What a fabulous time we have had in Nursery this month!
Nursery Project
For two days a week the children in Nursery have spent time in both the ‘Forest School’ and the ‘Garden’ and ‘Snake Garden’ areas. This has provided the children with rich and varied opportunities to develop their communication and language skills, personal social and emotional skills and physical skills.
The children have been offered the inquiry ‘I wonder what we know about working together?’
Educators have worked with the children to develop their inquiries as they explore the outside learning environments together.
The educators have offered the children a range of exploration and learning opportunities…..
- Digging
- Investigating creatures
- Role playing
- Building
- Movement
- Story-telling A culture of communication and respect has been nurtured within the group as children are supported to share ideas and work together.
Investigating creatures everywhere……….
“The spiders got legs…the worms got no legs to move…the spider can run fast!” – Jenson
“It feels like slime….it’s wiggling to move.” “the worms like dirt cause they find food in there!”- Ivor-James
“The bees and the butterflies are friends. They get the honey.” – Fleur
“Look there’s a spider under the stone. It’s his house. I wanna hold it!” – Lachlan
Role play naturally develops as children and adults imagine and create story telling together…….
“Rice…yeah…cook more and more! Faster!”- Zayn-Malik
“Mix it up….it’s chocolate!” “I’m cooking meat, tomato.” – Mahnoor
“We just making soup….salt please…..can you get that bit in please?”
“I am cooking with the rocks….I am making a birthday cake! I am hungry….you go sit on chairs”. – Harry
“I’m hungry…can you do me some food? Yeah I’ll have watermelon.” – Ophelia
“I’m making pink ice-cream…it’s only two to buy one”.
Children reflect together after clearing the raised beds and suggest how they would like to use them…….they decide on flowers, growing things to eat, a home for the bugs and somewhere butterflies and insects would like to visit.
Over a period of time children and educators work together to develop these ideas. They examine and plant seeds, then nurture them as they wait patiently for them to grow.
Children and educators discuss their ideas together as their inquiry about growing develops.
“That’s a seed…it needs soil, then you put a seed in…..then you need water…then it will grow!” – Daisy
“It goes in soil and it grows….water and sun…makes tomatoes”. – Hope
“I think they are seeds…they grow into trees! Need soil, then it will grow!”
“We have got to get the bugs out cause they are eating my plants!” – Jenson
For the remainder of the week children in Nursery have engaged with a range of learning throughout the EYFS.
Snake Garden
The children learning in Snake Garden have been investigating ‘What is in Snake Garden? They have used natural resources to develop role play together.
Children have welcomed the chickens in to their new ‘chicken coop’ and have spent time getting to know them and taking care of them. Educators have been learning about the life cycles of animals and plants.
Creatures have been further investigated as the children wonder ‘What’s underneath?’ the soil or the logs.
Outside
Children are being supported in the outside area to share their ideas and listen to others as they develop their collaborative learning skills.
A wider range of resources have been introduced to the outside area as the weather has improved this term (paints, chalks, plants, gardening, water, seeds, quiet story areas). The children, through collaborative reflection, have expressed interest in developing planting spaces and areas to attract small creatures such as butterflies. The educators and the children have been working together to develop and improve the ‘garden’.
Alongside this learning children are enjoying building and much of this learning has supported children’s geographical land scientific knowledge. Recently the children have been asked by the educators ‘I wonder what you know about holidays’.
Children have reflected on their own experiences of holidays and begun to develop their shared ideas as they build caravans, trains, aeroplanes, holiday houses etc.
“I want to go on holiday in a submarine and visit the Eiffel Tower!”
“We are going on holiday in a caravan…we need lots of toys in the back of our caravan!”
Piazza
The children have been incorporating their ideas and experiences of the animals in EYFS into their story telling and writing. The educators have supported this through the use of the text ‘Chicken Licken’ and then asked the children the question.. ‘What happens next?’
“They went to Taco Bell for dinner!”
“The chicken goes in the castle and he gets a sword and then the chicken is the queen!”
Children have developed their ideas using drawing, writing, role play and discussion. They plan to write story endings in booklet/story form next.
Café
To develop the children’s knowledge about the United Kingdom the children have been learning about the country ‘Wales’. Children brought lots of experiences about Wales to their own and the groups learning through family trips and holidays.
“I went to Barmouth beach and had fish and chips and hot donuts. They speak English but it is a different country.”
The educators uses videos, google maps and texts to support children’s ideas and thinking. They investigate castles and the history relating to the castles using a range of resources (paint, pen, clay, and blocks).
“The castle has got turrets the knights used to hide behind them.”
Welsh farms are then investigated and Welsh Rarebit is made….
“The cheese is in Wales and then it comes to the shops in England.”
Block Area
Recently in block area the children have been investigating ‘transport’.
The educator and the children have worked together to develop their knowledge and understanding about steam trains and how they work.
They made a trip together to the library for information books about transport, this has helped inform the children’s designs and writing.
The children have been working both individually and collaboratively to develop their ideas and build their designs.
The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee
The children have recently enjoyed learning about the Queen, the Royal family and about the meaning of the upcoming Jubilee celebrations!
Within the café area the children prepared, cooked and presented a jubilee banquet! After careful research, the children chose to make a selection of sandwiches, including coronation chicken, Victoria sponges and scones. Please have a look at the beautiful display created by the children in the photos below – it was quintessentially British!
The children have also enjoyed looking at the artist Henri Matisse as part of school’s art project. They worked hard to create a portrait of the queen in Matisse abstract style! Here is a photo of the collaborative piece the children created.
The children have also enjoyed role-playing as the royal family, building Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle and writing about the Queen. We enjoyed wearing red, white and blue in preparation to celebrate at our school Jubilee Fayre.
