How lovely to think that it’s the first day of Spring today. There are plenty of signs of new life all around us and we have been very busy spotting them! There are bulbs growing in the Nursery flowerbeds, pink blossom on the tree outside Mr Quinn’s office and we think there might even be a robin nesting in our garden shed!
We have been talking about growth and change and encouraging the children to use lots of comparative language. The story of ‘Titch’ by Pat Hutchins is a lovely way to introduce the ideas of size difference. You can revisit the story here – you might like to turn the sound off and read it yourself. Do you think you might know what Titch’s tiny seed grew into?
We thought it was probably a giant sunflower! Here’s an incredible time lapse video of a sunflower growing from a tiny seed into a tall plant before finally flowering. We were all fascinated!
At the end of the video, you’ll notice the sunflower starts to wither and droop as it comes to end of its time to flower…but this is not the end of the story! We read ‘Billy’s Sunflower’ by Nicola Moon and Karin Littlewood to help us understand what happens next in the life-cycle of the sunflower and how the seeds it produces can be planted to grow into new plants! You can read this story again at home using the video below.
After all this reading, thinking and talking about seeds, plants, flowers, soil, petals and stems we had to, of course, plant our own tiny seeds just like Titch and Billy!
And we have also started work on a beautiful sunflower display using paper plates and bubble wrap:
Once we have finished our sunflower display we will, of course, share it with you!
Have a lovely weekend everyone and see you on Monday!
It has been yet another busy week in Nursery! Not only did we join in with the rest of the school as they marked Remembrance Day and Black History Month but, as always, we found plenty of time for learning through play. We also had Parents Evenings and I do hope everyone found their meeting helpful and informative. Thank you very much for taking the time to come along.
On Monday, the big children at school got together for a special Remembrance Day assembly. Each class had made a poppy wreath, organised by our Art Coordinator Mrs Bibby, and these were placed on the prayer table in the big hall.
Two of our Nursery children went into the assembly to present Mr Quinn with our wreath and later in the morning, at 11am, we took a pause from our play to spend two minutes thinking quietly about all the very brave people in the world. We watched a delightful CBeebies animation which helped us complete the two minutes silence. You can watch it again here.
Later in the week, we joined the rest of the school once again, by contributing to a whole-school exhibition of children’s work to mark Black History Month. Mr Stocking, who is our History & Geography Coordinator, gave each class the name of a famous black person to research and be inspired by. In Nursery, we were inspired by the famous children’s television presenter Floella Benjamin. Back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, a television programme called Play School appeared on television sets around the UK. One of the segments was a short film about the real world which was introduced through a square, round or arched window. Floella was one of the presenters of ‘Play School’ and you can read more about her here.
Taking inspiration from these shape windows, we decided to have a look through all the many different shaped windows in our Nursery (both inside and outside). The children took their own photographs on the Ipad of the images they could see as they looked through the different shapes. We hope you will agree that the resulting images are quite fantastic! Who knew that 3 and 4 years could be such amazing photographers!
The exhibition was on display during Parents Evenings this week but, don’t worry, if you didn’t get a chance to see it, we will be displaying the photographs in our classroom soon, so do look out for them at drop-off.
Back in the classroom, we are always looking for new hands-on, sensory experiences for the children that encourage the development of their fine motor skills. We thought coloured rice might provide such an experience but, instead of colouring it for them, we decided to set them the challenge of colouring it themselves! At the start of the week, the children discovered plain rice in the water tray and spent much of the morning pouring, scooping and sieving…
The following day, we removed all the water and gave the children soap pumps filled with blue or red food colouring.
After a morning of pumping and mixing, the children were fascinated to discover that the rice was turning red, blue and, in some places, purple!
The next day, we removed the rice from the water tray and spread it out on a tuff tray under the heater to encourage it to dry out. Doesn’t it look wonderfully colourful!
During our story time sessions, we followed last week’s reading of Pumpkin Soup with the stories of The Gigantic Turnip and The Enormous Potato. Both are, of course, twists on the classic ‘Enormous Turnip’ story.
Finally, we read ‘The Enormous Watermelon’ which…
…you can rediscover here…(remember to turn off the sound and read the story yourself)…look out for the pictures which give a clue as to the next character who will come and help to pull the watermelon out!
Finally, after all that talk of planting and growing, the children were thrilled to have the chance to plant their own bulbs in the garden. They all followed the instructions very carefully to make sure the bulbs were placed into the soil the right way up and then gently covered them over with soil. We can hardly wait to watch our bulbs sprout, grow and blossom.
“they will grow tomorrow”
“they will grow after Christmas”
“they will grow in Spring”
We hope everyone is having a lovely weekend, see you on Monday!
As people across the country looked forward to heading out into the cold, Autumnal nights to keep warm around the bonfire and watch the night-sky light up with fireworks, we were busy enjoying our very own firework display and campfire in the classroom! Don’t worry, we all kept safe with the firework display provided by several youtube clips on the interactive whiteboard and the campfire consisting of wooden logs, orange tissue paper and lots of imagination!
Several weeks ago, we had noticed that the children were particularly interested in the idea of “going camping”. So, we decided to support their learning through play with the creation of a campsite complete with tent, sleeping bags, camping pillows, camping chairs and, of course, torches!
The children absolutely loved their campsite and quickly set to work, rolling the playdough into sausages, ready to be cooked on the open fire…
…making sure there was plenty of firewood to keep the fire going…
…and even reading a story or two by torchlight in the tent…
Our camping chairs provided the best seats in the house for the firework displays…and a quick chat on the phone!
And the firework displays inspired our very own firework mark-making in coloured sand…
We read the story of Bernie Sparks and Rocky the Rocket on Bonfire Night to help the children understand about how to keep themselves safe on the real Bonfire Night.
And, following on from last week’s excitement 🎃, we also read the story of Pumpkin Soup by Helen Cooper. This charming book tells the tale of Cat, Duck and Squirrel as they learn about friendship and sharing by working together to make their favourite pumpkin soup.
You can revisit the story below. Try turning the sound off and reading it aloud yourself.
The Little Acorns had a go at creating their own pumpkin recipes…
And back in the classroom, Mrs Morris came up with this rather novel use of an old pumpkin!
Have a lovely weekend everyone and thank you for all the wonderful contributions to our nature table – it is really looking beautiful! 🍁
Welcome back to the second half of the Autumn term! We hope everyone enjoyed a restful half term break. As the dark nights draw in and the leaves start to change colour, we have been encouraging the children to notice the different coloured leaves in the garden. If you find any red, yellow or oranges leaves when out and about this weekend, please do bring them into Nursery for our Nature Table. Thank you!
There was great excitement this week as many of the children were looking forward to spending time with their families, celebrating a certain festival that involves special costumes, decorating homes, eating sweets and lighting candles! 🎃
In Nursery, we take every opportunity to find out about different cultures and religions so, this week, we decided to find out about a celebration that also involves costumes, decorations, sweets and candles: the light festival of Diwali.
Unlike Halloween, Diwali is a religious festival. It is celebrated every year by Hindus all around the world. First, we read the story of the Ramayana which tells the tale of Rama and Sita, who defeat the ten-headed demon king, Ravana, with the help of the monkey king, Hanuman. The children all agreed that Ravana was “not very kind and friendly”!
During Diwali, Hindus light diya lamps to symbolise the victory of light over darkness, just like in the story of Rama and Sita. They also wear special clothes, decorate their homes and eat lots of special sweets!
Meet Jessica here to find out more about how Diwali is celebrated.
We had a go at dressing up ourselves!
Retelling the story of the Ramayana:
And we practised our mark-making within this beautiful Rangoli pattern!
We hope you’ll understand that we decided to leave all the sweet-eating to you at home! Have a lovely weekend everyone 😊
