able to use our hands to do two different movements is very important for being able to write later on. Holding bottles and twisting caps and holding foam while pushing down naturally helps develop this ability. Playing in this way helps us practise new skills in a natural way.

The foamy sea was also a great tool for mark making. Micah made lines to show that the sea was wavy.

Outdoors a variety of play equipment was used as part of a “cleaning up” game. Ross, Freya and Alfie organised themselves to be “brucky men” who collected rubbish and litter from around the area, filled the back of the truck and took it to be recycled. Trying to get it all to fit in the back required team work, problem solving and mathematical thought processes as well as good communication skills.