Category Archives: Sciences

In Early Years this week..

 

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

Have a nice long weekend! :)

 

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!     

In Early Years this week..

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”.

Another cold week

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.

 

Sunflowers

Looking at the seeds

 

Today we were planting sunflower seeds together.

We filled up the pots with compost and made a hole with a stick then we popped in the seed.

Everyone has their own pot with their name on it.

We decided that the most sunny spot was the window sill.

We are excited to watch them grow.

 

 

Making the soil ready for the seed
Pressing down the soil
Helping Mrs Gilfillan with the seed

OUT & ABOUT

The Spring tide was so high there was no beach!

it was such a lovely day last week that we had an early snack and spent two hours exploring near the school. First of all we went to the Taing beach and discovered there was no beach! The tide was really high. We found lots of stones and had fun throwing them into the sea. We tried different styles of throwing to see which one worked the best.

Throwing stones in the sea
We found a Scaddie Man’s Head (sea urchin)
One of the frog spawn lumps we found
Searching for frog spawn
We found a big lump of frog spawn in the ditch

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the beach we went for a walk in the Stromfirth road to look for frog spawn. We were lucky to find two big lumps. We are looking forward to going back soon to see if there are tadpoles or even frogs!

Dynamic Earth – Deep Sea Workshop

We had a visit today from Catriona from Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh, who did a Deep Sea Workshop with us.

We heard the story of Charlie who lived near the beach and how he was searching for a silver bracelet.

We looked at animations on the interactive board of rock pools and sea creatures. We took turns to put our hands into ‘Rock Pool Boxes’ to feel the contents and see if we could guess what it was.

Catriona showed us how some sea creatures blow bubbles and then we had fun catching bubbles from her big bubble machine.

Catriona told us about Charlie who lived by the sea
Feely, rock pool boxes
Trying to decide what’s inside
Playing a fishing game
Searching for the bracelet with our fishing rods
We all took turns with the magnetic fishing rods
A shark!
Looking at creatures that produce there own lights

We also had scents from the sea we could smell in little containers. One pupil said that the blue container made him feel calm – it was the scent of ‘Sea Breeze’. We all thought the green one was very stinky! – It smelt like rotten fish and seaweed.

We explored a big roll out mat of the sea floor, spotting different sea creatures and someone found the missing bracelet!

We all had great fun and remembered to say thank-you to Catriona before she left.

ICY ADVENTURES

Broken bits of ice
In a boggy part
The north wind was cold on our hands and faces
Fun on the see-saw
Footprints
We listened out for the scrunching sound when the ice broke
We broke the ice in the puddles

We went for a play over in Strom Park today. We thought of three different ways to play.

We showed good turn-taking on the see-saw and really enjoyed that.

Others played a chasing game on the ramp to the clubhouse door and the rest of us spent time breaking the ice in in the boggy puddles. We enjoyed listening to the scrunching sound as the ice broke, and noticed how water turns to ice then melts again.

We took great care walking there and chose the safest routes away from icy areas to reach our destination. We realised that the grass was the safest place to walk.  We had to go back to nursery when our hands and noses were freezing cold!