This week new shovels and buckets arrived which inspired us to get digging! We shared our new resources and our ideas as we created castles, brochs and moats of different sizes. As we discussed our ideas we used our numeracy and literacy skills as we worked together, listened to each other and solved problems such as sand amount, consistency and best digging technique. We used our new buckets to fill moats with water to “stop the monsters getting in”. As we poured water into sand we started to use this in different ways. We made cement and created construction sites. We dug holes as deep as we could, taking turns, giving each other encouragement and advice as we dug, checking how wide and deep our holes were and then filled these holes with water too.
During our digging we often found “treasure” which included “diamonds, crystals, gold and emelllarlds (emeralds)” We found a little pot to clean our treasures so we could see them better. We used a lot of language when discussing and comparing our treasures. “My wan is green and shiny”, “look at dis it’s gotten aa smooth noo”, “I tink dis is a piece o a shell, it has runkled bits.” Discussing the features of our treasures and using, and learning, descriptive words is great for our literacy development.
Our new buckets were well used at the water hose this week too. We quickly discovered that filling them all the way to the top made them too heavy to carry so we used other utensils to scoop water from the buckets and transport it to where we wanted. The water was used to make a selection of soups and hot drinks. It was poured down pipes and through pipes to create “drains” and used to create “waterfalls”, puddles and swamps. Playing with water in these ways increases our numeracy skills as we learn about weight, volume and amount, direction and speed.
Indoors our interest in castle building and pouring was also obvious as we used large and small blocks to create towers and castles and spent time making “sandfalls” using a funnel in the sand area.
As we discussed how moats around our castles outdoors stopped unwanted visitors this interest in boundary lines extended into other areas of our play. We created “stop” and “do not enter” signs, created barriers using natural resources and cones outdoors. Indoors we made bridges and with blocks that could be walked over and also acted as a barrier to movement. Some of us had a great idea of making a domino barrier and, with a little support, created domino paths of different lengths and shapes.
As you can see we have developed lots of literacy, numeracy and social skills through our play this week and have been able to extend our interests throughout all spaces in the nursery. We look forward to sharing more with you next week.
