This week we’d like you to have a general peek at some of our interests and learning that’s been evolving throughout the week.

Outdoors we have been very interested in digging. Digging puddles to make them deeper, digging out water to make puddles dry, digging in the sand to make rabbit holes and digging to create ditches  for different lengths of “water pipes”. Using tools to dig develops our hand eye co-ordination as well as core, shoulder, arm and wrist strength needed for writing. We also learn a lot about mathematics while digging as we explore depth, volume, measurement and amount. We’ve also been busy creating hot drinks, soups and fish dishes in the mud kitchen. This play has also seen us dig as well as scoop, stir, mix, count and explore measure, volume and weight.

Indoors we’ve been developing our finger and hand strength by baking healthy birthday banana muffins and creating pies, pizzas, pancakes and do-nuts at the playdough table. There has been some interesting concoctions in the home corner and sand tray, including pear smoothies, strawberry milkshake coffees and cup of hot blue soup for resting fire officers.

 

Police and Fire officers have been a topic of conversation, interest and play this week. Miss Sandison, Miss Manson and Miss Stewart found some books and Smartboard clips on the topic and gathered some interesting objects linked to police and fire officers to stimulate discussion about what these people do and how they help us. We want to find out more about police dogs, police horses and how police arrest “baddies” next week. During the week we have cordoned off dangerous areas, taken notes about crimes, directed traffic, driven police cars to find baddies, made multiple arrests and taken on different roles as part of prison play.

 

Our police and fire play extended throughout the nursery setting. We built “jails” and “police offices”, fire engines and police cars using the blocks and used the home corner as a police station, fire station and prison. Our note taking expanded into other creative avenues too as we painted stories about police and fire and made notes, signs and pictures to enhance parts of other role play and imaginative play during the week.

And of course our blocks were extensively used as part of our continued ferry and boat play this week too! We created long roads, ramps, piers and berthing areas as part of our play. Some of us also chose to make walkways and stepping stones and to build obstacles to balance on and step over. Using the blocks as part of group play helps us to develop very important talking and listening skills and teaches us how to negotiate and co-operate.

As you can see there’s been a lot of learning going on across all areas of the curriculum through our play! We would like to wish you all a happy long weekend 🙂