Pre-School-P.E-Yoga
In P.E. last week, the children really enjoyed and engaged in our yoga session. It was a fun and energetic way to learn new skills using our bodies to develop both gross and fine motor skills. The children all tried their very best to achieve each yoga pose, using their upper body strength in some poses and lower body strength in others.
Nursery/Pre-School - Maths - Matching Shadows
This week, the children in Nursery and Preschool have been busy working in our classroom "Vets" to help identify hurt animals that need their care. The children entered a special "X-ray room" where they were challenged to look at images of animal shadows and bones. This activity focused on their observation skills and their ability to recognize shapes and properties. The children looked closely at the silhouettes to spot identifying features, such as a long tail, big ears, or a sharp fin. Using these visual clues, the children then had to search the veterinary clinic to find the matching animal. This task encouraged the children to use mathematical language to describe what they could see and to use comparison skills to link the 2D shadow to the 3D toy animal. It was a wonderful way to develop their problem-solving skills and attention to detail while engaged in purposeful role-play.
Nursery/Pre-School-Chinese New Year
This week in Nursery/Pre-School we have been celebrating Chinese New Year- The year of the horse. The children have really engaged in our chinese restaurant, cooking up some lovely chinese food from our chinese menus. The children have been learning new fine motor skills to help them when using the chopsticks to pick up the chinese foods. Children have also enjoyed creating and decorating chinese lanterns which are on display around our environment.
Nursery And Pre-School - PSHE - Valentine's Stay And Play
This week, Nursery and Preschool were delighted to host a special "Stay and Play" session, inviting the children's grown-ups into the setting to celebrate Valentine's Day together. The children took great pride in being "tour guides" for their visitors, showing their grown-ups their favorite areas to play and explaining their daily routines. This provided a wonderful boost to their confidence and communication skills as they shared their learning environment with their families. Throughout the session, the children engaged in various collaborative crafts, working side-by-side with their grown-ups to create Valentine-themed art. It was lovely to see the children interacting so positively with each other and their families, demonstrating their ability to share resources and work together on creative tasks. The morning was a beautiful celebration of the bonds between home and school, filled with happy faces and a wonderful sense of community.
Nursery And Pre-School - PSHE - Valentine's Stay And Play
This week, Nursery and Preschool were delighted to host a special "Stay and Play" session, inviting the children's grown-ups into the setting to celebrate Valentine's Day together. The children took great pride in being "tour guides" for their visitors, showing their grown-ups their favorite areas to play and explaining their daily routines. This provided a wonderful boost to their confidence and communication skills as they shared their learning environment with their families. Throughout the session, the children engaged in various collaborative crafts, working side-by-side with their grown-ups to create Valentine-themed art. It was lovely to see the children interacting so positively with each other and their families, demonstrating their ability to share resources and work together on creative tasks. The morning was a beautiful celebration of the bonds between home and school, filled with happy faces and a wonderful sense of community.
Nursery - Art - Valentine's Flowers
This week, the children in the nursery class have been busy creating beautiful vases of flowers as special Valentine’s gifts for someone they love. The project began with the children focusing on their mark-making skills to decorate their vases. Using a variety of tools, including dabbers and felt tips, they practiced their control and intentional design to make each vase unique and colorful. To create the flowers, the children engaged in a tactile sensory experience by painting their hands with bright red paint. They then carefully used handprints to represent the flowers growing from their vases. This activity was a wonderful way for the children to explore the properties of paint and see how they can use their own bodies to create art. The finished pieces are a lovely celebration of the children's creativity and the spirit of Valentine's Day!
Nursery - Literacy - Bakery Creations
This week, the children loved visiting our classroom Valentine's bakery, where they used playdough to "bake" their own cakes, biscuits, and treats. The activity provided a fantastic workout for their fine motor skills. The children worked hard to squeeze, splat, roll, pinch, and poke the dough, building the hand strength needed for future writing. They used cutters to create heart-shaped biscuits and carefully placed dough into cupcake cases, adding various decorations to finish their "bakes." As the play progressed, some children were inspired to record their work. They moved from the dough table to the drawing area, where they transferred their real-life creations into drawings. This was a wonderful way for the children to give meaning to their marks, as they explained what they had drawn and matched their pictures to the treats they had made in the bakery.
Nursery - Music - Computing - Creating Music
This week, the children enjoyed making their own music using the 2Explore tool on Purple Mash. We focused on using the computer to find different noises and seeing how we could put them together to make a fun tune. The children thoroughly enjoyed listening to the wide variety of sounds available within the software. They practiced their navigational skills to select and trigger different instrumental notes and effects, discovering how the software combined their chosen sounds into a continuous song. This process allowed them to experiment with different noises and hear how they sounded together in a rhythmic way. There was a wonderful sense of achievement as the children listened back to their completed "songs." Many were so proud of their digital creations that they even began dancing to the beats they had produced.
Nursery - Maths - I Spy...
This week, the children have been developing their early mathematical skills by learning how to categorise and sort by colour. To explore this concept, the children played a game of "I Spy" using a variety of resources set out on the malleable tray. Each child selected a coloured bowl and was challenged to find items that matched that specific colour to fill their bowl. This task encouraged the children to focus on the properties of objects and use their visual discrimination skills to ignore distractions and find matching items. Throughout the activity, the children were encouraged to use colour language to describe their findings. This hands-on approach successfully introduced the concept of sorting into sets and helped the children build confidence in identifying and naming different colours within their environment.
Nursery - Music - What Instrument Did I play?
This week, the children participated in a high-focus auditory discrimination activity designed to sharpen their listening skills and musical awareness. The children were tasked with identifying instruments based on sound alone. While hidden behind a screen, one instrument was played and the children had to listen very carefully. From a varied group of instruments laid out before them, they then had to select which one they believed was being played. Once they made their choice, the children were encouraged to mimic the sound they heard by playing the instrument themselves. This was a crucial step, as it allowed for instant confirmation of their choice or a self-corrected change of mind if the sounds did not match. This activity successfully promoted critical thinking, active listening, and early performance skills as the children explored the unique sounds each instrument could produce.
Nursery - Maths - Categorising Objects By Size
Today, the children used our topic story, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, to explore size and categorization. The activity began with a "herd" of goats on the grass. The children were tasked with identifying and sorting specific sizes, focusing on big and small. To support their understanding, they used visual Widgits and hand gestures to represent the sizes they were searching for. Once a goat was found, the children placed it on the bridge, checking that their group consisted of the same size. This promoted skills in matching and comparison. For an extra challenge, some children were introduced to the 'medium' goats, practicing the tricky task of distinguishing them from the big and small ones. This successfully built their mathematical vocabulary and ability to differentiate between three distinct sizes.
Nursery - Science - Our Gardens
This week, the children engaged in a hands-on science lesson exploring the environment and how things grow. Using images of their own houses as inspiration, the children were tasked with creating their very own gardens! To make the activity even more meaningful, the images of their houses were taped onto the pots to create the illusion of the children's own gardens at home growing. The children practiced their physical coordination and tool use, using trowels to carefully scoop soil into their pots. Once the pots were prepared, they used shakers to distribute their seeds, learning about the first stages of a plant's life cycle. During the activity, we discussed what we need for a healthy plant. The children learned that for a plant to grow big and strong, it needs two vital ingredients: water and sunlight. This exploration allowed the children to connect their learning to their own homes while building a foundational understanding on how we can take care of plants. We are now keeping a close eye on our pots and hope to see some blossoming flowers soon!
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