We chose our ‘Light and Dark’ topic when the children began to show a lot of interest in the torches in our library area. They began by switching them on and off to find out what would happen. They discovered that they could see the effect of a torch best when they shined it on the nursery ceiling with the lights off. Soon afterwards, a big, dark tent appeared in the nursery garden and the children began to take the torches into the tent. We provided the children with different materials (cloth, paper, foil, etc.) and they investigated what happened when they put the materials in front of the torches. When the children discovered that they could see shadows in the tent, we set about making shadow puppets using our hands, the torches and some white paper.
Our topic enabled us to have many interesting discussions. First, the children talked to each other about how to identify when it was daytime and when it was night time. Most children said they used the sun, moon and street lights as key indicators of times of the day. We decided to study the sky during the day to investigate what we could see. This led to the creation of a light and dark wall display. Soon, the children progressed on to discussing what they did at different times of the day. For example, brushing their teeth in the morning or staying up late to play instead of sleeping at night! We sang songs about this and acted out scenarios in our house corner. Outside, Mrs Martin talked to the children about potatoes and how they grow in the dark. The children then dug some of them up and ate them at snack.
In our library corner, we read stories which told us about day and night. We enjoyed playing with puppets to retell stories such as ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy. We also discussed the themes of these books (night, day, daily routines, bedtime, the sun, moon and stars, etc.) during group time. We liked the story of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ so much that we had a PJ day and had porridge for snack. The porridge was loved by some, disliked by many, unfortunately!
Our topic took a new direction when the children discovered that some minibeasts like dark places! This led us on several minibeast hunts in our garden. It also got the children talking about which animals come out during the day and which come out at night. Furthermore, this presented us with the opportunity to support the children to develop their observation skills and numeracy skills through looking closely at the features of different insects and animals. We helped the children to discuss the shapes and colours they could see and encouraged them to count legs, eyes, spots, stripes and wings. The children were especially excited when they came into nursery to find minibeasts (plastic) hiding in the grass (green spaghetti) on their maths table. They began to count the different types of insects as well as order them by size and by features.
We have had fantastic time learning about light and dark. We hope the children have been sharing their learning with you at home. As the children are now showing a great deal of interest in construction activities, we have decided our new topic should be ‘Houses and Homes’. Please let us know if you would like to help us in any way with this topic or if your child has any specific interests around this theme.
