What will Dolphins be doing in May 2014

What are we doing in Dolphins in

May?

Following on from our life cycle topic and watching our caterpillars change and become butterflies, The children in Dolphins have shown an interest in looking at snails, slugs and other creepy crawlies they find outside so we will be expanding upon their knowledge and interest through a variety of activities,

The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:

Prime areas:

PSED: begin to accept the needs of others and take turn and share resources, sometimes with support from others. PD: Begin to recognise danger and seek support of a significant adult for help. C&L Begin to understand ‘Why’ and ‘How’ questions.

Specific areas:

L: Show interest in illustrations and print in books and prints in the environment. M: Show an awareness of similarities of shapes in the environment. UW: Talk about some of the things they have observed, such as plants, animals, natural and found objects. EA&D: Begin to use a variety of construction materials.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be:

·         Bug Hunts. Marie Claire will be taking groups of children to the park to look for bugs and creepy crawlies

·         Bug posters. Shilpi will be helping the children to create posters of insects using photos, magazine pictures and their own drawings of insects.

·         Pipe cleaner Bugs. Christine will be supporting the children to create Bugs using pipe cleaners, Feathers and polystyrene balls

·         Bug studies. Matt will support the children in choosing their favourite creepy crawlies and taking a closer look at them, learning about a different bug each week.

·         Observing insects. Manjit will be helping the children to learn about the different bugs in our surrounding environment through observation, Manjit will encourage the children to look at and draw pictures of creepy crawlies they find. 

·         Making 3D Bumble bees. Abongi will be supporting the children to make 3D bumble bees using a variety of materials and learning about their characteristics.

·         Bug Hotel. Emma will assist the children to make bug hotels to put in the playground and observe what bugs come to stay.

What you could do to support your children at home:

·         Go on your own bug hunt. Go to your local park and look under logs, rocks and around the base of trees and see what insects you can find, have a discussion with your child about what are their favourite bugs and why.

·         Make your very own bug home to hang in the garden. Help your child to make a bug home to place in your garden or hang outside a window.

·         Borrow some books. Take a trip to your local library and borrow some books on insects and other creepy crawlies. Talk to your child about the habitats, food and characteristics of the insects in the books.

what we are doing in Sea Turtles in May 2014

What are we doing in Sea Turtles in May?

In Sea Turtles the children have loved being outside and have been busy planting, smelling and watching the flowers grow so we will continue to expand their interest and continue with our growing topic this month and also start to look at other things that they find outside such as insects.

The activities this month will be based around the Early Years

Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:

Prime areas:

PSED: Engaging others to achieve a common goal such as working together to get items out of reach.  PD: Making connections between their physical actions and the effects they can make. C&L Gesturing, facial expressions, demonstrations of emotion in sharing an interest.

Specific areas:

M: Recognising big things and small things in meaningful contexts. UW: Exploring objects by linking different approaches; shaking, hitting, looking, feeling, tasting, mouthing, etc. EA&D Imitating and improving actions they have observed, such as clapping, shaking, patting hands.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:

·         Bug Hunts. Sarah will help the children to take a closer look at the creepy crawlies that can be found in our surrounding environment.

·         Song time. Alice will be teaching the children new songs about flowers, growing and insects.

·         Making flash cards. Laura will help the children to make flash cards using photos of the sunflowers that they are growing, and use them in circle times to help extend the children’s vocabulary.

·         Leaf and petal printing. Afia will support the children to create their own pictures using leaves, petals and paints.

·         Sunflower pictures. Using a variety of resources such as paint, felt, chalk, crayons and card Christina will help the children to create their own sunflower to take home.

·         Herb Garden. Laura will be working with the children to make a herb garden that the children can explore using their different senses as they smell, touch and taste.

·         Trips to the park. The children will visit the local park and the riverside to collect items to bring back to the centre to use in their activities.

Some ideas to support your children at home:

·         Bug hunt. Explore with your child what can be found under a rock or log.

·         Go for a walk. Explore your local environment encouraging your little one to point to the flowers, trees and other interesting things around them, use lots of descriptive language with them.

·         Read some books together with a gardening or insect topic. Let them point, communicate with gesture and share what they have been doing at nursery with you.

·         Language: Grow, Seed, Stem, Petal, Big, Small, Bug, Crawl, Smell, Look, Gentle, Under, any great descriptive words that explain what you are doing.

What are we doing in Dolphins in April?

Spring is finally here! With buds on the trees and flowers growing, the Dolphin children have been noticing the changes going on around them. This month the children will be learning about how living things change and grow. We will look at both how plants grow and how we ourselves grow and change.

The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:

Prime areas:

PSED: Enjoys responsibility of carrying out small tasks. PD: Observes the effects activities have on their bodies. C&L Develop understanding of simple concepts (eg: Big/Little)

Specific areas:

L: Enjoy rhyming and rhythmic activities. M: Show an interest in shapes in the environment. UW: Develop an understanding of growth, decay and changes over time. EA&D: Begin to be interested in and describe the texture of things.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be:

·         Life cycles. Manjit will be looking at different animal life cycles such as frogs and chickens, Manjit will support the children in making life cycle charts and will also be doing some experiments with eggs.

·         Trip to the library. Shilpi will be organising trips to the library so the children can choose some books about growth and will bring them back to the centre to look at and share.

·         Growing cress. Christine will be supporting the children to grow their own cress, the children will watch and record how it grows and changes.

·         Animal collages. Matt will support the children in make animal life cycle collages using pictures of different animals at different stages of growth.

·         Butterflies. Marie Claire will be helping the children to learn about the life cycle of a butterfly by introducing baby caterpillars and getting the children to watch them grow and change into butterflies before releasing them into the wild, along with looking at books about caterpillars and drawing pictures of the caterpillars. 

·         How we grow. Abongi will be discussing with the children how we as humans grow and change, using flashcards and photos, Abongi will support the children in understanding how we grow and what we need to help us grow.

·         Planting seeds. Emma will assist the children to plant some spring time seeds and bulbs in the garden and learn about what plants grow in the spring time.

What you could do to support your children at home:

·         Go for a spring walk. Go to your local park or visit the walk ways by the river, get your child to point out what colours and shapes they can spot, see how many different flowers you can find, what wildlife can you see on your walk?.

·         Look at family photo albums. Look at photos with your child talk about how they have grown and changed since they were a baby, show them photos of yourself as a young child and discuss how you have changed.

·         Do some planting. Plant some seeds, blubs or plants in your garden, window box or a plant pot that could be put on a window ledge or shelf,  encourage your child to look after their planting, talk about how the plants or seeds need water and sunlight to help them grow. 

What are we doing in Sea Turtles in April?

It’s gardening in Sea Turtles this month. We will be extending on from last month’s topic of being active where we did things around fruits and vegetables, and looking at how they grow.  We will encourage the children’s interest in growth by looking at plants and flowers.  So let the good weather bring on some green fingers!

The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:

Prime areas:

PSED: Engaging others to achieve a common goal such as working together to get items out of reach.  PD: Making connections between their physical actions and the effects they can make. C&L Gesturing, facial expressions, demonstrations of emotion in sharing an interest.

Specific areas:

M: Recognising big things and small things in meaningful contexts. UW: Exploring objects by linking different approaches; shaking, hitting, looking, feeling, tasting, mouthing, etc. EA&D Imitating and improving actions they have observed, such as chapping, shaking, patting hands.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:

·         Gardening with Sarah. Develop our gardening boxes with the children and sharing the process with them.

·         Cress growing with Alice to make grassy areas and green fields for the small world play environments.  Children will also have their own, individual pots of cress to take home.

·         Planting sunflower seeds with Laura. Watching them sprout and grow.

·         Finding flowers and learning names with Afia. Collages out of magazine cuttings and flower spotting in books and magazines.

·         Role playing gardening flowers and seeds with Christina. Using a range of tools to act out gardening.

·         Planting and growing herbs with Cristina.  Children will explore the smell and taste of the herbs during and after the growing process.

·         Taking an excursion to Homebase to look at flowers and the growing environment.

·         Making fruit and vegetable pictures with Sarah.  Using different materials and resources.

Some ideas to support your children at home:

·         If you have a Kew membership, know someone with an allotment or garden, take an extra visit. Find a gardener and just take some time out to watch them gardening. Talk about what they are doing.

·         Invest in a children’s watering can. Small toddlers love watering gardens, window boxes, etc. If you have nothing for them to water, fill up a can and go for a walk down the street to water someone else’s plants. Weeds are good for watering too!

·         Do you have a small patch in your garden that you could give up for your little one to develop their green fingers and do some digging? Or, how about a tray you could put some soil or sand in, add some weeds, small seeds, sand and let them loose with a children’s gardening set.

·         Read some books together with a gardening topic. Let them point, communicate with gesture and share what they have been doing at nursery with you.

·         Language: dig, push, pull, turn, scratch, soft, hard, sharp, spikey, flat, bumpy, pour, tip, drizzle, drip, slosh, splash, splatter, any great descriptive words that explain what you are doing.

What we got up to in Dolphins in March 2014

As the Dolphin children were showing a keen interest and enjoyed the previous month’s topic about keeping healthy, we decided to follow on into March with continuing with the healthy theme with the topic of ‘Keeping Active’.

We supported  the children to participate in lots of different keeping active activities.

We had a pancake race at the beginning of the month, with lots of weaving through poles and hopping over hula hoops.  Children had a great time and really got involved.

We celebrated World Book Day by becoming characters from our favourite books.  The Gruffalo was a keen favourite choice for many of the children.

We took advantage of the warmer weather by taking a small trip to the park with the majority of the group, we enjoyed the walk down as much as playing in the park!

Children enjoyed talking about the different kinds of sports events the watch on television or play outside of nursery.

The main even of the month was our Sports Relief Olympics.  The children absolutely loved taking parts in the many physical activities we had going on both inside and outdoors.  From yoga indoors, to a full blown circuit in the car park, the children got to explore their physical abilities and watch the teachers explore theirs too, as the whole nursery took part!

What we did in Sea Turtles in March

This month we looked at being ‘active’ and how to be healthy. 

We created new situations to explore movements outdoors as well indoors due to younger children becoming more mobile.

 Using music and movement circle-time helped children to join in with rhymes and create actions to the movements. During the topic children enjoyed going into the car park to explore movement with the parachute. Children learnt new words to support  their  actions, for example’ up’ and ‘down’.

We've been exploring different types of obstacle courses both indoors and outdoors by taking risks safely and exploring the different ways we move, like wiggling like a worm through the tunnel. Children explored climbing on all fours through the rainbow rings, using new equipment such as stepping stones to gain skills and confidence at balancing. 

We enjoyed pancake day by participating in pancake races, we got to enjoy the pancakes later on at teatime, yummy!

Children enjoyed many action songs, especially hop little bunnies. We used the song to create different animal movements for example  snap little crocodiles. Children learned different actions for each animal.

Children have shown interest in balls by kicking, rolling, throwing and passing the ball. In small groups they have practiced scoring a goal. We have been exploring different sizes  of balls  to play with.