Oliver’s Vegetables
This week, children enjoyed drawing and painting daffodils to create a Mother’s Day card. Before children drew them, we talked about the shape and colour of the stem and the petals on the flower. They were all really proud of their pictures and couldn’t wait to take them home; we hope you liked them.
To continue with our ‘growing’ themed learning, during group time this week, we talked about fruit and vegetables and how to eat healthily. We listened to lots of stories about vegetables, including ‘Oliver’s Vegetables’, ‘The Runaway Pea‘ and ‘Colin and Lee, Carrot and Pea’.
In the Sensory area, we explored lots of different vegetables. We enjoyed popping sugar snap peas open and chopping a cauliflower into pieces. We also had great fun peeling layers off some brussel sprouts, which was a super fiddly finger challenge, as well!
Next week, we’re going to talk about how we keep our bodies healthy. One of the things we’ll discuss is how to look after our teeth. When your child is brushing their teeth, talk to them about the importance of good oral hygiene. When do they brush their teeth and how often? How do they brush their teeth? What do they use? Have they ever visited the dentist? What happened?
Snow!
Children had great fun in the garden exploring the snow on Thursday. They tried to catch the snowflakes on their tongues and enjoyed making snowballs. We talked about the changes in weather and what would happen to the snow if the sun came out.
Before we went outside, we talked about what we needed to wear. We put an extra set of layers on to make sure that we stayed warm and dry. Children also wore hats and gloves. Can your child put on their own coat, hat and gloves? We’re always looking for ways to help children become more independent; this is a great place to start and something that you can easily help with at home. Try getting ready a few minutes earlier. Depending on what your child can already do, try challenging them to do the next thing independently. If they can put their coat on, can they put on their own mittens, or even trickier, some gloves?
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Jack and the Beanstalk
Fee Fi Fo Fum! We loved reading Jack and the Beanstalk this week and re-telling the story using the props in the book corner. Outside, we listened to an audio book of the story, too. We painted beanstalks, explored differed types of beans in the sensory area and we even rolled long ‘sausages’ using dough to make beanstalks in the play dough.
In the maths area, we counted the correct number of bean seeds into the pots and we also practised our subitising skills, saying how many beans (1-3) we could see without counting them.
Your child might have also told you all about planting their own magic bean; we’ve planted some bean seeds and are hoping that our bean stalks will soon start to grow.
Thanks to everyone who has sent in a baby and toddler photograph for our learning next week. If you haven’t had a chance to yet, please see our previous post and e-mail us one if you can.
Wanted! Baby photos
Next week, we’re learning about growing up and looking at how we change as we get older.
It would be great if we could look at some photographs of children when they were babies and toddlers. If you are able to, please send us an email with one photograph of your child as a baby and one photograph of them as a toddler. We’ll use these in group time and will also be adding them to our Home Corner family display.
Mr Wolf’s Pancakes
It was lovely to see everyone return to nursery this week and to hear all about your half term adventures.
On Tuesday, we talked about ‘pancake day’ and the reasons why some people celebrate Shrove Tuesday. We read ‘Mr Wolf’s Pancakes’ and found out how to make our own pancakes. We enjoyed smelling them as they cooked and we enjoyed eating them even more! During snack time, there was lots of excited conversation about our favourite toppings.
Mmmmmmm lemon with sugar sprinkled on top! Delicious!
Outside, children have started to notice some changes in our garden; they spotted snowdrops, crocuses and other plants and flowers starting to grow.
Next week, we’ll learn more about this and will read Jack and the Beanstalk. If you have a copy at home, enjoy reading it together at bedtime to help familiarise your child with the story. If not, there are lots of versions online that you could watch together.
Reminders
- Please join us if you can for our Nursery Coffee Morning – straight after drop off on Tuesday.
- It’s World Book Day on Thursday and children are invited to bring their favourite book to school to share with their friends. Parents/carers are also invited to stay for a while to share a story with your child. Please see previous post for more details.
- Please ensure that your child’s water bottle is marked clearly with their NAME. (Lunch boxes, too!)
World Book Day
World Book Day is on Thursday 02 March.
This year, we will celebrate by bringing our favourite book to nursery to share with our friends. Please make sure that your child’s name is in their book.
If you can stay a little bit longer at drop off on Thursday morning, we’d love for you to share a book with your child or to join in with some of the World Book Day activities that will be in provision.
It’s always a day that we really enjoy at nursery, so please join in if you can.
Nursery Coffee Morning
After dropping your child off at Nursery on Tuesday 28 February, why not join us for a cup of tea or coffee and an informal chat with Miss Hague and Mrs Beesley. It’s also a great way to get to know other parents and carers. We hope that you can join us, even if it’s just for a quick drink and hello, before you go to work!
Dinosaur footprints
In the last week of half term, children continued to enjoy learning about dinosaurs.
We drew giant dinosaur footprints to jump/hop between outside and we made dinosaur footprints in paint and playdough.
Children loved using rollers to paint large dinosaurs from the story we’ve been reading, Dinosaur Roar. We talked about the features of the dinosaurs; some had long necks and tails and others had spikes and lumpy skin. When we were painting them, children noticed that some of the colours changed when they mixed together. Look out for our giant dinosaurs in the Sunshine Room, soon!
We hope that you all have a lovely half term break and look forward to seeing you on Monday 20 February.
Dinosaur Roar
We’ve enjoyed listening to ‘Dinosaur Roar‘ during our story times in Nursery this week. We talked about the different parts of a book, including the front and back cover, the title and blurb. As we read the story, we identified the words on the page and followed them with our finger as we read from left to right.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off auto play – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.
Dinosaur roar, dinosaur squeak. Dinosaur fierce, dinosaur meek. Dinosaur fast, dinosaur slow… We looked at the illustrations and talked about the meaning of the different words in the story. Children loved working together to add lumps, spikes and claws to a giant dinosaur.
In our maths area, children have been counting and sorting dinosaurs by type and colour.
We’re also learning about the number two. We found a domino that had one spot on one end, and one spot on the other. When we looked at the spots together, there were two. Children knew that they had 2 eyes, 2 ears and 2 feet. We jumped twice and counted two claps. Have a look at home – What can you find two of? You might see two wheels on your bike or 2 eggs left in the box. Can you spot any number twos on doors or number plates?
In the sensory area, we loved playing with the slime in our dinosaur swamp! Ergh.. it’s very sticky!
Outside, we talked about the changes in the weather. It was very, very windy on Wednesday and we could hear it blowing through the branches in the trees. Children enjoyed holding onto a piece of fabric to feel, and see it blowing in the wind.
Brrrrr! Exploring ice and frost
We’ve had a few very cold mornings recently and children noticed the frost on their walk to Nursery and on the wooden beams in the playground. We talked about frost, snow and ice and had lots of conversations about where children thought it had come from.
The frost glistened in the sunshine and children enjoyed scratching it with their fingers and making patterns.
There was a lot of excitement as we hunted around the garden to find some ice and we talked a little bit about how ice forms. We found ice in the water tray, on the ground where a puddle had been and in the guttering. We loved trying to break the ice in different ways and wondered where it had gone later in the day. Some children noticed that it was sunny and we talked about ‘melting’.
Later, we collected different objects from around the garden and put them in some water. We left them over night and children were very excited to check them again in the morning to see if anything had happened.
