Category Archives: Expressive Arts

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy, Mathematics, Outdoor Play

In Early Years this week..

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Children’s imaginative conversations throughout their play this week: 

“Would you like to buy a ticket for center parks and go on trampolines?” – “It costs sixty pounds”.

“Will I mix it fast or slow?”

“I’m cooking pancakes”.

“Can we have the train track?”

“If you fill out your details on this form it will take you to where you want to go”.

“I’m making a fire, fire is orange”.

“We need to make sure we stay away from the fire”.

“I’m drawing a boat and a fire, that’s the propeller- It spins around and it makes the boat go really fast”.

“You just add a little bit of yellow to orange to make it lighter, or some white”.

“Can you help me write I love you Mam, you are the best ever?”.

We created a variety of patterns with beads and thread, sequencing colours, we then measured the length using rulers and measuring sticks.

We baked some healthy banana pancakes for a 4th Birthday. We said “I can crack three eggs by myself” and did great measuring, pouring and mixing.

Following on from The Children’s interests of reptiles last week we added a variety outdoors. We said “Snakes and lizards are reptiles” and “Snakes are my most favourite thing in the planet.

We used the wood outdoors to stack and balance on then we problem solved which lengths were the same and could balance to create ramps for once another to walk on.

We practiced our cutting skills using magazines and then wanted to stick the pieces on our blackboard.

We were speaking about ‘Fairies’ so decided we would create some  ‘Fairy finders’ to help us find some outdoors, the sparkles led us to find some, we said it was “Magical”.

We’ve had various things in the sand this week which have been set up by the Children- We’ve had a ‘Tea party’, ‘Zoo’ and then ‘Treasure’. This then led on to having the Pirate Ship out and we created our own Pirate treasure maps to follow, we even stained them with teabags to make them look more realistic.

We asked for a hairdressers to be set up, We’ve had some great ‘hairdressers’ and ‘make up artists’ styling our head models (And teachers).

We discovered we now have six frogs in our pond and they’ve laid some frog spawn, we even heard them croaking this week, We thought they were ‘speaking’ to one another.

By the trees we found sticks and baby pinecones to add to the small house, we said we were “Making a bird nest” and then added some grass to “Make it comfy for them”.

We had a great time digging for mud to ‘cook’ with. We said we were making ‘Mint pies’, ‘Chocolate cupcakes’, ‘Tattie wedges’ and ‘Porridge because we’re camping’. We used great imagination with the loose parts whilst ‘cooking’.

We all wore red for Red Nose Day & planted ‘The red nose that grows’ which was kindly donated by a parent, we hope over the next few weeks it’ll blossom into lovely flowers.

I am very grateful to everyone for making my last day in Whiteness so special and will miss you all very much, thanks so much for all your kind words and gifts.

Miss Hay x

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy, Mathematics, Outdoor Play, Sciences

In Early Years this week..

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After seeing some real frog spawn we created our own using chai seeds, water and food colouring, we said-

“It’s all gloopy”.

“It’s like a sticky pool”.

“It’s gooey”

“My fog spawn is giant”.

“They’re moving around, wiggling”.

We found a slater and a blue bottle in Nursery this week, we spoke about what features they both had, where they live and what they might like to eat.

We used some pegs and cotton wool to paint with this week, discovering they made circles. There has been lots more fantastic junk modelling this week along with practicing our cutting skills by cutting out pictures for crafts.

We got messy painting our hands to make special cards for those that are special to us for Mothers Day.

We worked together to create ramps for the cars to flow down, we discovered if we put the pipe at the bottom of the wood it would catch the cars.

We risk took outdoors to climb then reach up high to clean the black board because it was “Very messy”. We then went on to clean our boat as it was “All dirty”.

We said we “Opened a zoo” with the reptiles, we used soapy water to ‘bath them’. There was some great imagination used and the reptiles got well look after. We said-

“The zoo is closed now”

“What time does it close at?” –

“1 o clock”.

We then went on to create a house for them with the blocks indoors, we usedloose parts as ‘blankets’, we named them “Firey”, “Greeney” and “Spikey” and said it took “116 blocks to build their house”.

We celebrated World Book Day so have read lots of different books this week including- ‘The Smartest Giant in town’, Various ‘Saper Tato’ books, ‘The Smeds and the Smoo’s’ & ‘The Gruffalo’ & ‘The Tiger who came to tea’ & ‘Shark in the park’. There were some brilliant costumes on the day, even the teachers dressed up as ‘Super Tato’, ‘Evil pea’ and ‘Stickman’.

We had a visit from a parent who is a Surgical nurse, she spoke to us about her job role and showed us some equipment she uses, she even let us have a shot of some of it.

We’ve continued to ‘Fix things’ in the ‘Garage’ and around the nursery using the tools like a ‘mechanic’ would, we discussed what the different tools would do and parts of the cars.

We’re still liking mixing our own colours so we got to independently do this using pumps to add to our pots.

We did lots of mark making in the polytunnel after visiting our pond where we discovered there was now four frogs in there.

We finished the week with a picnic in the polytunnel, we even read a Super Tato story in there. We then used the parachute, speaking about the movements in it with the wind, the colours we could see and following instructions well as to how to hold and move it.

We’ve had a few parents send in  photos for our achievement wall in Nursery, we’d love to add some more so if you’d like us to put them up please email-

lindsey.hay2@shetland.gov.uk

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy, Mathematics, Outdoor Play

What we’ve been up to this week

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Children’s voice from activities this week:

“Foxes eat mice”.

“I’ve made a garage, I’m going to park all the cars inside”.

“We were playing witches and making potions”.

“I’m making soup”.

“I liked playing in the pretend car”.

“I’m dropping off and picking up”.

“I’m going to the hairdressers”.

Some of us had an interest in foxes this week so have learnt some facts about them and other nocturnal animals, we created some forest pictures inspired by some of the books we read. We then created our own owls out of kitchen roll tubes and loose parts, we said “Their eyes glow”, “They go twit twoo twit twoo” and “They’re at the forest at night”.

We seen some signs of spring on the trees, some buds were appearing. We discovered another tree that was broken, we thought it might have been because of the strong winds.

We still interest in cars so have set up a ‘Garage’ in Early Years this week, there were lots of cars needing repaired to ensure they were safe to drive, we repaired them then took them for ‘test drives’. This then led on to having a ‘bus’ and an ‘plane’ where they role played boarding the bus and plane using ‘tickets’ and spoke about how the travel safely.

A block garage was created for all of the small cars, we had to create a sign so the cleaner didn’t knock it down as it was still ‘Under construction’.

We went for a walk in Strom Road and discovered some frog spawn, there was lots & we thought it would feel “sticky” and “slimy”.  We then went on to discuss the lifecycle of a frog and the process from frog spawn to frog. We then seen two frogs in our pond and thought we could call one of them “Neil”, We looked closely at their features discovering they had spots on their back, two long legs and thought their feet looked like “flippers”.

We got a delivery of new helmets for our bikes so decided to paint the box, add pieces of junk and loose parts and use it as “A Car”.

We got a new box for ‘Wonderful things’ so asked the children What kind of things they’d like to add to the box and they had some great ideas-

“Flowers”.

“Seaglass”.

“Some books”.

We then looked at some treasures Miss Hay & Mrs Gilfillan had found whilst they’d been at the beach, recognizing the shapes of the different pebbles, shells and seaglass.

We decided to practice our counting skills by playing ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf’ outdoors, we held up how many fingers each time for each other to follow the instructions of what time it was and how many steps to take forward.

We measured our plant and discovered it had grown more and it now measures 24.5cm.

We found lots of different sized sticks outdoors and decided to take them back to Nursery. We then did some problem solving to put them in size order from the longest to the shortest.

A Shanarri superstar award was given for being respectful, helpful and showing good listening skills all week, well done! 🙂

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy, Mathematics, Outdoor Play, Sciences

Have a nice long weekend! :)

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Our main focus has been ‘Road Safety’ this week after a big interest in cars, we had a visit from our lollypop lady who explained to us her job role and showed us how she safely gets people across the road. We have a pupil who crosses the road every day using the lollypop lady.  We went for a walk in the Strom Road to see what road signs we cold spot, speaking about which shapes each was. This gave us the idea to create our own signs at the craft table and spoke about what each sign means for both people and cars. We were very creative and used the junk to create our own traffic lights and acted out the role of the lollypop person to safely people across the road.

We looked at shapes around our environment after observing what shapes some of the road signs were. We were great at noticing what shapes different objects were.

We made some ‘Moon dough’ for our sensory play this week, we said- “It feels like foam”, “It’s sticky” & “It feels like ice cream”.

We visited the polytunnel, we liked the number grid and circled around the numbers which were ages of people we knew & stacked up the cushions to see how high we could get them.

We added new loose parts in our indoor outdoor area and children chose colours to mix with them & said “I’ve mixed blue and yellow so now I have green”.

We had some lovely sun beaming in our window so could see reflections on our wall from our sparkly jumpers.

We made a stage using the blocks again and pretended to have our own concert where we performed for one another, we decided it was a ticketed event & created tickets for one another.

We said goodbye to Miss Young 🙁 We wish her all the best in her new job & will miss her very much!     

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy, Mathematics, Outdoor Play, Sciences

In Early Years this week..

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We’ve had a lot going on this week! 

Our Kitchen turned into a Chinese Restaurant for Chinese New Year, we learn all about the Chinese traditions, things they like to wear and eat and all about The celebration.

Seeing how big our puddle outdoors had gotten with all the rain lead to lots of running, jumping & splashing & seeing who could make the biggest splash. We even tested out which objects could float and which sunk in the puddle.

There were some big hail stones that came down, we gathered some in a bowl and had a closer look at them using the magnifying glass.

Lots of family portraits were drawn outdoors on our chalk board this week.

We baked pancakes for Pancake Day then spread them ourselves. We even had a shot at flipping some pretend ones which we made using playdough ingredients, we then used loose parts to decorate them. We said-

“I’m using strawberries for my topping”.

“I’m putting sauce on my pancake”.

“I like honey on my pancake”.

We celebrated Valentines Day, We spoke about what ‘Love’ means & created some crafts for those we love. We made some ‘Love potions’ & liked having red rice for our sensory activity this week. We then had a red / heart themed snack & the canteen gave us heart shaped shortbread for our pudding.

We had some visitors that came to read us a story, & do some songs & rhymes with us (Chloe & Bookbug). We were great at remembering the words to sing along & even learn a new song about ‘A peerie spider’.

We’ve been doing lots of colour mixing with the paint this week, we then read the book called ‘Mixed’ which is inspired by colour.

We’re loving music this week, we followed the dance moves on the interactive whiteboard then created out own music with the instruments.

We used beads & string to copy sequences and patterns and spoke about the different shapes and sizes of beads we had.

We played Bingo, this was great for our number recognition, listening and following instructions.

We took a trip to the beach, it was a very wavy day & we found some “treasure” & a “baby starfish”.

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy, Outdoor Play, Sciences

Another cold week

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Another week of snow!! We’ve had lots of fun playing in it. We danced in it, we made snow angels, snow balls & searched for numbers in it & even added colours to it & said it was “An ice potion”.

We continued our interest in cars & made a ramp using pieces of wood outdoors this time, we problem solved to see how many pieces we would need for the big vehicles to fit down & figured 3 worked well.

We liked having Mr Travins back in playing us some music and singing us some songs.

We had Childsmile in observing our brilliant toothbrush skills, we got some stickers for being top brushers!

We did lots of problem solving with the blocks to make ‘Houses’ big enough for each other and for Paddington too!

We baked some scones, we had to measure, pour, mix and kneed the mixture before baking them to eat for snack.

We had The Nesting & Girlsta Up Helly Aa in to visit us so we could show off our helmets and shield we had made.

We started making speaking about Chinese New Year so made some lanterns out of sliced paper and craft materials.

 

Expressive Arts, Health and Wellbeing, Literacy, Mathematics, Outdoor Play

January Snaps

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Waw, What a busy month We’ve had in Early Years!  

We’ve created lots using various different size and shaped blocks-

“It’s Paddington’s Tower”.

“It’s a tower”.

“It’s Paddington’s House”.

“It’s  a puppy house”.

” It’s a chair”.

“I’m making a tower bigger than me”.

We had a new child start in the setting and celebrated a 4th Birthday. We have been helping the teachers prepare snack and set the table each meal time, we were great at counting how many plates and cups were needed each time.

Mrs Gilfillan brought in an Amaryllis for us to plant, We’re checking on it every week to water it and measuring for growth.

Show & tell is on going and We’ve been great at listening to one another and asking questions about each others items from home, We’ve become a lot more confident and willing to speak in front of the class with this.

We’ve been loving messy play and helped make some different coloured slime and playdough.

We liked having some Grandparents in for stay & play.

From making garages and ramps out of junk for our cars to making our own Galley boat, helmets and shields as we go into The ‘Up Helly Aa’ Season, we’ve been very creative in Early Years. We’ve learnt lots about Vikings and what Up Helly Aa means to us and even got to meet two Vikings that were in the Lerwick Up Helly Aa (Thanks so much for visiting and letting us having a look and hold of the equipment). We even learn about the burning of Galleys, how fire is made and how to  safely manage a fire as well as put one out, we even got a special treat of marshmallows that we had toasted on the fire.