Friday, 29 April 2016
Rainbow Fish
Roxy has took the lead on this weeks activities which have been based on the storty, The Rainbow Fish. The children have explored mixing colours in a variety of ways. They mixed different colours of paints together to explore what colours and changes were made. This was extended to mixing specific colours such as red and white and trying to predict what new colour it would make before testing their prediciton. Children discovered texture while they mixed colours in the rainbow foam. Children have been developing their ICT skills as they have decorated a rainbow fish using Paint program, learning about how to select things and make things happen. The children have been practising their mark making skills as well as developing their gross motor skills by drawing with chalks on a large scale outdoors. Children have been creative in the messy area looking at different textured materials and creating their own rainbow fish pictures while practitioners modelled lots of descriptive language, talking about soft, fluffy, bumpy, rough, smooth etc. At story time the children read the story of The Rainbow Fish, which carries the message of good sharing. Children's mathematical skills were promoted by playing a game where children had to match the number of spots on a dice to the number of spots on a fish, encouraging them to count, talk about numbers and make predicitions. The children made their own fish shapes in the playdough and enjoyed using several colours of dough together. The song for the week was the rainbow song. Children were encouraged to match coloured shapes to the colours of the rainbow as part of the interactive display.
Discovering something new
The children have been exploring new things at St Marys @ The Park. Providing new discoveries for children keeps their learning interesting and teaches new skills and creativity.
We took full advantage of the snow this week and introduced children to get creative on a large scale, taking their mark making into the outdoors. Children showed curiosity and high levels of energy and fascination in using the world as their canvas.
The children have explored mixing colours in a variety of ways, one of which was through our playdough foam. The children were mesmorised by this and maintained their focus on their activity for periods of time, paying attention to details as the colours all start to mix together.
The children tried out a new type of dough. This dough was a softer dough which enabled the children to see more detail as they printed their dinosaur footprints in the dough.
Road Safety Wellbeing Wednesday
The children learnt all about road safety and how to cross safely for Aril's Wellbeing Wednesday. They crossed the road in small groups, talking about stopping, good looking, listening and looking again before they cross calmly and carefully accross the road. Children received a certificate rewarding them for safe road crossing. This safety message was revisited several times over the session. Children talked about safe road crossing at group time with their key worker. They practised crossing the play road in the nursery yard and they discussed road safety during story time to see how much the children could remember. Parents also took home information about road safety to share with their families.
Chilly Bank Holiday
Please remember nursery will be closed Monaday 4th May. Enjoy you bank holiday and I hope we see some sun.
Tuesday, 26 April 2016
Harry and His Bucketful of Dinosaurs
Amanda took the lead role on last weeks activities based around the book Harry and His Bucketful of Dinosaurs. The children used toy dinosaurs to create and observe making marks with dough, printing dinosaur footprints. They had dinosaurs in the small world area to develop their imaginary play skills and their ability to play as a group. We learnt about more and less and comparing numbers as children stood on different sized dinosaur footprints, talking about how many were on each footprint and which group had more etc. At group time the children looked at pattern, matching patterened dinosaur eggs to the same dinosaur. They also learnt new mathematical language talking about dinosaurs and comparing those that were tall, short, and long. We continued our mathematical learning putting dinosaur bones in size order talking about long and short. Children learnt about observing changes over time, watching dinosaurs, frozen in ice, slowly defrost. They developed their physical skills digging to find hidden dinosaur bones in the sand. They looked at patterns and creative development using toy dinosaurs and dipping their feet in paint, making prints on paper. We took full advantage of the good weather and took all our learning opportunities outdoors, the children read their Harry stories outside and we added the dinosuars to soil and shells and other natural resources. The children also had the opportunity to take dinosaurs out into the Park environment and really explore nature. There were lots of observations took place.
Yellow Day
Wednesday 27th May is Yellow Day, please dress your child in yellow. The children will also be learning all about Road Safety
Friday, 22 April 2016
Happy Sunshine Days
We have took full advantage of the beautiful weather this week and took our learning out into the park. Happy Days.
The Singing Mermaid
Susan lead our topic linked to the book The Singing Mermaid. The children read the story all week to become familiar with it, they were then able to join in with refrains from the book and re tell parts of the story, developing their knowledge in literacy and how stories are structured. They used their creativity and problem solving skills to build tents in our deconstruction area, to represent the circus tent that the singing mermaid went to work in. As the book focussed on a character from the sea, we explored reflections and the children used mirrors to explore and discover what they could see in the mirrors, not just themselves. They built with contruction materials on mirrors to give them a 3 dimensional aspect and the children explored with light and colour, representing the reflections of the ocean. We also learnt about floating and sinking, encouraging children to predict whether they float or sink and learn about materials that are heavy and materials that are light. Our song focus was one, two, three, four, five, once I caught a fish alive and children were supported in matching numerals while singing the song, exploring number. Parents were given an activity to extend the children's interest at home, where you had to design your own mermaid using materials of your choice. The returned mermaids can be seen displayed in nursery.
Friday, 15 April 2016
Absence
Well done parents, the abences have been improving since January with 99 missed sessions in March. Please remember the importance of bringing your child to nursery everyday. As practitioners monitor childen's progress in the pre-school profile, it is evident that a lot of absence does affect children's development accross all areas of the curriulum.
Wednesday, 13 April 2016
Smile 4 Life
A representative from the Smile 4 Life team visited St Marys @ The Park just before the Easter holidays to assess if we were still promoting Healthy Lifestyles through activities and displays for all our children and their families. We are pleased to announce we have been re accredited with the Smile 4 Life Award for another 12 months. If you have any questions about healthy living then please speak to our Oral Health Champion Roxy.
Attendance Awards
The following afternoon children have received certificates for 100% attendance in March. Well done childen for coming to nursery every day and well done parents for your commitment to your child's education.
Ayaaz Akhtar
Nimrah Aslam
Yahya Bhana
Rishial Bashir
M Noor Hussain
Kenzie Hibbert
Zayn Iqbal
Shahzaib Jahangir
Zainab Khan
Attendance Awards
The following morning children have received certificates for 100% attendance in March. Well done childen for coming to nursery every day and well done parents for your commitment to your child's education.
Besaan Abdulwanis
Muaaz Ahmed
Anya Anwar
Alisha Hussain
M Ayaan Mehmood
Riley Naylor
Khadijah Patel
Ayesha Sheth
Zain Zubair