‘The Poetry Basket’

Over the last year, the children in the Nursery have learned lots of poems through the use of ‘The Poetry Basket.’
The benefits of exploring poetry in the Early Years are many and a key characteristic of children’s poetry is its playfulness; it’s no wonder that young children naturally respond well to this. But apart from being really fun, exploring poetry can be beneficial in several interlinked ways:
The arrival of a new poetry book this week, ‘Here’s a Little Poem’   was met with great excitement and from one of the poems within the book, we were inspired to create these wonderful pieces of art. We used mixed media including oil pastels, collage and pen. We hope you enjoy our poetic gallery!

Budding Photographers in Nursery

We just had to share these stunning images taken by budding photographers in Nursery! We used a digital microscope, the magnify app on the ipad and a micro lens for the ipad; plus some investigations led children to observe and place seeds and plant materials on the light box. We think you will agree these images are worthy of being exhibited in a gallery!

 

Nursery’s journey of becoming sunflower experts

This week we have continued on our journey of becoming sunflower experts. A question was posed… ‘Can Seeds Travel?’ The children were unanimous in their initial thoughts that seeds can’t travel! We carried out some research to discover if this was true or not.
We found images of seeds such as dandelions and sycamore seeds – discovering that both travel by the wind; grass seeds that stick to the fur on dogs and berries that birds carry away – so animals can make seeds travel too!
Following this we made ‘seed bombs’! This was great! We used recycled paper and turned this into a pulp using a food blender. We added a variety of seeds and then pushed the pulp into ice-cube trays. Once they have dried out the children will bring them home to disperse the ‘seed bomb’ in their garden.
Through this investigation our intial thoughts that seeds cannot travel have been challenged and now we know that seeds can indeed travel – and in many different ways.

Sunflower Experts

Nursery are embarking on a journey to become sunflower experts! We are taking part in a sunflower challenge this term and our journey has started with exploring seed packets… you would not believe how much information we have already gathered just by looking at the packet itself!
The children have taken home their very own sunflower growing kit and already we are seeing some great videos on our Nursery Padlet with children acting as presenters and gardening experts, demonstrating how to plant their seeds. Better watch out Monty Don, your place as presenter on Gardeners’ World may we be in jeopardy!
 

Nursery Researchers and Scientists!

Following on from last week’s Biscuit Bonanza science experiments, Nursery have continued to be top researchers and scientists. The story of Jack and the Beanstalk has offered lots of opportunities for us to discover more about seeds. We have used a digital lens on our ipad to enable us to look really closely. The seeds looked so very different under the macro lens.
We have also planted pea/ bean and pumpkin seeds and are looking forward to our Sunflower Challenge maths project in the coming weeks… watch this space!

Super Subitisers

We are so very proud of how the children are becoming super subitisers. It is delightful to hear them asking each other, ‘What do you see and how do you see it?’
In the morning you can see their subitising skills in action as they use the outdoor five frames to self-register; so even before coming into Nursery, their maths brains are already switched on and ready to learn!
Thank you to all our parents for your continued support at home and contributing to our Nursery Padlet. We hope that you are enjoying learning too!
 

An amazing week…

Wow! What an amazing week of creativity we have had to celebrate National Storytelling Week. Our Nursery Padlet has been flooded with stories that the children have been creating at home with their very own Tales Toolkit pack. The lovely Cheryl from the Birmingham Hippodrome came back to see us and helped us to celebrate by telling us another chapatti inspired tale – ‘Chapatti Moon’ by Pippa Goodhart; we had great fun acting out all the characters.
We have also been recreating the story of ‘The Runaway Chapati’ by Susan and Adam Price; adding props and costumes supported by actor Rob from The Rep (if anyone has a tiger costume lying around we would love it!).
We have had the Nursery master chefs cooking up a storm by making their own chapatis with a yoghurt and mango dip or mint dip. Thankfully these ones did not get the chance to runaway and it has been great to see you all on the Nursery Padlet perfecting your cooking skills at home.

Check out some of the fun Nursery have been having:

We are enjoying working with Rob Beck from the Birmingham Repertory Theatre; this week we took to the stage with a wonderful array of props and costumes that Rob brought with him.  Elsewhere in the Nursery we are learning about repeating patterns and eating healthily. It is surprising what we found out about which foods are good for us and which ones are only for treats. Our work on pattern also led us to investigate a range of vegetables; we learned how to use a knife to chop up our veg… no good using a plastic one for the job in hand. All done with safety in mind of course!
                                 

Introducing Nursery Padlet

Nursery now have their very own Padlet page called ‘A Place to learn together’.
The aim of our page is to extend the learning that goes on both in Nursery and at home and to embed the knowledge, skill and concepts that the children are learning. Sharing the learning in this way helps both teachers and parents understand how the child is progressing and what the next steps in their learning journey will be.
We are loving seeing the posts so far and look forward to many more.