Animals & Numbers in Nature!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been learning about various species of animals and their natural habitats. The children have had the opportunity to explore jungle dens with elephants, tigers and lions as well as farm small world areas. One activity they had the most fun getting stuck into was a cornflour “under the sea” tray activity. India was pushing one of the boats around the sea creatures and when the boat got stuck, she very quickly realised it was because the cornflour had started to set. She picked up two handfuls of the cornflour, clenched her fists tight and then released her fingers. She started to laugh which caught the attention of her friends who all then watched, almost in amazement, as the hard cornflour instantly turned to liquid and started to drip through India’s fingers. Soon enough the other children joined in, giggling whilst the cornflour seeped through their fingers. Amelie looked at Esme and said, “It tickles doesn’t it?” Esme responded, “But I like it, it feels funny”. The children started their own game and as a group they were counting “1, 2, 3” and picking up the cornflour. They were then clenching their fists with the cornflour in their grasp as tight as they could and again began to count, this time backwards, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Go!” releasing their hands and really laughing when the cornflour melted in their hands. 

Whilst out on a walk around the nursery grounds, the preschool children were on a nature letter hunt. Otto looked up in the sky and had seen a circular shaped cloud had formed and excitedly called out, “That’s on O! O for Otto!”. Sebastian had seen the number 5 on a road sign and explained to his friends, “That is a number 5, but it looks a little bit like a S for me”. Upon arriving to the map of the grounds, the children were pointing up at the board and was able to identify several numbers on the board.

When back at nursery, a letter and shape sorting activity with sticks, leaves, bark and stones had a large group of children engaged. Whilst Ethan made a letter E with some sticks, Freddie made a dinosaur skeleton outline with sticks and leaves. Finding a split stick, he placed it at the top of his dinosaur shape and said, “That’s the dinosaurs big mouth so he can eat lots of leaves from the trees”. Margot and Tilly used some of the smaller stones to accurately spell out all of the letters in their names, Margot reassuring Tilly, “That’s very good Tilly, it says your name”, giving her a gentle pat on her back, which made Tilly smile.