December 2011

What are we doing in Dolphins~ November to December?

Well this year we are getting on with Christmas early so they know their Carol’s and Christmas festivities in good time and before the fun arrives. The children have been nagging us to sing Christmas songs and so why not? Let’s get the glitter scattered, glue gummed about and start the Christmas production line…. We will also be learning about Hanukah, Santa Lucia and the different ways these festivals are celebrated around the world
The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:
KUW-religious festivals in the world PSED- different ways in demonstrating care for others MD size, shapes, counting, organising. CLL Learning new words to songs, signing songs. PD Action songs, keeping warm in the colder weather CD- creative dance to Christmas music. The Dance performance
Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be:
• Christine H will be reintroducing the children to Christmas songs and reminding us of all the ones we forgot over the year.
• She will also be helping children make salt dough Christmas decorations for your trees at home.
• Laura Williams will be supporting the Thursday dance group in preparing for their dance show. • Laura W will also be helping children make presents for their parents and talking about the meaning of Christmas and why we give gifts.
• Rachel G will be making decorations for the room, junk modelling and doing a lot of box wrapping with the children.
• Lan will be helping the children to make Christmas cards and also flashcards for our Christmas songs.
• Laura Zurita will be showing the children how to make some great Christmas decorations. • Jenny will be teaching the children about Santa Lucia and Hannuka.
• Su will be talking to the children about remembering those who aren’t as lucky as us at Christmas time.
• Carol will be putting together a book called ‘Our Story of Christmas Time’ which is about what the children in our nursery do to celebrate Christmas or if they don’t what they do instead.
What you could do to support your children at home:
• Send a few works to the nursery about your plans for Christmas so that the children can talk about it and share them with their friends.
• Take a walk through the city to look at the Christmas lights. They are beautiful and children just love them.
• Talk with your children about others less fortunate and ways that you can help.
• Make some Christmas tree decorations.
• Practice your Carol’s for Carol’s by Candlelight!
• Read them the story of Christmas. • Share your family’s plans for Christmas so that your child can talk about it and share their excitement with their friends.

What are we doing in Sea Turtles from November to December?

Celebrating the environment around us. Christmas, lights, cold, wrapping up warm, celebrations and decorations. The activities this month will be based around the Early Year
Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:
KUW-observing the changes in the environment and responding to them. PSED- learning about and dealing with excitement, wonder and expectations. Experiencing Santa and responding to feelings about him. MD- size, shape, pattern, colour. CLL- naming new discoveries and expanding vocabulary, especially through song PD-coping with dressing for the cold and moving in more restrictive clothing CD- arts and crafts, movement using things in creative ways.
Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
• Manjit will be helping the children to create Christmas scenes through art. Also making Christmas stocking pictures and cold winter collages.
• Manjit will be making a Christmas cake with the children.
• All of the Sea turtles team will be making Christmas cards and presents with the children.
• Sarah G will be helping the children to ice rich team biscuits with the children to bake Christmas biscuits.
• Sarah G will be helping the children to make Santa’s boot collages and snow men collages.
• Sarah Louise will be making Christmas tree decorations with the children; balls, angles, presents, candy sticks, etc. She’ll also be making Christmas tree collages.
• Sarah Louise will be helping the children to make snow globes using clear plastic bottles.
• Sarah Louise will be making reindeer ears and bell bracelets with the children.
• Sara will be helping the children to make Christmas hats with the children and also introducing a Spanish Christmas song.
• Ella will be helping the children to make stained glass windows.
Some ideas to support your children at home:
• The most exciting this for small children at Christmas time are the decorations that shine and sparkle. Make them a Christmas treasure basket using safe items that they can explore and enjoy without destroying the Christmas tree and house adornment.
• Take them for a walk in the buggy through the city filled with lights so they can lie back and enjoy the show.
• Take them to an ice skating rink. They can’t participate but infants and toddlers love to see bigger children enjoying themselves.

Sea Turtles October

We have been seriously spoiled in October with the amazing weather. We always love the leaves and wind and approach to darkness, but this year we have been able to do it without freezing fingers and toes! This has meant loads of 'collecting' activities being able to be explored outside to their artistic end.

So, we have enjoyed leaves, leaves and more leaves. They have been scattered over the top of water. Sarah M submerged lots in brown paint and squelched them about with the children. Beata painted leaves and stuck them on paper to make tree pictures. Piles of them have been put in the big sand and water tray for the children to sit in amongst them. We have picked them up, thrown them and sat quietly investigating them more intently.

And then there was the fun leading up to Halloween with the grand finale of the Halloween Day. Sarah G made spiders with the children, which were a lot of fun. Manjit made some pumpkins with them and a delicious pumpkin loaf cake that they decorated and ate on the fun day. The children came in fantastic costumes and as a collection of little dressed up toddlers they were quite simply adorable.

Dolphins October

Dolphins have also embraced the outdoors with a number of preschool children’s trips to the Green. They have had a great time collecting leaves, sticks, conkers, seed pods, etc and bringing them back to the nursery to look at further.

Jenny, who has been training as a Forest School teacher for the last year, has been talking to the first group of children and getting resources ready with them  for their Forest Schools sessions. A Forest School is an innovative educational approach to outdoor play and learning. The philosophy of Forest Schools is to encourage and inspire individuals of any age through positive outdoor experiences.

For more information on Forest Schools, please look at the link to the right of this page.

Following the collections, we have been making leaf rubbings with the leaves, sticking them together to make autumn collages, playing with them in clay, drawing around them, etc.

Some of the Dolphin children also took a trip to St Mary’s nursery and took part in some tile making workshops there to make colourful tiles to display in the children’s bathroom. We’ll take another trip to look at the finished tiles in December too.

And then there was of course an overload of Halloween activities as well. Pumpkins made out of paper plates, salt dough cats, witches, houses, pumpkins. Orange and black paper chains have been strung up…all in preparation for our Halloween costume party. And the Halloween Day was great fun too. The children were fantastic and we had all sorts of dressing up, fun and games all day, finished off with partying in the dark playground at the end of the day with our Halloween music, disco lights and glowsticks. What a great way to finish October!

 

September reflection

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 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.

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 the 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.

September to October plans

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?

From September to October we will be having an enhanced focus on boats.

The children became really interested in Pirates a couple of months ago and they have started to revisit this with a bigger focus on boats. The younger children have really been brought along with it through the boat aspect and so we are going to explore all the different sorts of boats there are with them and peg a range of activities around boats.

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

KUW-exploring different types of boats PSED- sharing what they know about boats with other children MD- size, variation, differences, similarities, ordering, comparing. CLL- Reading about, learning new words, talking about boats. PD- making boats on large scales using the large construction equipment dramatic play around boats.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be:
- Laura W will be introducing two new boats songs to circle times.
- Laura J will be making boats with children using the large construction equipment in the outdoors.
- Christina will be setting the scene of a ferry for some role play and making paper boats with the children.
- Laura Z will be discovering with the children about the journey a boat makes through hot and cold environments.
- Laura J will be making a series of laminated images of different types of boats and some information about them to share with the children.
- Rachel will be role playing, talking about and doing some creative activities about the sea life you can see from boats.
- Jenny will be making woodwork boats with the children and creating sea life mobiles.
- Laura W will be setting up some floating and sinking activities based around the things in the sea.
- Carole will be making a book of children’s drawing and stories about what they know about boats.
- Laura and Jenny will be organising a small group walk to the Thames Path to look at, draw and take photos of the different types of boats they can see.
- Rachel will be collecting photos the children bring in of themselves on boats to talk about in circle times.

What you could do to support your children at home:
- Bring in some photos and share what your family knows about boats; boats you have been on, boats families have been on, boats family members work on. We can use these in discussion times to support your child in building their confidence in talking in front of others.
- Go for a walk along the canal or Thames Path with your child and talk about the different types of boats and what they do.
- Go to the library and get some different books out about boats.
Take a ride on a boat on the Thames or Canals with your child.


What are we doing in Sea Turtles from September to October?

Sea turtles have been loving playing in the new sand pit, pushing their faces into the wind, playing in the water and starting to watch some of the leaves find their way into their playground. They have a real interest in exploring through their senses and with the big changes that the start of autumn brings, this is a great time to explore these elements with the children.

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

KUW-exploring textures and qualities through their fingers. PSED- confidence in exploring new textures and feelings. MD- size, shape, pattern, colour. CLL- naming new discoveries and expanding vocabulary PD-using bodies to touch, move, explore through their senses CD- arts and crafts, movement using things in creative ways.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
• Manjit will make a volcano with the children in the sand mixing vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.
• Sarah G will be helping the children to make kites to fly in the wind and using the sensory tent blacked out with torches, flashing balls, mirrors for light reflection, etc.
• Sarah-Louise will be using natural materials to make collages with the children, planting bulbs and making windmills.
• Beata will be making collages with leaves and playing with and exploring different types of stones.
• Megan will be making sand pictures with the children and setting up a variety of different water play experience for the older and younger children.
• Manjit will be making pancakes with the children and using the camp stove to cook them; talking about the heat and safety and making some art with the children to represent the process of cooking the pancakes.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
• Collect natural materials for your children to play with and explore the qualities of. E.g. sticks, stones, leaves, conkers, sand, water.
• Play with your baby by fanning them to give them the experience of wind on their bodies. Flap blankets and sheets and blow on their skin.
• Let them explore water movement by half filling a water bottle to play with. Add food colouring for a different effect.