Science, Colour & Geography!
Over the last couple of weeks in pre-school, the children have been investigating all things to do with science, geography and the world around us. The children took part in a fun picture floating tin foil activity. They drew their own shapes and people on to some tin foil and watched in amazement as the pictures slowly came away from the foil once water was slowly poured on to their pictures. Alba had drawn a person and Ari thought it was so funny that, “There is a dancing man!” and called all of the other children over. “Come and look, the man is dancing, how is he doing that?” Sophie and Imogen were busy drawing some shapes whilst Olivia and Tristan were drawing their own ‘dancing men’.
The children then went on to investigating an underwater firework experiment. Isabelle spotted the first bubble that had popped and encouraged her friends, “Guys, if you bend down, you can see under the water properly and you can see the beautiful fireworks!”. Sammy had noticed that there were different colours in each bowl and suggested, “What do you think would happen if we mixed the colours together?” Zac said, “I know! It would just make a big brown messy colour”. Carrying out the investigation, the children very quickly realised that this is exactly what the outcome of the colour mixing was. Zac was very proud of himself, “See I told you that would happen, I know because I have done colour mixing before”. After the oil, food colouring and water were mixed together, Isla had noticed there was a swirl in the water and called out, “It’s just like a real tornado, I saw one of those on my TV”. Reegan asked, “What’s a tornado?” To which Isla replied, “I don’t know how it happens but it looks super cool”. The children thoroughly enjoyed learning how a tornado is formed. Rowan very quickly sped his arms in to a spin and laughed, saying, “Look, I’m making a tornado with my body”.
The children were busy in the construction area building their own landmarks from around the world including the Great Wall of China, Big Ben, the Taj Mahal and the Statue of Liberty. Jonathan was very inquisitive of what the Eiffel Tower was and where we could find it, whilst Alastair was telling his friends that he had seen Stonehenge when he had gone to see his grandparents with his family. Lana also make her very own Eiffel Tower building using the coloured blocks and went on to correctly count the blocks from 1-12. Well done!
Chinese New Year & Exploring Culture through Music!
Over the last few weeks, the toddlers have enjoyed preparing for and celebrating Chinese New Year. As this is the year of the rabbit the toddlers loved venturing out into the woods to search high and low for rabbits. When the toddlers couldn’t find any they decided to become rabbits themselves, by crouching down on all fours and jumping up and down. Back at nursery Oliver, Ellie and Jasper had the best time making a dragon to be hung up in the toddler room. Margot shouted “Look, red paint!"” as she splatted it across the box, table and floor. Sophie picked up a sponge and pressed it into the yellow paint and said “Yellow painting”. As the toddlers worked together to paint the dragon, Youcef started to see another colour appear. He pointed to the dragon and said “Orange”. As part of the Chinese New Year celebration the toddlers had the opportunity to try egg fried rice and noodles. At first Kitty said “yuck” but soon after watching Jude throughly enjoy his, she was willing to try some and to her surprise she actually really enjoyed it!
The toddlers have also been looking at different types of music from the different cultures they have within the room. The toddlers have enjoyed daily dance sessions listening and dancing to Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic and Jamaican music. Otto loved wiggling his bottom to the Spanish beat while Amèlie enjoyed banging a goblet drum to the Arabic music. Isabelle enjoyed playing her french lute that she had made using cardboard boxes and elastic bands. She said “Ping Ping!” as she pulled the bands to make a sound. Outside, the toddlers explored different ways to make music using different surfaces and objects to make sounds. Sebastian used a sand toy to hit a wheelbarrow, making a high pitch sound. Otto used sticks along the wooden trims in the garden which made a sound that caused him and his friends to laugh and Esmé used her hands to bang on the table making up her very own rhythm.
The under two’s have been busy with lots of Chinese New Year activities and been using bright red and yellow paint on paper plates to make a Chinese dragon. When using the sponges Harry kept saying “dab dab dab”. Eva watched Harry and started to copy, but she missed her paper plate and made a lovely mess on the table. With a big smile across her face, she looked and said “Oh dear!” which made Oliver laugh.
The children had great fun ripping up tissue paper to make fire for the fire breathing dragon! Rose was the first to get stuck into the paper, babbling as she ripped the paper into pieces, whilst India sat intently watching what Rose was doing. Monty came over to investigate and took hold of the red paper and began to tear it, the more encouragement he was given, the more he ripped the paper, smiling the whole time!
The under two’s enjoyed playing with sticky noddles (although some of us enjoyed eating them more!). We used kitchen utensils to try picking up the noddles, Arlo reached into the messy tray and grabbed big handfuls of noddles then put them towards his mouth, whilst Edward carefully used the ladle.
The under twos have explored the garden during the recent sunny cold weather. Arthur was having fun moving the leaves around the messy tray while Rose found it funny to crunch the leaves between her hands. Rose began to laugh when Kelly threw the leaves up into the air and they fell around her feet. Over in the sandpit, Ave was carefully using the spade to scoop up the sand, Harry watched and then join in, by using a small sandcastle shaped pot to scoop up the sand to add to the pile!
Frosty Walks & Learning about Habitats!
The past few weeks in preschool have been filled with lots of fun activities and learning. The children have been focusing on habitats and learning about different environments and which animals might live there. During a group discussion at circle time the children suggested different animals and where they live. Zac said “Elephants live in Africa!” to which Isaac added “I love elephants!”. The children were shrieking with delight during animal snap! They love small group activities such as these which became fast furious and very loud!The children took turns to place their cards on the pile, all the while looking out for when there was a pair. Louis placed his card down before quickly shouting “Snap!” Charlie pointed to the pile and said “Look, they are the same!” The children used the water tray to explore underwater habitats, filling it with sea creatures and splashing in the water. Alfie said “Look! A crab!”, Ari replied “Crabs live in the sea!”.
They took a winter walk in the forest with a small group of friends from the toddler room, taking in the sights along the way. Once they arrived at the forest, it was time to explore. As Olivia went to collect some sticks, she noticed that the frosty ground was crunching underneath her wellies. She said “Look Max!” as she stomped her feet. Max and Tom came over to join in and shared a laugh as they all crunched the grass with their wellies. Tom then noticed his shadow on the ground and watched as it copied his movements. He told his friends “It moves!” and waved his arms in the air.
