Sea Turtles explored a range of natural materials and elements in more depth this month.
One of the things Beata set up was a lovely activity with stones of different shapes, sizes and colours and mixed them in with wet sand on a tray. The children explored the qualities of the different stones and felt the smooth textures against the rough sand. Very mucky and fun. Megan also did a variation of this, by helping the children to make pictures using wet sand to make designs and apply on paper.
Beata also set up a great activity with green-blue jelly crystals and water in the water tray. The crystals expanded in the water to make a grainy jellish substance to run the toy ducks through and around.
Sarah Louise set up a water play activity for the children to explore different natural materials in water. She used stones, leaves, sticks, shells, sand in the water and also explored and showed the children the pieces that floated and sunk; letting the children drop them into the water to see the effect.
She also set up a very messy, but absolutely wonderful activity of clay and water to make mud with lumps, bumps and silky smoothness for the children. They buried items in the mud and then dug to find them as well. The children really loved this activity!
After the wet muddy clay, Sarah Louise set up a regular clay activity with stiff clay for the children to poke, scratch and manipulate the clay into different shapes and to get different effects from it. This was really enjoyed too in a different kind of way as the children could get more permanent effects from their impact on the clay.
Manjit made pancakes with the children. They loved this and loved eating them. The activity promoted lots of discussion and language involving
‘hot’, ‘stand back’ and ‘careful’, etc. They looked for the bubbles forming to see when they were ready to turn and discussed their shape, pouring, getting bigger, turning brown, etc.
Making fire pictures was also led by Manjit. She used red, orange, yellow to add texture to pictures they had done using white chalk on black paper. And they also made wind pictures using long strips of white tissue paper on blue paper and talked about wind, whistling and blowing as they made them.
One of the things Beata set up was a lovely activity with stones of different shapes, sizes and colours and mixed them in with wet sand on a tray. The children explored the qualities of the different stones and felt the smooth textures against the rough sand. Very mucky and fun. Megan also did a variation of this, by helping the children to make pictures using wet sand to make designs and apply on paper.
Beata also set up a great activity with green-blue jelly crystals and water in the water tray. The crystals expanded in the water to make a grainy jellish substance to run the toy ducks through and around.
Sarah Louise set up a water play activity for the children to explore different natural materials in water. She used stones, leaves, sticks, shells, sand in the water and also explored and showed the children the pieces that floated and sunk; letting the children drop them into the water to see the effect.
She also set up a very messy, but absolutely wonderful activity of clay and water to make mud with lumps, bumps and silky smoothness for the children. They buried items in the mud and then dug to find them as well. The children really loved this activity!
After the wet muddy clay, Sarah Louise set up a regular clay activity with stiff clay for the children to poke, scratch and manipulate the clay into different shapes and to get different effects from it. This was really enjoyed too in a different kind of way as the children could get more permanent effects from their impact on the clay.
Manjit made pancakes with the children. They loved this and loved eating them. The activity promoted lots of discussion and language involving
‘hot’, ‘stand back’ and ‘careful’, etc. They looked for the bubbles forming to see when they were ready to turn and discussed their shape, pouring, getting bigger, turning brown, etc.Making fire pictures was also led by Manjit. She used red, orange, yellow to add texture to pictures they had done using white chalk on black paper. And they also made wind pictures using long strips of white tissue paper on blue paper and talked about wind, whistling and blowing as they made them.
One of the highlights was the volcano. Jenny came down from Dolphins to show them how to set it up and the children watched as the 'lava' spewed out over the sides unexpectedly in great froths after she poured in the vinegar to the soda.
The month, even though it ended with
a random heat wave, also saw leaves tumbling down all around us, so tossing and throwing leaves has become a daily activity as great drifts of leaves find their way all over the playground and 
gathering in the corners.
Something that we have been doing a lot of recently in Sea turtles has been exploring all the sensory toys in the sensory tent. They flash, glow, vibrate, move and totally excite the children, filling them with delight in thje unexpected.
The month, even though it ended with
a random heat wave, also saw leaves tumbling down all around us, so tossing and throwing leaves has become a daily activity as great drifts of leaves find their way all over the playground and 
gathering in the corners.Something that we have been doing a lot of recently in Sea turtles has been exploring all the sensory toys in the sensory tent. They flash, glow, vibrate, move and totally excite the children, filling them with delight in thje unexpected.
And in Dolphins, they had a month exploring boats and naturally this extended to a lot of water interest too, especially at the end of the month when 28 degrees had us putting great icebergs in our water play that we had been freezing the evenings before.
Carole and the children worked hard across the month putting together a book
all about boats. She held great discussions with children about different types of boats they knew about and boats they had been on. They drew lots of pictures about their discussions and book is fabulous and full of some wonderful drawings. It is sitting in reception if you want to have a read with your children.
Laura W taught the children two new songs this month about the sea. Including a A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea… and When I Was One, I Sucked My Thumb and sailed Away To Sea... and so we have heard them being hummed and sung away as the children potter through activities and it sounds so lovely.
Laura W spent some time on floating and sinking this month with the pre-schoolers too. A lot of just choosing any random items and making predictions about whether or not they would float and sink, but they also moved on to designing boats by looking at images of boats, drawing pictures of them and then making them with lego. They were
asked to make them while thinking about all of the things they thought made something float and many of them came up with some fantastic boats that floated!
The pre-schoolers also did a lot of counting and number work based around colours, shapes, sizes and quantities as well.
Laura Z set up a boat collage activity for the children to select shapes, draw around them, cut them out and stick them on card to make a boat in their own way. They also added wool for water and put together some wonderful boats shapes.
Some of the children made boats going to Antarctica and used white wool ‘because it is so cold there’.
Throughout the activity they talked about where in the world boats go and the types of weather and conditions they come across. They sang boats songs, chatted away and carried on their discussions into the book corner where they read all sorts of boat books. They especially enjoyed the book, Sam Goes Sailing.
Laura J spent a lot of time with the children in the outdoors making boat dens and setting up dramatic boating play. The most special of the activities was the pirate ship on the climbing frame. They set up lots of blue fabric on the ground as the water, the oven as the ticket stop, to buy tickets to go sailing on the boat. The children spent hours setting up the boat the way they wanted it and setting sail.
And on a different tangent, our Apple Harvest day was terrific fun. We set up the car park as an orchard using the trees that we had made in t
he week with Carole, then scattered 100s of apples around the car park hidden in cunning places. Then, the children role played traveling to the orchard on a bus of lined up seats, singing songs about buses and the outdoors. When we finally made it, the children got out and went on an apple hunt; racing around the car park trying to find the most apples to fill the apple bucket. Then, once all the apples had been found, the children chose between games of Pin The Apple on The Branch, Apple Bobbing and jumping on the bouncy castle.
In the afternoon, they made apple crumble with the gathered apples, for tea children ate a whole apple of their choice and they got to take an apple home too. It was a pretty fun special activity day.
Carole and the children worked hard across the month putting together a book
all about boats. She held great discussions with children about different types of boats they knew about and boats they had been on. They drew lots of pictures about their discussions and book is fabulous and full of some wonderful drawings. It is sitting in reception if you want to have a read with your children.Laura W taught the children two new songs this month about the sea. Including a A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea… and When I Was One, I Sucked My Thumb and sailed Away To Sea... and so we have heard them being hummed and sung away as the children potter through activities and it sounds so lovely.
Laura W spent some time on floating and sinking this month with the pre-schoolers too. A lot of just choosing any random items and making predictions about whether or not they would float and sink, but they also moved on to designing boats by looking at images of boats, drawing pictures of them and then making them with lego. They were
asked to make them while thinking about all of the things they thought made something float and many of them came up with some fantastic boats that floated!The pre-schoolers also did a lot of counting and number work based around colours, shapes, sizes and quantities as well.
Laura Z set up a boat collage activity for the children to select shapes, draw around them, cut them out and stick them on card to make a boat in their own way. They also added wool for water and put together some wonderful boats shapes.
Some of the children made boats going to Antarctica and used white wool ‘because it is so cold there’.
Throughout the activity they talked about where in the world boats go and the types of weather and conditions they come across. They sang boats songs, chatted away and carried on their discussions into the book corner where they read all sorts of boat books. They especially enjoyed the book, Sam Goes Sailing.Laura J spent a lot of time with the children in the outdoors making boat dens and setting up dramatic boating play. The most special of the activities was the pirate ship on the climbing frame. They set up lots of blue fabric on the ground as the water, the oven as the ticket stop, to buy tickets to go sailing on the boat. The children spent hours setting up the boat the way they wanted it and setting sail.
And on a different tangent, our Apple Harvest day was terrific fun. We set up the car park as an orchard using the trees that we had made in t
he week with Carole, then scattered 100s of apples around the car park hidden in cunning places. Then, the children role played traveling to the orchard on a bus of lined up seats, singing songs about buses and the outdoors. When we finally made it, the children got out and went on an apple hunt; racing around the car park trying to find the most apples to fill the apple bucket. Then, once all the apples had been found, the children chose between games of Pin The Apple on The Branch, Apple Bobbing and jumping on the bouncy castle.In the afternoon, they made apple crumble with the gathered apples, for tea children ate a whole apple of their choice and they got to take an apple home too. It was a pretty fun special activity day.
