What we did in Sea Turtles in February

This month for February we looked at caring and sharing with our friends. We have been supporting the children to build up friendships through sharing activities.

The children have been learning to use key words in their play for gentle touching and caring for others. For example Alice has been taking photos of children in their play, using the photos to create flashcards for children to relate the words to their play. This has brought positive behaviour into the group, by talking about the importance of sharing things. The older children have been role-modelling to the little ones and encouraging  sharing.   

We have been doing circle-times around the topic by creating a special treasure basket with children bringing special items in from home to explore and share with others.  Children have been in small groups where they have been exploring , talking and showing others  their special things.

There has been lots of sensory play to add means to gesture and marks children make.  We adjusted the activity from floor to table to encourage all children to come to the activity and explore the textures.  Children learnt to turn-take during the activity by sharing the paint brushes. The children created different movements to express their feelings.

Children explored family photos which are display in the quiet room, children are beginning to recognise their  peers and  main carers.

What we got up to in Dolphins in February

The Dolphin children had shown an interest in talking about vegetables and why it’s important to eat them, so in February we explored how to keep healthy, which included what we should eat, why we need to exercise and keep active and the importance of cleaning ourselves.

The beginning of the month in Dolphins was all things pink and red to celebrate Valentine’s Day.  The children enjoyed getting sparkly and creative with heart shapes.

We've had lots of discussions about ways to keep clean and why we have to look after our bodies on the outside as well as the inside.

The forest school children are now in the full swing of things and are gaining lots of fire building experience.  The hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows at the end are an added tasty bonus!

What are we doing in Sea Turtles in February

The children in Sea Turtles have been showing their sensitive caring sides with their friends. This month we will be supporting the children to build friendships, through sharing, gentle touching and caring for others and encouraging their positive behaviour.

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:

Prime areas:

PSED: Show an interest in the activities and respond differently to children and adults. PD: Explore objects by picking up and touching them. C&L Develop the ability to follow others body language.

Specific areas:

L:Enjoy looking at books and other printed material with familiar people. M:Begin to recognise big things and small things in meaningful context. UW: Enjoy pictures and stories about themselves, their families and other people.  EA&D: Begin to move to music, listen to rhymes, and join in with rhymes and songs 

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

·         Sharing and caring circle time. Sarah will be making a special treasure basket of items that are special to the children that they have brought from home for them to explore and share with each other.

·         Friendship collage. Alice will be working with the children to make a large friendship collage using photos of the children playing and being caring towards each other.

·         Caring Flash cards. Cristina C will make flash cards with different caring actions on them for the children to copy.

·         Sensory play. Laura will support the children in exploring soft touching, exploring words and adding meaning to actions

·         Puppet time. Afia will be doing puppet circle times encouraging the children to play with the puppets to promote sharing, gentle touching and friendships.

·         Story time. Christina G will be sharing books with the children about sharing and playing together. 

What you could do to support your children at home: 

·         Talk to your little ones. Talk to your little ones about the importance of sharing things, invite a friend over for a play date, sit with them and role model and encourage sharing.

·         Read stories. Sit together and look at books and read stories about sharing and caring.

·         Use positive reinforcement. Always give praise both verbally and through expression and body language when your child shares or is caring towards others.

 

What are we doing in Dolphins in February?

The Dolphin children have shown an interest in talking about vegetables and why it’s important to eat them, So this month we will be exploring how to keep healthy which includes what we should eat, why we need to exercise and keep active and the importance of cleaning ourselves.

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

Prime areas:

PSED: Begin to express own preferences of what vegetables and fruit to eat. PD: Start to observe the effect of activity on their bodies. C&L Begin to understand the use of objects.

Specific areas:

L: To show an interest in illustrations and print in books and the environment. M: To understand the order and sequences of hygiene routines. UW: To enjoy joining in with nursery customs and routines EA&D: Manipulate materials to make dinner plates and healthy eating posters.

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

·         Oral hygiene. Manjit will support the children in understanding the importance of cleaning our teeth, through discussions and role play.

·         Healthy eating poster. Shilpi will  be talking about healthy food and the importance of eating healthily   and will be assisting the children to create a healthy eating poster

·         Good food /bad food. Christine will be supporting the children to learn about good food and bad food and how they work, using books and games.

·         Healthy eating dinner plates. Matt will assist the children to create their own healthy eating dinner plate by talking about what food is good for you and cutting out pictures of healthy food to stick on to a paper plate.

·         Hand Washing. Marie Claire will be helping the children to learn how to clean their hands properly by carrying out a glitter experiment to demonstrate effective hand washing.

  

What you could do to support your children at home:

·         Make brushing teeth fun. Download an app such as BrushDJ or play a CD of their favourite songs and help them brush their teeth to music adding in a little hip wiggle here and there.

·         Take a trip to the supermarket. Take a visit to the supermarket together and get them to choose some fruit and vegetables they would like to try.

·         Get them involved. Get your child to help you cook a simple meal. Getting them involved in the making process will encourage them to eat what they have made.

What we've been doing in Sea Turtles in January 2014

The children have shown a real interest in the refurbishment that has been happening next door in the Dolphin room. The children have listened to the noises the workmen have been making during the build and enjoyed going around to see them and what is happening.

So this month we have been looking at people at work and at what people use in their jobs.

 We've used a range of blocks to role-play the builders such as copying  actions like using a hammer  to bang, filling bags and then emptying them, using the saying ‘Ooh,no fix it.’

 Looking through books and gaining information about the different ‘jobs’. Reminding children of real places they have visited example- train driver.

The children also looked through books at pictures about different ‘jobs’. This gave children the opportunity to think about real places they have visited, for example train driver-getting on the train.

Outside in Sea Turtles this month the children have been exploring  movements by using their bodies to create shapes and by touching , looking  and  feeling.  We've been singing ‘Wheels on the bus’ and going on adventure walks into the big car park to watch the traffic. Children  enjoyed  observing what people and vehicles were doing.

 

 

 

 

 

January has been very busy for Dolphins!

We moved back into the newly refurbished Dolphin rooms and the children got to see some final touches being done.

As the children continued to show an interest in building and DIY, and were still talking about Haydon and Dennis and how they built Dolphins new rooms, we decided to extend this interest by doing lots of D.I.Y related activities.

The pre-schoolers enjoyed exploring different textures and looking at the effect of paint on the different materials.

All the children have really enjoyed having a play in our new sensory quiet room (the old office).

It's been an exciting month as there's been lots of interesting new things going on every week, ranging from deliveries of large appliances (washing machine and dryer) to smaller deliveries (lava lamp) and the odd pop through of the still very famous Hayden, Dennis or Jamie!

 

 

What are we doing in Sea Turtles in January

The children have shown a real interest in the refurbishment that has been happening next door in the Dolphin room. The children have listen to the noises the workmen have been making during the build and enjoyed going around to see them and what is happening.

So this month we will be looking at people at work and at what people use in their jobs.
Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:
Prime areas:

PSED: Explore new toys and environments but checks in with a familiar adult. PD: show a desire to help with dressing and undressing and hygiene routines. C&L Begin to ask simple questions.

Specific areas:

L: Handle books and printed material with interest. M: begin to organise and categorise objects e.g. putting all the blocks together and putting all the trucks and cars in separate piles. UW: Is curious about people and shows interest in stories about people at work.  EA&D: pretends that one object represents another especially when it has objects has characteristics in common. 

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

·         Making Vehicles that people use for work. Sarah will help the children to create vehicles such as police cars, ambulances, dump trucks and cranes.

·         Small world play. Alice will encourage the children to participate in small word play with police cars, fire engines & ambulances and get the children to organise them in to categories to match flash cards, and encourage them to make noises that match the vehicles.

·         People at work collages. Cristina C will support the children in creating collages of people at work and the equipment that they use in they jobs.

·         Junk modelling. Laura will support the children in creating junk modelling vehicles that are linked to jobs in transport i.e. Buses & Trains

·         Role play. Afia will set up a dressing up corner where children can dress up as people from different professions i.e. doctor, fireman, builder.

·         Sand play. The sand tray will be set up with diggers, police cars, ambulances and small world play people from different job roles.

What you could do to support your children at home: 

·         Take a trip to the library with your little ones. Look at books together and read stories about people in different professions.

·         Make flash cards. Print off some pictures of people from different job roles and items they use for that job and make matching game to play with your little one.

·         Encourage your little ones to repeats the sound they hear around them. For example the sound of a train or police car.

 

What are we doing in Dolphins in January?

We have moved back into the newly refurbished Dolphin rooms and the children have seen some final touches being done. The children have continued to show an interest in building and DIY, and are still talking about Haydon and Dennis and how they built Dolphins new rooms.

We will also be celebrating Chinese New Year.

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

Prime areas:
PSED: begin to express own interests and preferences  PD: gain new skills in doing things for themselves such as putting pictures on the pin board. C&L Learn new words associated with DIY i.e. decorating, sanding, Plumber,

Specific areas:

L:ascibe meaning to marks they see in different places. M: Gaining an awareness of different shapes and sizing of items in their environment UW: Show an awareness of change around us & the impact change has on our immediate environment EA&D: Explore new materials

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

·         Looking at Chinese letters and Symbols. Manjit will support the pre-school children in understanding that words and letters can be represented in different ways, by looking at Chinese letters and symbols.

·         Chinese New Year lanterns. Shilpi will be assisting the children to create and decorate Chinese New Year Lanterns.   

·         DIY role play. Christine will be supporting the children into role play around DIY and decorating

·         Looking at different professions. During circle time Matt will be looking at the different professions in the building industry such as decorators, plumbers and brick layers.

·         DIY Pyramids. Marie Claire will be helping the children to construct and decorate their own pyramid shapes.

·         Exploring textures. Manjit will support the children in exploring textures through activities such as painting on different Medias such as wood, sand paper and cloth.

What you could do to support your children at home:

·         Talk with your children about what is happening in Dolphins. Go through the photo library on the Facebook Group with your child to aid discussion. If you are not a Facebook user, bring in a memory stick for us to send home building works images.

·         Get the children involved. If you are planning any decorating get the children involved take a trip to a DIY store look at colour charts, look at decorating catalogues.

·         Discuss with your children how different cultures celebrate different celebrations. Take a visit to the library and look at books about celebrations all over the world.