Exploring Seasonal Changes & Volcanoes

Over the past couple of weeks, the children have been exploring various textures and describing how they feel. One of the children’s favourite activities was comparing dry and wet sand. Half of the sand pit was dry and half wet. Florence picked up two handfuls of wet sand and squeezed her hands as tight as she could and as doing so, she very quickly realised that none of the sand was releasing through her fingers which is what had happened with the dry sand. Sadie and Emily started to copy and when Sadie released her hands, she said, “Wow, look, it’s a ball”. Rowan used the spoon to pour the dry sand over his and some of the other children’s hands. As the sand was flowing over their hands and between their fingers, he asked them, “Doesn’t it feel so soft?”, smiling at his friends reactions.

When playing in the garden, some of the leaves had started to fall and as Isla ran across the leaves, she suddenly stopped and said to Sophie “The leaves sound crunchy”. They both picked up the leaves and were very gently rubbing their fingers across the edging of the leaf. Sophie reminded Isla, “You need to be careful because it feels a little bit scratchy”. Tommy, Ethan, Zac and Ari collected the leaves that had fallen in to a little saucepan and took them over to the mud kitchen to do some cooking. Ari scattered the leaves around a large pan before adding some mud and then placed some more leaves on top. Zac told his friends, “That looks just like an apple crumble!”. Alba was very busy making leaf sandwiches whilst Zoe made a “Leaf roast dinner!”

Out in the garden, the children built their very own volcano using the wooden platforms and blocks. Jonathan was guiding the children around the outside, after making sure he had made a full circle with all the props available. When one of the children jumped in to the middle, on to the grass, Jonathan called out to them, “Quick, it’s too hot in there, you need to get out, the volcano is going to erupt”. Harry asked Jonathan, “Erupt?” and Jonathan explained, “Yes, the volcano has got so hot, all of the lava is going to spill everywhere”. The children were then pretending to go on an adventure to Africa and Spain. Alba told her friends, “Yes, that’s where I go to Spain on an aeroplane”.