It has been lovely to welcome the children back to nursery this week and to catch up on what everyone had been busy doing over the Easter Break.
Our topic book for the week was Tilly’s at Home Holiday by Gillian Hibbs. The book discusses that sometimes we can’t go on a holiday but that there are a lot of exciting things we can do at home and in our immediate environment that are just as exciting. In the story Tilly goes to the park and pretends she is in the jungle! She also visits the library where she uses the books and her imagination to go on lots of exciting adventures. The children really enjoyed this topic as it reminded them of all the wonderful things they did at home during their Easter break including playing tag or pretending to be monsters with their siblings.
Our Role Play area has been buzzing with children throughout the week and it was lovely to see the children engage with imaginative play and extending their imagination by building on and supporting each other’s ideas. In the Red Group the Hairdresser was finally allowed to open and the children created wonderful hair styles for each other and for their teachers. In the Blue Group the children transformed into detectives, using magnifying glasses and binoculars to look for hidden toys around the classroom. They also used post it notes to hide messages and clues for each other to help them on their hunt. We extended this through different daily challenges including experimenting with using mirrors to see around corners, using white crayons on white paper to write secret messages and practising walking very quietly on tip toes. The children very excited to discover what their different daily challenges would be and had fun extending these with their own ideas.
This week the Fledglings enjoyed taking part in a wide range of messy play activities including painting dinosaurs, mixing cornflour with water and paint and painting with water. We extended these activities with letters and chalk where the children had a lovely time exploring the formation of letters and recapping their knowledge of the different letters they could recognise.
In celebration of Earth Day, there has been a big focus on nature this week and the children have enjoyed participating in a number of nature themed activities both indoors and outdoors including our environmental walks and small world activities. They also had a wonderful time using their imagination to create to create magic wands from natural objects and watering the plants outside.
On Thursday we came together to celebrate the Earth Day. We discussed what Earth Day was and why we celebrate it. The children used shaving foam, paint and paper plates to create Planet Earth. This activity opened up a wonderful conversations around the different ways we can look after our environment and our Planet and the reasons why this is important. The children were keen to share their knowledge of recycling, explaining what it meant and how it was done and they showed an amazing awareness of the importance of separating recyclable materials and putting rubbish in the correct bin.
During Circle Time we read books about plastic waste, learning more about its affect on the environment. Some of the children extended our discussion by sharing their knowledge of fatbergs which are created underground when wet wipes and other materials that are flushed down toilets build up over time. The children also discussed the effects of our actions on the environment which they gathered from various sources such as learning through play in our nursery, hearing information on television and through discussions with their parents. It was lovely to see the children’s astonishing awareness and concern about our environment and their excitement to make a difference.
