What a fantastic month the children have had exploring and extending their learning opportunities. The children have spent the majority of their days outside in the gardens and the Forest School learning all about the season and looking at the changing foliage. The children have practised tree climbing, searched for insects and used natural objects to create collages.
The children have loved spending most of their day out in the gardens, using the balls and guttering to roll the balls down into different tubs, naming the colours and counting the balls. The nurseries have all enjoyed their delivery of loose parts items which have consisted of crates, wooden planks and tyres and we have been creating obstacle courses out on bark which the children have loved. We have used our watering cans to water our plants throughout the garden and discussing the lifecycles of plants.
EYFS link:
Understanding the World – The World – Notices detailed features of objects in their environment. (22-36 months)
Mathematics – numbers – 30-50 months: uses some number names accurately in play
Communication and Language – Understanding – 30-50 months: shows understanding of prepositions such as under, on top, behind by carrying out an action or selecting the correct picture.
Understanding the World – The World – 16-26 months: explores objects by linking together different approaches: shaking, hitting, looking, feeling, tasting, mouthing, pulling, turning and poking.
Our Babies have had fun exploring sensory activiites and by far their faviourt sensory tray has been our seaside water based try. The children have developed their fine and gross motor skills using the small jugs and containers to fill and to pour. They have enjoyed sand play using the buckets and spades with support to make and knock down sand castles. The children have also been reading their core story of The Shiny Beach where they enjoyed looking at pictures of the beach, learning new words to communicate with. The babies have been exploring the seaside through different textural sensory bags, squashing, and squeezing them, making all objects move inside; identical to our Virtual Learning sesion our key practitioner Heidi demonstrated.
EYFS link:
Physical Development – Moving and Handling- Shows control in holding and using jugs to pour, hammers, books and mark-making tools. (22-36 months)
Communication and Language – Speaking – Uses different types of everyday words (nouns, verbs and adjectives, e.g. banana, go, sleep, hot). (16-26 months)
Personal, Social and Emotional Development – Making Relationships – 8-20 months: interact with others and explore new situations when supported by a familiar person.
Communication and Language – Listening and Attention – 8-20 months: has a strong exploratory impulse.
Physical Development – Moving and Handling – 8-20 months: enjoys the sensory experience of making marks in damp sand, paste or paint.
Understanding the world – the world – 8-20 months: closely observes what animals, people and vehicles do.
Expressive arts and design – Being Imaginative 8-20 months: express self through physical action and sound
Our Toddlers have been having a fantastic time learning all about dinosaurs using them in a range of different sensory activities. The children have used bricks to measure how tall or short the dinaosaurs were which has led to them learning new mathematical skills and developing their language. The children have enjoyed their time in the natural outdoor environment searching for natural objects and incorpoarting this into their dinosaur play developing their experiences. The Toddlers have been reading their core story of The Clumsy Crab and they have enjoyed making an array of artwork which has linked in with the story.
The children have been creating artwork for the display boards which consists of turtles, crabs, beach pictures and using sand to make marks on the paper. They have used the large drawing easel to create different marks with colours as they discuss what they can draw together.
Out in the garden the children have had a lot of water play, emptying and filling containers as they water the plants, using the hose pipe to create a sprinkler and even using the channelling system to pour water and balls down to see where they will end up.
EYFS link:
Literacy – Reading – Repeats words or phrases from familiar stories (22-36 months)
Mathematics – Shape Space and Measure – Beginning to categorise objects according to properties such as shape or size (22-36 months)
Expressive arts and design – exploring and using media and materials – 16-26 months: notices and is interested in the effects of making movements which leave marks.
Understanding the world – the world – 22-36 months: notices detailed features of objects in their environment
Physical development – moving and handling – 16-26 months: draws lines and circles using gross motor movements
Communication and language – speaking – 16-26 months: beginning to put two words together.
Our Pre-School Class have been having lots of educational fun with their project of Summer.The children have enjoyed Pirate week which linked in with their core story ‘We are Going on a Treasure Hunt’. The children used upcycled materials to make a huge pirate boat and they also made props to wear such as eye patches, peg legs, also making treasure maps using tea bags to discolour the paper to make it look as though it was really old.
During the month of August pre-school have dived into two books ‘Dear Zoo’ and ‘Commotion in the Ocean’. The children have been creating their favourite animals as well as the pictures from the books such as the snakes and lions. Using different tools like plastic forks to create the lion mane around the face of the lion, using playdough to recreate their animals. They have loved sitting down and reading the story, discussing which animal comes next. The children have loved Commotion in the Ocean, they all got stuck into making their own sea creatures which we have displayed around the nursery daggling from the ceiling. Using tissue paper, coloured resources and paint in many different ways to get the effect that they would like. We have made our very own back drop on the pirate ship which all children enjoyed for our pirate week.
Our Pre-school children have enjoyed their Cookery Club sessions this month, making Rainbow fruit salad, helping to wash and cut up all of the fruit and they made homemade ice-cream, measuring out the ingredients and then mixing them all together using an electric whisk. They sat and enjoyed their ice-cream in a cone with lots of colourful sprinkles on the top, on a nice hot sunny day. The perfect way to cool down.
We have also said a fond farewell to our School Leavers who have left us to move onto the next chapter in their life at Primary School. On behlaf of the Blackberries Group, we wish you every success and the memiores created at nursery will always be remebered.
EYFS link:
Exploring and Using Media and Materials – Constructs with a purpose in mind, using a variety of resources. (40-60 months)
Personal, Social and Emotional Development – Managing feelings and behaviour – 30-50 months: share resources, sometimes with support from others.
Physical development – moving and handling – 30-50 months: uses one handed tools and equipment, e.g. makes snips in paper with child scissors.
Communication and language – understanding – 40-60 months: listens and responds to ideas expressed by others in conversation or discussion.
Literacy – Reading – 30-50 months: describes main story settings, events and principal characters
Understanding the world – the world – 30-50 months: can talk about some of the things they have observed such as plants, animals, natural and found objects.
All children have shown a keen interest in our loose parts resources outdoors using the planks to make their own seesaw; tyres as the base, using the wooden planks to create balance beams, going across tyres and crates, and assessing the risk by supporting and guiding each other across safely. They have also made waterways using the guttering and were fascinated when the boats “magically” moved as they poured the water along the pipes.
As a Childcare Group we were kindly gifted a beautiful bunch of fresh harvested sunflowers from one of our families and we ensured that all of the age groups had the opportunity to explore these bright and beautiful flowers, our Babies explored them through touch and smell and then they made their own cut and stick sunflower pictures, our Toddlers painted them, like Vincent Van Gogh and our Pre-schoolers talked about the different parts of the flower and then they each drew them as part of a still life art class.
Now we start our next academic year 2021-2022, who is excited; Blackberries Childcare Group sure is 😊