Whalsay Early Years Blog 2020\21

It’s lovely to be back and to see the sunshine for the start of our summer term! A lot of us chose to spend time outdoors this week playing ball games, balancing, running, climbing, making potions and maps, painting and taking part in group play.

The lovely weather also meant we could enjoy some trips up to the Secondary to visit the pond and check if there was any frogspawn.

Taking short trips to the Secondary is great for teaching the importance of listening and following instructions to stay safe. It also gives us an opportunity to apply our maths in context by finding a partner, getting into pairs and listening to directions such as left, right, forwards and backwards as we follow the pavements.

Walking around our local environment helps us to understand the world around us and to notice nature. On Wednesday we tried to listen for different animal sounds and heard birds chirping and a buzzy bee! Listening walks are a great way to develop our reading skills as hearing sounds is part of early reading.We stopped to watch the bee collect nectar and pollen from the bright yellow dandelion.

When we got to the pond we were great at being still and looking for the frogs eggs. Guess what…we found some!

Taking a little frogspawn back to nursery has stimulated a lot of discussion about life cycles and is helping us to learn about being kind to nature and to each other. Jackson used a book to find out how frogspawn becomes tadpoles and then frogs. Annie, Sophie, Maggie and Joanna discussed how many frogs might develop from the eggs. Annie wondered if they would hop all over the nursery chairs!

On Thursday we got a big surprise…Elsie found a frog outside!! Everyone got to have a look at what our frogspawn will turn out to be before Froggy was released safely back into the wild. Froggy gave us lots to talk about. We used words such as “long”, “spotty”, “jumpy”, “slimy” and “sticky” as well as counting how many fingers and toes the frog had.

Indoors we explored black wooden beads in a big tray. William noticed they were the same colour as the eggs we saw. These beads have been great for developing our learning in numeracy, literacy and health and wellbeing this week.

Playing together in the big tray helps us to develop awareness of each other , to share and to work together. William, Freya, Ali, Sophia, Annie and Alfie shared containers, compared each other’s containers and discussed how many beads they might fit inside. Freya thought there might be millions.

Ali and Lottie worked together to fill the big container, taking turns to put handfuls of beads inside. Large grasping motions like these develop finger strength that is needed for writing and drawing.

David and Maisie used scoops to fill the container. They decided they were making berry juice because the beads looked like grapes.

Experimenting with filling and emptying containers develops our mathematical skills and knowledge as we learn about quantity, volume and shape.

Sophia explored how to fill one cone with beads from another cone while Lucas was interested in filling one cone by grasping one bead at a time. Grasping small objects between fingers and thumb is and important skill to learn for writing. It was interesting to discuss how only one bead can fit at the bottom of the cone and more than one can  fit at the top.

Annie filled a container with a small opening. She discovered that she had to shake it really hard and fast to get the beads out as they didn’t pour when she turned the container upside down.

Even though we have been away from nursery for a few weeks there are a lot of stories and books that continue to be favourites and have been re-visited in different ways by most children. These books have been great stimulus for us to create our own stories.

Following a walk to the Secondary Freya found a book about pond creatures. She told her friends about the different insects and animals that they might find on their next visit. Ertie, James and Annie were inspired to create a big spider’s web after seeing some spiders near the frog pond.

After being outdoors digging in the sand, William remembered that there was a book about dinosaur bones. He found the book and spent time studying the different dinosaur skeletons.

Adults in the setting read to children every day. A popular book at lunch times this week has been “Don’t put your finger in the jelly Nelly.” After hearing it a few times a group of children confidently read the story together, helping each other to remember the rhyming words and using the pictures as cues.

Mr Men books continue to be very popular and are always sought after! Max and Jackson discussed which ones to read with each other by looking at the front of the books and checking the back to see if there might be another interesting one to add to their selection. Freddie, Henry, Max and James chose two books each to read to each other. They used picture cues to help them tell the stories while pointing to the words with their fingers.

Engaging with books, re-telling stories and making up our own is an important step towards formal reading later on.

James, Joanna and Maisie built a house out of bricks, just like the little pigs did. After the house was built the big bad wolf came to blow it down! He huffed and he puffed and he huffed and he puffed…

Drawing and creating stories on paper using our own marks is also an important early step towards us becoming readers and writers in school.

Micah and Maisie created a scary jungle story which included a lion with with very very sharp teeth.

Freya created her own Gruffalo book, adding in her own creative twists to the story. She spent a long time carefully drawing the snake.

Lewis created a story by drawing two towers, cutting them out and gluing them onto white paper so that they were “in the sky”. The people in the big tower lived very high up and we wondered if the big tower was even higher than Jack’s beanstalk.

We look forward to sharing some more snippets of our learning with you next week!

This week we’ve learned more about the things that interest us, such as volcanoes and dinosaurs and so much more!

There was a very interesting find in the outdoor sand area. Bones!! Every day there was at least one new bone that was dug up. It’s been very exciting wondering what shape and size the bone was going to be! On Tuesday Ross found a jaw bone, it even had some teeth in it. Every day the children have been working together, using their talking and listening skills, co-operating and problem solving to find more bones.

SO many questions, discussions, thinking and imagining! Where did the bones come from? What creature was it? What happened? Which part of the body is this bone from?  The majority of children decided and agreed that the bones were from a dinosaur…but which ones?  They discussed Triceratops, Stegosaurus, Anklyosuarus, Spinosaurus and many more!

Bobby and Ertie wondered which part of the dinosaur, and which dinosaur, might have had a bone with a hole in it and which one had a club shape at the end of it’s bone “I tink yun is whar his eye wis” said Bobby. “Maybe this is fae an Anklyosaurus becis they had hard club tails to smash into things wi” said Ertie. Miss Manson found an interesting book for everyone to use to help them decide which dinosaurs the bones might have come from.

Jordie explored how many teeth were in the jaw bone, “dir is 20 teeth here so this dinosuar has had a lot of teeth, and they are braaly sharp.” Emmie also explored the teeth. “Dir is two wiggly teeth, I tink dir going to fall out.” We wondered why the teeth were wobbly. Some children thought the dinosaur needed to go to the dentist, some thought that it was a young dinosaur and it would grow in bigger teeth and some thought that it might be an old dinosaur.

A group of children decided it would be a good idea to display the bones they found and then to try to build a dinosaur skeleton from the bones. This required using talking and listening skills to discuss where to put the bones and how to make the skeleton. They used numeracy knowledge to compare shapes, weight and textures of the bones as well as counting how many they had found and how many bones they would still need to make the skeleton.

And indoors our dinosaur exploring led to a lot of mark making through drawing dinosaurs on the big whiteboard.

A dinosaur with “a hard spiky tail and strong legs”

One with “a long tail” and “front legs”.

And “the ultimate dinosaur that has big eyes and he is really strong and can fight.”

Our outdoor area has also been a great space to work on our balance skills, awareness of space, exploration of speed and forces and our writing and communication skills through bike play.

William, Jackson and their friends found the initial letter of their names, lined up in the right boxes and did count downs before pushing off down the hill. Later on a lot of children drew their own arrows, marks and lines to create a course to follow.  Henry used his balance and steered between the lines before turning left and heading up the hill.

Bike riding in the wet can be messy fun! A few children decided it would be a good idea to set up a cleaning station. Using the outdoor tap they filled different sized containers and buckets. We used mathematical words such as “full, nearly full, half full, empty, heavy and light” when getting the cleaning station ready.

There was a lot of group co-operation, turn taking, problem solving, mark making and discussion at the “cleaning garage”. Some bikes were dirtier than others and took more time to clean, some brushes were bigger and thicker which were good for the big parts of the bike but not so easy to use on the small areas. We discovered so much about size, materials, turn taking, angles and time during this play.

We have been very busy learning indoors as well this week, developing our scissor skills to make a volcano and flying streamers, learning about numeracy and mathematics using paper planes and creating and copying patterns in creative ways.

Developing scissor skills takes time and is not fully developed until children are 6 years old. Learning how to use scissors is important for developing fine motor muscles that are needed for a whole range of activities such as writing. Scissor activities help develop our focuss and attention skills and helps to improve our co-ordination. Co-ordination is important for helping us complete writing tasks as well being needed for independence when dressing, undressing and eating.

Snipping playdough is a great way to gain control of scissors. On Thursday children frequently visited the volcano on the table to spend time snipping, cutting and pushing through the playdough to create lava, rocks and different shapes. William, Sophia, Freya, Maggie and Sophie combined their skills to create a volcano with “flowing lava, angry lava on top and big hot rocks”.

In other areas of the nursery some children chose to create “water”, “fire” and “smoke” streamers by following lines with scissors and then flying the helicopters and aeroplanes around the setting.

There has been a lot of interest in patterns recently and this week children had opportunities to copy patterns and to create their own in different ways.

Ross made a “numbers pattern” using stones, he found the identical numbers before ordering them.

He then created colour patterns when putting on his “superpowers”. While Jackson made a Rubix cube by using lines of the same colours and then combining them into different patterns.

James, Lucas and many other children spent time trying to copy 2 colour and 3 colour patterns and creating their own this week. Maisie and Micah created yellow and red “blobs and stripes pattern” (Micah) when decorating their aeroplanes.

Flying aeroplanes has been a very popular activity this week! Taking part in this play has helped us explore gravity, force, speed, height, weight, size, angle, shape as well as helped us develop turn taking, talking, questioning and co-operation. There is so much learning that comes from a simple paper plane!

Bobby and Ross worked together, sticking on additions to their planes to see if it made them fly faster and higher. David added 10 chickens onto his plane. He discovered they needed “seatbelts” after the first flight so stuck them on with sellotape for the next attempt.

Henry and Micah experimented with different heights of take off.

James and Freddie built different heights of towers for the planes to fly over. Joanna, Thea, Lucas and James explored the different angles, force, height of take off, speed and direction needed to fly over the top!

We wish everyone a lovely Spring holiday and we are looking forward for seeing everybody in a couple of weeks for more learning adventures.

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.

Painting and mark making together helps us to share our ideas, to ask questions and to develop awareness of turn taking in conversations.

And by the end of the week we have some lovely colourful pictures on the wall to celebrate our creativity!

Since coming back to nursery we have been very busy preparing for spring by working together to tidy up the garden area, sharing space while planting bulbs outdoors and indoors and learning about flowers, plants and insects. Preparing for spring helps us to become aware of different seasons and the passing of time.

We emptied some old compost onto the mud area and flattened it down. James helped to spread it out using the shovel. Digging like this is great for developing shoulder, arm and core strength which is needed for writing activities. James counted how many shovelfuls he moved and said it was “100”!

During digging we found lots of little insects! We had a discussion about what this creature could be. It looked soft and squashy. Freddie though it might be a caterpillar, Max asked “will it bite?” and Henry wondered if it would move if he touched it. We put it back in the ground so it was safe and found out more about caterpillars and moths later by finding some books.

Becoming aware of nature is important as it helps us to understand our environment. Sharing our ideas and discussing our thoughts with each other is a vital literacy skill that we will continue to develop throughout our school years.

Maisie, Micah and William spent a lot of time discussing insects that they found, the textures of the soil and grass and wondering where the insects were going. William thought the worms would “like to stay in the soil because they have no eyes and it’s dark.”

Freya explored different seeds that she found in the tuff spot and looked at a planting book to help her decide which seeds she had found and how to plant them. “I think I have a bean like this! I need to put it into the pot and cover them over, maybe I can use some little stones and some compost.”

After planting the bulbs outdoors we are now noticing that they are growing! We have learned that plants need sunshine and water to help them grow and that we need to be gentle to them when exploring. Maisie, Maggie and Freya discussed the plants. “You can’t see the roots, they are under the soil and now the flower is pretty!” said Freya. “Oh look dis one is stripey!” Said Maisie. “And is has nectar!” said Freya.

We have heard some great describing words this week when discussing our flowers, words such as “spiky, jaggy, stripey, round, squashy!”

Helping to grow plants both outdoors and indoors, knowing what they need to grow and learning the names for their basic parts is an important science skill.

Our indoor planting has been popular too. Ertie chose a purple shovel and counted 10 scoops into the cylinder to cover his seed. He thinks it “will grow right big.”

Lottie helped Miss Simpson cut and tie the string for everyone’s names. She thought the plants were maybe sleeping.

Our planting activities and the books about spring have been great inspiration for some beautiful mark making this week.

Ertie and Ali used flower pictures as inspiration.

Sophie, Sophia and Freya chose to create lots of different flower pictures.

And Bobby, Harry and Alfie chose really big bits of paper to create their gardening and growing pictures.

There will be more beautiful spring inspired mark making in next week’s blog!

And finally we said happy 4th birthday to Ali 🙂

Firstly, thank you all for sending back the feedback sheets, we are working through them and getting great ideas for our planning.

We’ve celebrated World Book Day this week by listening to stories and rhymes, acting out our own stories and “reading” to each other.

Maisie read a familiar story about preparing to blast off in a rocket. She read it to Lewis and Micah and used picture cues to help her tell the story.

Stanley spent time looking at a shapes book and then enhanced the story by making a 3D train by finding the correct shaped blocks.

Emily Robertson has been warmly welcomed to the team at the end of the week. She has been a popular story reader! Freya helped her read the favourite rocket book this week while Joanna and Maggie listened.

Henry and Sophia created their own story at the playpark. Henry- “I’ll drive the car so we can get there.” Sophia- “yes go that way.” Henry -“We need to get to the shop”. Sophia- “I buy things for my baby” Sophia.

Micah also created her own story about an exciting ferry journey! The people in the cars were going to Lerwick. What was going to happen there? “Some magic”.

Micah, Freddie, Max, Emmie and Henry told each other stories about “going to school” and took turns at being “the teacher”. They went on lots of adventures together! Telling stories and using mark making as part of stories is an important Literacy skill to develop.

Story telling continued outside too. Lucas “wrote” a story using water and Joanna read out what ingredients they were going to need to make their cakes.

And Freya and Jackson acted out parts of The three Billy Goats Gruff by trip trapping over the big high bridge!

This week we welcomed three children to nursery! Alfie, Lucas and Sophie. They all drew lovely pictures during the first week.

We also celebrated a 5th birthday. Before snack time Joanna and her friends made playdough cakes with different numbers and then we had real cupcakes for a birthday snack.

And finally Happy Birthday to Maggie on Sunday!

Wow it’s great to be back! We are so delighted to see the children back in the setting again and, considering the length of time they have been away, they have all settled back in so well and seem very pleased to see each other and to get learning through play.

This week has been all about settling in, re-establishing friendships, starting to make new friends, re-discovering the nursery areas and getting back into the routine.

The outdoor space has provided us with so many opportunities for group play and co-operation.

We did a lot of digging in the big sand area, sharing tools, taking turns and talking about what treasures and objects we might find. Annie asked for her legs to be buried under the sand. Harry and Elsie worked together to make this happen.

Our new outdoor water tap has proved to be a big hit. Children took turns to fill different sized containers with water and then used it in their imaginary play. Maggie, Joanna and Emmie painted the decking of their house and Freya, Harry and Maisie painted pictures and made marks as part of their police play.

Harry and William spent time catching and cleaning dinosaurs together.

Building obstacle courses to stay out of “the lava” and “the water” helped us work together and share our ideas. Freya discovered that the See-Saw was nice and long to shuffle across but when placed on a slope gravity pulled everyone off and they splashed into the ground giggling!!

The boat has also been a great place to share play, ideas and space. James and Freya caught a lot of fish. Ali rowed to the pier so that the delivery person could take the “cheese” on board.

Snack and lunch times help us to learn and to follow daily routines, to sit down together and to share personal space. Pasta was very popular this week and we all tried hard to use our forks to stab the single pieces!

We have shared personal space and our thoughts and ideas when building using Lego blocks, Duplo blocks and the big blocks this week.

James and Ertie worked together, deciding where to put the blocks and discussing what they were building.

Jackson and Jordie took their time to balance blocks when making “a human”. They took turns to put a block on top. James, Lewis, Harry and Max built a long road to the ferry terminal and discussed what time the ferry was leaving. A lot of cars missed the boat and had to wait for the next sailing!

Harry and Sophia shared Lego and played alongside each other building their own designs.

Working together and solving problems in the water and sand trays helped us to ask each other questions and give instructions. James and Jackson explored how to twist and screw lids to keep the water inside and then listened to each other and worked together to fill containers.

Ertie wanted to build a sandcastle and asked Sophia to help knock it into place.

During pretend play in the home corner Max and Freddie discussed phone numbers so they could call different people. Micah waited for them to dial her number so she could chat.

Freya taught Elsie how to make a volcano using playdough. There was a lot of discussion about the shape it needed to be.

And Maggie decided to design boxes for her “insects”. She explained her ideas to Joanna who then decided to design a box as well.

Finally, we welcomed Thea into nursery this week. She drew a lovely picture to mark her first day 🙂

Here’s the activities grid for the week. It’s a short week this week so we have included less activities. Remember there is no pressure to do all/any of these activities. They are here for you to dip in to and to give you an idea of some things that your child might do in nursery. Also feel free to re-visit anything that was enjoyable over the last few weeks. Share your learning with us if you can and thank you for the feedback, updates and photos that we have been getting 🙂 Have a lovely long weekend.

Whalsay Early Years Home Learning Grid 15th Feb

It’s been great to receive so many updates and photos again this week and to see and hear what teh children have been learning about and enjoying. Thank you.

Outdoor learning has continued to be, quite rightly, popular again this week.

James found an icicle when out walking, it was quite spiky and very cold! At home he used different tools to try to break some ice that had toys inside. Playing with ice and snow teaches us about material science concepts.

Stanley has spent a lot of time outdoors these weeks too. He understands that he needs to wrap up warm in his snowsuit and boots and he loves his new furry trapper hat from his brother. Good choice of clothes Stanley! It’s certainly been weather for trapper hats! He’s rolled big snowballs and found sheep prints in the snow.

Bobby worked in partnership with his brother to build a snowmouse outside. They spoke about the features of a mouse and included the ears and pointy nose.

And Thea made an igloo which used lots of snow to build!

On Thursday Lottie experiences playing in the snow and the sand as there was a huge ebb at the beach. It’s great to use nature to learn about different textures and weather. She loved walking on the sand and throwing stones in the water. The stones were wet and sandy which meant one of her mittens got dirty. On the way home she said she was like one of the kittens that soiled their mittens from her favourite nursery rhyme – “Three little kittens”.

Stanley also practised his throwing and catching skills this week with his auntie. He was great at watching the ball and timing his throw and catch.

Harry did some great mark making outdoors using calk. He completed the circles to make a colourful family portrait. It’s great to draw outdoors on big flat surfaces as it helps develop shoulder stability and arm control needed for later writing activities.

Painting and baking have been popular indoor learning activities this week.

James helped to bake a cake. He used the hand whisk to mix all the ingredients together and made sure there were no lumps.

And Stanley helped bake a chocolate cake which he chose to decorate with animals.

Thea made very gooey gloop and explored how it felt to move different objects in it and how it felt on her fingers. Great activities for developing future writing skills.

Bobby used baking time to practice his counting and grouping skills. He tried hard to count currants, take ones away and add ones on to make the groups the same. He also used cocktail sticks in playdough to learn number quantities.

It’s always good to find time to relax. Bobby and his brother did some breathing activities and meditation.

James and Ross painted pictures and Joanna and Sophie relaxed with threading activities.

And there has been lots of reading and listening to stories and nursery rhymes this week. Favourite books include “Don’t stick your finger in the jelly Nelly”, Little House by the Sea”, “The storm whale” and big nursery rhyme books. Favourite rhymes this week have included “Sing a song of sixpence”, “1,2,3,4,5” as well as Cbeebies and Mother Goose Club.

Here’s the activities grid for the week. Remember there is no pressure to do all/any of these activities. They are here for you to dip in to and to give you an idea of some things that your child might do in nursery. Also feel free to re-visit anything that was enjoyable over the last few weeks. Share your learning with us if you can and thank you for the feedback, updates and photos that we have been getting 🙂

Whalsay Early Years Home Learning Grid 8th Feb

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ANOTHER(!) week of snow which has been fantastic for learning outdoors and developing our thinking skills and curiosity.

Finding and making prints in the snow has led us to ask lots of questions and to wonder, which are both important literacy skills.

Thea found horse prints, bird prints, her own footprints and Sidney the cat’s prints! I wonder where Sidney was going and where he had been?

Ali found prints on the road to his house, he wondered if they might be frog prints but after a bit of discussion thought it might be a cat. I wonder if it was Sidney?

Harry also found animal prints which he described as “hopping foot prints” and thought it might be a “peerie bird”.

Bobby found lots of footprints in the snow too and some ice prints too.

Joanna and Sophie made prints in the snow while pulling each other on the sledge. It was hard work pulling. Sophie realised that having someone sit on the sledge made it heavier to pull!

David also made marks in the snow with his sledge and he noticed that the first snowdrop of the year was poking it’s head out from under the snow. A lovely sight and a sign that we are getting more hours of sunlight 🙂

Making marks, printing and drawing has also continued to be a popular indoor activity this week as well.

Ali used paint and cutters to make his own colourful print pictures.

Thea painted her hands and feet and made prints with them.

Bobby drew around his superhero characters and studied the shapes they made.

Thea drew a picture of her favourite book “Spot the dog”.  She did a great job making sure she included all four legs and his spots in the picture.

Joanna and Sophie practised developing their fine motor skills for mark making and writing by doing threading activities and using chop sticks. Joanna also created pictures using aqua beads which are great for helping to develop a pincer grip for writing.

Bobby also used his mark making skills to help him learn number quantities. He drew the number of circles beside the numeral and then used his Duplo to make number steps.

Lottie has also enjoyed working with numbers this week. She liked watching the numbers songs on CBeebies which inspired her to do some number activities on her own. She completed her number jigsaw and counted the rings to check that they matched the number. It’s always good to check your answer!    

She also chose to sort the number cookies in her cookie jar and with a bit of help she managed to sort them from 0-10.

Joanna has been developing her problem solving skills by learning to play chess over the past few weeks.

While Bobby has spent a lot of time this week constructing Duplo, learning about gravity, design and problem solving while transforming Duplo creations into different things such as a car, a robot, a camera, a lighthouse, a radio and a gun.

And David has used the outdoors to learn about speed, height and depth when jumping peat banks in the hill and learned about water and how it changes into ice when exploring at the Houll loch.