The children have enjoyed a fun-packed month this month enjoying a range of activities through their own interest and curiosity. During the month of May, we have celebrated the King’s Coronation, World Environment Day, Ocean’s Day, Make Music Day, and plenty of Out and About trips to our wider communities.
The children thoroughly enjoyed celebrating the King’s Coronation, capturing the world as we saw him crowned alongside Queen Camilla. The children made decorations and took part in plenty of baking as part of our Little Chefs curriculum. The children supported decorating our nurseries with some fabulous décor and enjoyed dressing up and taking part in our Royal tea parties throughout the week.
As part of our Out and About programme, the children from all settings enjoyed visits to our local communities where in March the children experienced visiting our food markets and purchasing fruits and vegetables to enjoy some fruit kebabs in the sunshine for their picnics. While out, the children saw geese, and birds and learned about different trees and the textures of bark that fall. Some children enjoyed trips to our local nature reserve, where they began the infamous scavenger hunt, looking out for bugs and inspects and different leaves that fell.
Baby Unit
Our babies have shown lots of interest in exploring lots of different mark-making, they have been taking more risks by climbing and balancing, gaining their confidence. This month’s core story has been The Three Little Pigs where the children have been enjoying some creative play by developing houses out of straw, sticks and bricks whilst exploring the different textures of the materials that they have used.
The children have learnt a wide range of vocabulary through listening to the stories and they have used this language within their play. With the lovely sunshine, the children have enjoyed more time spent outdoors using the mud kitchen to cook and practising their balancing skills through play.
Understanding the World
Notice differences between people. (Birth to 3 years)
Communication and Language
Develop pretend play: ‘putting the baby to sleep’ or ‘driving the car to the shops’. (Birth to 3 years)
Toddler Unit
Our Toddlers have shown interest in participating in yoga inside and outside, they have enjoyed lots of different sensory trays, with plenty of water and sand activities in the glorious sunshine we have experienced. Our toddlers have been using their voices to choose their favourite stories and leading with their interests to develop activities around these.
Toddlers have been focusing on the topic, our favourite stories, they have enjoyed ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’, ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ and ‘Minibeasts’. They have been drawing their favourite minibeasts, taking this into our Nature Gardens to identify different types of insects and bugs. The children thoroughly enjoyed their Minibeast Hunt, using the magnifying glass to take a closer look at what they had found. porridge tasting from the story and discussing what they would like in their porridge and if they like it hot or cold. They have been painting the scenery of the were going on a bear hunt and going around the nature garden experiencing the grass and mud.
As part of our Goldilocks book the children extended this into creating puppet crafts and used these in our storytelling exercise to mirror each character. Our practitioners have also created Goldilocks and the Three Bears word cards to support the child’s vocabulary during our mark-making exercise.
Literacy
Enjoys sharing books with an adult (Birth – 3)
Physical Development
Explore different materials and tools (Birth – 3)
Communication and Language
Copy your gestures and words (Birth – 3)
Mathematics
Notice patterns and arrange things in patterns (Birth – 3)
Pre-School Unit
Our Pre-School children have enjoyed ‘The Gruffalo’ taking part in a forest school session searching for him. They collected different coloured leaves and then made a Gruffalo collage talking about the different colours and features that they needed to make The Gruffalo. The children have also recreated the story of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, where they have begun an adventure through our Forest School and Nature Garden walks. The children have extended this story by learning about prepositions and thinking about under, over and through to be able to retell the story to peers.
Furthermore, many of our children have enjoyed focusing on the topic, our favourite stories, where they have been doing ‘Pass the Jam Jim’, ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ and learning about the King’s Coronation. As part of their Little Chefs activity, the children have been making jam sandwiches, using their fine motor to cut each sandwich into their favourite shape and identifying their peers’ shapes too.
The children have been going on walks around the local environment, understanding road safety and identifying different road signs they know. They have visited local parks whereby all children enjoyed their scavenger hunts and retelling the story ‘Little Red Riding Hood’, playing bingo and creating their own versions of the characters.
As part of our NHS MySmile project the children have explored an array of activities to support them with tooth brushing, dentist visits and healthy eating. The children have used our role paly area to re-enact their dentist visits some of the children pretending to be the receptionist using our ICT area. The children have been looking at healthy and non-healthy foods learning about different types of natural sugars and artificial as part of our healthy eating policy.
Physical Development
Develop manipulation and control (Birth to 3)
Expressive Arts and Design
Join different materials together and explore different textures (3- 4 years)
Literacy
Enjoy drawing freely (Birth – 3)
Understanding the World
Begin to understand the need to respect and care for the natural environment and all living things (3- 4 years)
Literacy
Use some of their print and letter knowledge in their early writing (Birth – 3)
Personal, Social and Emotional
Play with one or more other children, extending and elaborating play ideas
Forest School
In the nature Garden for our outdoor learning activities, the children have been focusing on the story called ‘Little Sunflower’. The children have been looking at sunflowers, completing transient art as they find different natural resources from around the garden. The children have been supporting our maintenance teams by watering the plants and discussing the life cycles of plants as we experience the warmer weather.
Physical Development
Develop manipulation and control (Birth to 3)
Expressive Arts and Design
Join different materials together and explore different textures (3- 4 years)
Literacy
Enjoy drawing freely (Birth – 3)
