Week ending 20th January 2023

Welcome to all of our new children and families! We are so proud at how the children have settled and adapting to Nursery life. We know that children learn to be strong and independent through positive relationships and that has been our focus this (and every) week. We are a small team and get to know all of the children really well, ensuring they can explore their environment knowing we are near to support them.

This week we have been making sense of what is happening around us by exploring Winter! It has been so cold and frosty in the mornings, creating some wonderful glistening spiders webs and slippery footpaths. The ice that was left by Little Jack Frost has been explored, broken and tasted! This created lots of lovely language opportunities including words like, ice, frosty, cold, white, slippery, wet.

Outside in the garden, we have been looking at ways to keep warm. We have been running around, riding on the bikes, digging in the sand, rolling hoops and banging the ice to break it. We have had a fun-filled time trying to keep warm whilst using lots of physical gross motor skills. We have also had lots of trips to the Ballpool this week, as the children haven’t wanted to be outside for very long!

In the lovely warm classroom we have been learning the names of shapes and their sizes e.g. big triangle, small square, bigger and smaller. The children have carefully tried to draw round them and then copied the shapes free hand. Lots of circles being drawn in a variety of colours, using lovely fine motor skills.

We have enjoyed some 3D painting in the art room, as the children focussed their attention to ensure all areas of their objects are covered. Our little Bumblebees love painting their hands and exploring the texture of the paint, but the best bit is washing their hands under the running water!

The construction area had lots of ramps as the children explored how fast the cars could travel and the distance covered. It was fun running after the vehicles and watching them crash into things!

The children have been practising their scissor skills on the playdough. Using scissors builds up the tiny muscles in the hands and encourages hand eye coordination. We use the plastic scissors on playdough before letting them loose with the real scissors, under careful supervision!

Our stories have been The Hungry Hen for story group and Down in the Jungle for the Attention and listening group. Our songs have included Two little dickie birds, The wheels on the bus, Old MacDonald. Wind the bobbin up and Clap and stop. We hope you have been hearing about these at home.

Next week we will be learning about Chinese New Year and we will be trying noodles and other yummy things at snack time.

Please remember -
Hats and gloves as we are outside in the cold and the little Bumblebee fingers get so cold.
If your child is sick or has diarrhoea we have a policy which states they are unable to return for 48 hours. Thank you for adhering to this as it helps to keep other children and staff from being infected.

As always please like and/or comment on our posts so we know you have read them. Many thanks.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing you next week, which is sadly my final week in Bumblebees 

Sarah and the Bumblebee team

Week ending 13th January 2023

What a wet, but fun week! Who can resist jumping in a puddle or bouncing a ball to make a huge splash? Puddles teach our children so much and have so many possibilities. You can do big jumps, little jumps, kick the water, hop, run, star jumps, in fact anything to make a big splash or move the water somehow 😄 As well as physical skills development there is a lot of science involved in a puddle. What happens if I stir the water with a stick? How wide is the puddle, how many feet does it take to walk it? So much learning happens outside in the rain ☔️

Inside, we enjoyed exploring our new classroom as we opened up the other end. This is a quieter, low distraction area where the children can read, build and explore the fine motor activities on the floor or low table. By not having chairs, the room feels more open and children can access their learning and explore more freely. We have lots of open ended resources that encourage children to explore and be imaginative as well as working together and problem solving. Pop in and have a look!

This week we have been learning the names of woodland animals as we made marks in the playdough. The children added lots of natural things to the table too and made some interesting creations. Squashing, squeezing and rolling are all skills needed to help build strength and coordination.

On the builders tray we enjoyed making homes for the animals as we explored habitats and talked about where we live. This came about as the children have been enjoying the three little pigs story and making houses from straw, bricks and sticks. I have attached some photos of some of the other building that has been happening this week.

In the sensory trays we have buried penguins in the oats and transported the oats to the role play area and water tray. The other sensory tray had wooden nuts and bolts as we used our fine motor skills and hand eye coordination to turn the bolts to remove them and then replace them.

Our songs have been Head shoulders knees and toes, Incy winch spider, wind the bobbin up, dingle dangle scarecrow and the wheels on the bus to name a few. It is lovely to hear that you have been hearing these sung at home too!

It was so sad telling you all that I will be leaving Lanterns and thank you for your kind words. I am pleased to say that somebody has been appointed to take over the Senior position and will be starting on Monday! Her name is Cora and I will be spending the next two weeks making sure she knows everything there is to know about all of the Bumblebee children. Please introduce yourselves and ask questions if you have any.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing you all next week.
Sarah and the Bumblebee team.

Week ending Friday 2nd December 22

🎶It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas🎶🎄
The children were so surprised to see the Christmas tree in the Role play area and quickly started decorating with the tinsel and baubles. Carefully placing the string over the branches is so tricky to do and takes a lot of patience and concentration. Our tree has looked quite ‘decorated’ all week and very colourful indeed!

The children have pretended to make hot chocolate for their friends and bake cookies in the oven. Wearing a Christmas hat, whilst filling stockings and sacks with presents and reading stories around the Christmas tree have been enjoyed by all. We may even have some real hot chocolate for snack next week as the weather gets colder ☕️

We made stars and other Christmas themed shapes with the playdough. Rolling the dough and pressing in shapes helps to gain strength and improve dexterity in our hands and fingers. Important for writing, drawing, using scissors and other tools etc.

We explored the baubles in the cinnamon smelling water tray. The colours looked lovely and it was tricky trying to catch them in the nets. The children added ducks, fish and boats to the water tray and continued their independent learning. It’s amazing how many things you can fit in the water tray!

We made Calendars in the art room with plenty of paint and glitter! These will be sent home next week along with cards and decorations that the children will be making. Apologies if your child hasn’t brought any artwork home, they will very soon!

In the garden we have continued to climb and jump from the small steps. Some of the children have become very confident doing this now and independently jumping, whilst others require a helping hand. We are proud that our little Bumblebees are taking risks and boosting their confidence and self esteem!

Our sand pit became a Grotto to sit and read, sing or chat! (We have very little sand and are waiting for it to be replenished). The children have enjoyed sharing this space with their friends and adults. I think next week we’ll be adding some blankets!

We began to learn our Christmas songs and hope you have heard lots of ‘Jingle bells’ at home! We will be inviting you to join our singing sessions during the last week of term, or alternatively if you’d like to come in before then, please let me know.

We have enjoyed lots of Christmassy stories and learning about Baby Jesus and the three wise men! Our main story group has read Pass the Jam Jim and the Attention and listening group had Polar bear, polar bear, what do you hear? Lots of wonderful repetition and alliteration.

REMINDERS:
A letter was sent home regarding our Christmas Party which will take place on Wednesday 14th December during the morning session. If your child isn’t usually in on Wednesday, please let us know if you would like to swap a session that final week.

Please remember to provide hats and gloves as the weather turns colder. We had lots of children with cold hands this week. We are an all weather provision and outside lots! Thank you

Please check your child’s school bag and replace spare clothes, nappies and wet wipes etc. Thank you

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.
Sarah, Zainab, Kay and Cathy, Emma 🐝

Week ending Friday 23rd December 22

Nursery Rhyme week was a lot of fun, as we learnt lots of new rhymes as well as singing old ones too. I remember singing lots of our Rhymes when I was little as I am sure you do too, they never seem to go out of style. Nursery rhymes are great for developing children’s knowledge of sounds and extending their vocabulary whilst encouraging their social skills too. Every area of the room was exhibiting a different Nursery Rhyme this week and also extended into the garden.

In the art room we had boats in the water tray as we sang ‘Row row row your boat’, laughing as the people fell off the boats and splashed in the water. We had to be careful as there were crocodiles in there too that went snap! Infact, everything ended up in the water tray (as usual) as the children explored water play in their own unique way. The children enjoyed rolling marbles around on the tuff tray to make marks in the paint. Until they decided they rolled better across the floor, so added brushes and hands instead. The rainbow song actually added meaning as we created new colours with the paint.

On the graphics table we had a variety of Nursery rhyme colouring pages. The children enjoyed making marks on the paper and some spending time colouring individual features in the pictures. Hickory Dickory Dock, Humpty Dumpy, Incy Wincy Spider and Twinkle twinkle have all been popular here.

In the construction area we built constructions with the cardboard boxes and heuristic play items. London Bridge kept falling down and was rebuilt with lots of various materials. Along with The Grand old Duke of York climbing up the hill and coming back down again.

We had some very sick Dollies in the Role play area as the children cared for them. Miss Polly went awol, so it was our responsibility to phone for the Doctor and check temperatures etc. We got through so many plasters, but all Dollies are back to good health thanks to our Bumblebees. Apologies if you have been asked for plasters to play with at home! But think of the fine motor skills needs to unwrap them and the coordination to place them where required 😃

Old MacDonald was the theme on the tuff tray. We began the week with Ice cream cones for trees and shreddies for hay bales and Cheerios in the fields. The animals were so hungry that everything got eaten, even the trees! Lots of animal noises were heard as we paused for the children to fill in the missing words of the song.

In the garden the children have been building ‘London Bridge’ with a variety of building resources. They got very high thanks to the stands and guttering. The children have been practising their physical skills as they climbed the small steps and jumped off the top onto a crash mat. It’s so hard to be brave enough to jump, let alone balancing and coordinating your body. Where will I land? Will I fall? Will it hurt? Who will catch me? It’s so high! Lots of thoughts going through little minds before they actually spring into the air for the first time!

Two little Dickie birds, Twinkle twinkle, Old MacDonald, the Rainbow song and Little Peter Rabbit have all been popular choices at singing time this week.
We hope you have heard lots of songs being sung at home. Sorry to say, but we will be starting to learn our Christmas songs next week! 😄

The main story group have enjoyed Little Miss Muffet this week and the Attention and listening group had Old MacDonald. The children have been clucking and neighing all week and learning numbers 1-10.

Reminders:
Raffle Prizes - If you would like to contribute something towards our Christmas raffle please pass it to Reception. Your kindness and generosity helps us to raise lots of important funds for Friends of Lanterns, who then purchase things we need in school. Thank you!

INSET Day - Next Friday (2nd Dec) is and INSET day so school will be closed for all children.

Christmas Party - Please keep an eye out for further information. We will need your co-operation with possible session changes for some children.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing you next week.
Sarah, Zainab, Kay, Katherine, Cathy and Emma

Week ending Friday 18th November 2022

Another colourful week exploring all things spotty! Our children are showing us what they are wanting to learn and do, so with ‘Children in need’ in mind, we created lots of wonderful activities this week. Today, we dressed up in Pyjamas (although this only appeared to be the staff) and some of the children wore spots and stripes. It was actually fun wearing your pyjamas to work!

On the play dough table we made Bears with the play dough cutters and added spots. We coloured and made spotty marks with the paint dabbers on Pudsey pictures and masks. In the garden we explored the giant painty Pudsey and mixed all the colours using our hands and anything we could find. Some children made handprints on the wall on the way to the bathroom to wash their hands (see the photo attached). Guess a nice clean wall was too tempting! I wonder which two children this was?

The Sensory tray contained a variety of magnets and a variety of things that will stick to them. Children are naturally curious about how things work and it has been fascinating watching them try and work out why things stick and why other things don’t. We have used words like explore, magnetic, stick, catch, push away. Next week we are going to explore building with magnetic modelling shapes.

The children enjoyed decorating their spotty biscuit, carefully using the spoon to pour on the icing and then counting sweets to place on top. There was a lot of icing consumed during the making and a few sneaky sweets too!

The water tray featured frogs and coloured Lilly pads at the beginning of the week. The children listened carefully and placed the frogs on the colour pad instructed. It was funny watching the lily pad sand frogs sink as the weight pushed them under the water. At the end of the week, the children enjoyed catching the coloured balls with the fishing nets.

On the carpet area the children listened carefully to an instruction to put either Teddy or Gingerbread man on a particular coloured spot. It is tricky to listen and remember two pieces of information including, teddy or gingerbread man, and then which colour. A two key information carrying word level instruction, developing listening and understanding.

In the Construction area we have created some wonderful buildings using the materials to hand. Construction play helps children to develop problem solving skills and fine motor development. I have attached a photo of a really tall tower that was built by two children, showing great skill, cooperation and team work!

Our main stories have been Ten fat sausages and We’re going on a bear hunt. With lots of repetitive language, they encourage children to join in with the telling of the story. These are familiar books and is evident in the spontaneous language we have heard this week. Leaving a pause in the story encourages children to fill in the missing words.

Next week we will be exploring Nursery Rhymes in all areas of our environment, before we begin our Christmas activities the following week! I know, only four weeks until the end of term!

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing you all next week. Please ‘like’ or comment on this post and all posts so we know who we have reached with them. We aren’t sure how many people actually engage with Tapestry and will be researching this. Please show us that you do! Thank you 😊

Sarah, Zainab, Kay, Katherine and Cathy, Emma.

Week ending Friday 11th November 2022

Wow, what a busy, colourful week we have had!

Some of the children excitedly told us about the fire works they saw last weekend and about the pretty colours in the sky. We heard lots of words like whizz, boom, bang, as the children described the noises they made. Our firework song has been popular this week, along with London’s burning, Twinkle twinkle and Dingle dangle scarecrow. If you would like to join us at Singing time, please let me know and I will happily arrange a day for you to come in.

Our Sensory tray had some rather lovely smelling jelly in it at the beginning of the week. We then explored the crazy soap which also smelt delicious, but rather messy! The children used their senses to explore and tried to cut the jelly with scissors and squished the soap between their fingers. We then had red rice and green straws to make marks in the poppy field, before exploring the natural materials. Trying to find buttons to post in the hole of the tin, building towers with the corks and filling and emptying the containers. So much learning happening in the Sensory tray and the photos demonstrate this.

We have had paint inside and outside as we created a huge colourful playground in the rain. We mixed the powder paint using little paint brushes and large brooms as the rain poured down. The playground looked beautiful as we explored colour mixing and making new exciting colours.

In the art room we made rockets that went ‘zoom to the moon’. We also made Poppies to remember all the people who helped us and aren’t with us today. It is extremely difficult explaining to children what Remembrance Day is all about and why we wear poppies but there is a lovely little CBeebies clip on YouTube. Here is the link in case it comes up at home and you would like to share it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOT5CDnYHEs  There is also a CBeebies link for slightly older children https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kni91fHqi50 

Flour shaking was great fun too as the children sieved the flour onto the tuff tray and then made marks using their fingers. It did go everywhere and we had quite a few white children (and grownups), but it all brushed off! Some children said it looked like snow, let’s hope we don’t get any for real for a while!

Some of the children are showing a great interest in numbers and we have had lots of number puzzles out this week. We will have numbers more visual next week and practice the concept of number correspondence. Matching one or a series of objects to a number is such an important skill to learn. Children first learn to count in rote 1,2,3,4,5 etc, but do they really know that one means ‘one apple’ and two means ‘two apples’ etc? We do lots of this through our number songs eg 1,2,3,4,5, two little dickie birds, 5 speckled frogs and 10 fat sausages etc.

The train track and colourful magnetic trains have been popular this week. Putting the pieces of track together takes good hand eye coordination and fine motor skills. Along with problem solving skills in choosing the correct pieces, how to make them join together, how to avoid the cupboard and how to add a bridge. All skills needed in everyday life as they grow older.

Our stories have been 10 fat sausages for the attention and listening group and Over in the meadow for the story group. The groups have enjoyed engaging with the stories and learning new vocabulary.

School Photos - Please remember next Wednesday is individual photo day (not whole class photo) We will be taking the children for their photographs during the session, but if you would like siblings to be photographed together then please let reception know.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing you all next week.

Sarah, Zainab, Kay, Katherine (Cathy and Emma)

Week ending Friday 4th November

It has been great hearing stories from the children about the costumes they wore for Halloween and the excitement in having sweets! Thank you for sharing your photo's with us on Tapestry, and of your Half term holiday's too. It really is lovely to share them with the children.

We have had a wet and windy week this week and so much fun was had jumping in the puddles and splashing with our wellies. We don’t have any spare socks in Nursery so please remember to pop some in your child’s bag. We painted a fire on the tuff tray and the children threw cups of water over it to ‘put it out’. We sang ‘London’s burning’ as the children ran backwards and forwards, filling up their cups to put out the fire. What a great bunch of fire fighters we have!

In the art room we created some wonderful firework pictures using the brightly coloured paint and small brushes. We splatted the paint and explored the colours as they mixed together to make explosions in the night sky. We used chalk on the black paper to create slightly different fireworks, with lots of vertical lines being drawn, circles and crosses. We ended the week extremely messy, exploring the paint with paper on the floor, any way we like!

In the sensory tray we explored the coloured rice and coloured bean bags. We focussed on the language of ‘same’ and ‘different’, as we picked up two and decided if they were the same colour or different. Let us know if you have been hearing ‘same and different’ at home.

We made marks in the black sand and copied the wavy lines and crosses using our fingers. Mark making happened whilst stood at the table and was a physical and sensory experience, as well as developing those early pre-writing skills.

We have rolled and squished the dough to make ‘Catherine wheels’ and pushed the dough through the extruders to make rockets. We learnt new vocabulary such as whizz, pop, whee, bang, zoom as we describe the sounds that the fireworks make. I am sure you will hear lots of these sounds this weekend.

Our stories this week have been Over in the Meadow for the attention and listening group and The train ride for the story group. We decided to revisit these stories to encourage spontaneous communication and memory recall.

Next week we are going to continue with the Firework theme, as we are sure the children will be excited to talk about their weekends. It is good to revisit things after the children have had the opportunity to experience them first. Not only to encourage memory recall, but it also gives them a chance to experience things themselves, make sense of it all with awe and wonder and then to make those early connections.

We will also be making poppies for Remembrance Day, remembering the people who aren’t here today and saying thank you to them.

I have attached a photo of our ‘walk and talk’ board which gives you some ideas of things to talk about on your way home. We like to encourage and support children’s vocabulary and language development every way we can.

Reminders:
* Please remember wellies and waterproofs for outside play.
* Spare clothes, including socks
* A spare bag for wet clothes
* You can add your own Tapestry entries, which is a wonderful way to record those special memories.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and that its not too wet. Enjoy the fireworks!
See you all next week, Sarah, Zainab, Kay, Katherine (Emma and Cathy)

Week ending Friday 14th October 2022

We take considerable time each session planning and setting up our environment and making sure the areas look inviting and we are offering an irresistible invitation to learn. But what you don’t see is the reality of the play!

With this in mind, we thought it would be nice to share some photos with you to support understanding of how the children have interacted with the resources and how the play has developed. It doesn't matter if it's messy with resources scattered over the floor, as it shows that the children have really been engaged and learning. Play is often messy and not constrained to a table top or tuff tray and is about enabling children to have the freedom to be creative and flexible.

The sensory tray contained porridge oats and some little pumpkin baskets. The children enjoyed filling and emptying them and transporting the oats to the role play area and also putting them in the water tray. We found oats everywhere! Transporting the oats is ok as it’s exploratory play and playing with an idea in mind. It isn’t always what we have in mind but that’s ok.

This week we have continued with the Autumn theme and enjoyed making acorns and pumpkins with the paint. It has been such fun getting our hands into the paint and squishing it between our fingers. We made such a mess but so much learning is happening as we explore.

We made hedgehogs with the playdough and matchsticks and also with the glue and leaves. I have attached a photo of our Autumn wall display showing how busy the children have been, creating some wonderful things.

Our water tray contained some yucky slime! It was a bit like marmite, some children loved it and others wouldn’t go near it! But they watched from a safe distance! It was so good to lift up and watch it stretch whilst using lots of descriptive words like slimy, sticky and stretchy. How would you know what slimy meant unless you touched something slimy? Once children play with and experience something for themselves, they can then begin to describe it. (It was a nightmare to clean up though!)

On the carpet area we have been construction using bricks and other natural materials like corks, placemats, cardboard tubes. We have some wonderful builders, but most fun was had in knocking the buildings down again. It takes a great deal of concentration and coordination to build, as well as core strength to hold and position your body.

We have sorted with small coloured animals and vehicles, whilst learning the colour names. Making patterns with the coloured pegs was enjoyed by lots of children, using good fine motor skills to pick up the pegs and place into the tiny holes. We made patterns and counted the number of pegs as we placed them on the board. “How many pink can you see?” and “can you find a blue one?” Lots of learning in this activity.

In the garden we have been practicing jumping with two feet off the ground. Some children needed the trampoline to do this, or to hold an adults hand, where others could easily jump. All children are different and develop at different times, but it’s about giving them the practice and tools to achieve outcomes in their own time.

Our songs of the week are attached and I have uploaded a separate video of our singing time this morning. What a wonderful lot of singers and signers we have.

The main story group enjoyed the enormous turnip and pulled and pulled until the turnip came out of the ground! The Attention and listening group have enjoyed Down in the jungle, with the repetition of key words. We then played a turn taking game of standing on the stool and then jumping off, with support.

I have also attached a photo of our walk and talk board for next week. Our learning will be about Diwali and Halloween. It also includes our stories and songs for next week and a top tip for communication.

Please keep an eye out for your child’s Christmas card design in their school bags. There are instructions on there of how to place an order if you’d like to. We hope you like them!

Next week will be our last week before the half term break and we look forward to seeing you then. Have a wonderful weekend.
Sarah, Zainab, Kay, Katherine and Emma
🐝

Week ending Friday 5th October 2022

This week we continued to follow the children’s interests whilst exploring all things Autumn. We are seeing some lovely friendships developing as the children enjoy exploring and sharing resources with each other. So lovely to see them so settled and enjoying being with their peers and key people.

We have been creative with leaf rubbings, exploring and talking about the colours, shapes and patterns we see. We continued this outside too, as the children enjoyed using the clipboards to draw what they see. We coloured the autumn colouring sheets which encourages lots of discussions about the pictures and opportunities to learn new vocabulary, along with practising fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

On our maths table we sorted little animals and vehicles into corresponding coloured pots. Some of the children were very good at this and others filled the pots and emptied them out or transported them to other areas of the room to use another way. We will continue to focus on learning the names of colours and being able to identify them on request. Being able to differentiate between colours is the first skill to master before being able to label them. We will continue to do this through play but if you would like to practice colours at home then ‘a top tip’ is to focus on just one colour at a time e.g. this is blue, that’s blue, that’s not blue (if it’s a different colour) This is to avoid learning too many colour names at once and them becoming muddled.

Our art area has been a paint fest as we explored colour mixing, using our hands and other one handed tools. So much fun was had as we mixed the colours and made new ones! We discovered that if we mix them all up together they make a yucky browny-grey colour which doesn’t look great on your face, but feels nice! Glue and glitter made it out too as the children made spider webs like our story ‘Aahh spider’. They look so sparkly and we will put some up on our Autumn wall display.

In the Sensory tray we carefully chopped vegetables with the safety knives. Some of the children even tasted them! Next week we are going to continue cutting and chopping vegetables and apples to make soup and a crumble! We will enjoy tasting them at snack time, we’ll let you know how that goes 😋

Our stories have been Brown bear, brown bear for the story group and Dear Zoo for the attention and listening group. The children really enjoyed the repetition of the language and predictable text. Lots of spontaneous language used as the children anticipate what is going to appear on the next page. We ask open ended questions in Nursery to encourage children to use their words to give an explanation that doesn’t involve a ‘yes or no’ answer. It encourages sustained shared thinking and enhances problem solving skills, as well as building vocabulary e.g “tell me about…”, “what do you think will happen?”, “who was in the story?”. We always model key phrases and recast children’s communication by repeating the language with more detail or with the correct grammar.

Our favourite songs have been, Hickory Dickory Dock, Jelly on a plate, Hairy Fred, If you’re happy and you know it and The wheels on the bus. If you’ve been hearing “stop the clock” it’s because the clock stops at 4pm! (In the song).

We have lots of children with colds at the moment and we would just like to remind you that unfortunately we are unable to administer medicines, unless it has been prescribed by the GP and is in the original, labelled packaging. Thank you for your understanding with this.

Please remember costs, wellies, wet weather gear and a spare bag for wet clothes. Many thanks!

Please ‘like’ or comment on this post and all posts so we can see who has seen our Tapestry updates. Thank you!

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and that it isn’t too windy!
See you all next week.
Sarah, Zainab, Kay and Katherine 🐝

Week beginning 19th September 2022

Another busy, fun filled week in Bumblebees has been enjoyed by all! The children are all coming in really well and settling quickly at an activity of their choice. They are familiar with their pegs now and know where to find their coats for outside play.

We have had a wonderful week playing outside in the fresh air. The children have had so much fun going down the slide, digging in the sand, kicking and throwing balls, stomping with the dinosaurs, jumping and splashing in the puddles made with the water tray, riding bikes and building homes with the bricks! So much physical play to aid the development of gross motor skills, balance and co-ordination, boosting confidence and self-esteem, as well as supporting cognitive development.

We have been learning about ourselves and looking at our faces in the mirrors. The children have enjoyed learning the names of our facial features features eg. eyes, nose, cheeks, lips and pointing to them on request. The idea in mind was to draw the circle shapes for our face and add features but the children have particularly enjoyed just looking at themselves in the mirrors and pulling faces! The simple things are always the best!

On the playdough table we have made faces and gardens with the natural materials. Conkers, fir cones, leaves and shells have been used creatively. If you would like to make playdough at home here is a recipe that we use:- 3 cups of plain flour, 1 cup of salt, 2 tea spoons of cream of tartar, 3 table spoons of cooking oil and a little food colouring. Cook it all in a saucepan over a low heat, until formed into a ball and then knead until soft and squidgy. You can then keep this in an airtight container for ages!

We continued playing with the wooden houses and talking about our homes and who lives where? This included talk about animals and where they may live as we explored the world around us. It was interesting listening to the children talk about whether their homes were big or small and how many bedrooms they have and who sleeps where. Sounds like lots of you have children in your beds as many of them told us they sleep with Mummy and Daddy. We’ll tackle this over the coming months with lots of stories and conversations and hopefully you’ll get a good nights sleep soon! (There is hope!) 🙂

In the Sensory tray we have been filling and emptying pasta and lentils. The children have learnt some key vocabulary such as full, empty, lots and few. Lots of learning through exploration and problem solving whilst developing language and motor skills.

Our art room has been busy with lots of water play, painting and glueing and sticking. The children love exploring the materials and experimenting with the variety of resources. The pasta sunk in the water tray, along with the star fish. The fish floated with the plastic cups. The paints made different colours as they mixed together and the glue looked mesmerising as it dripped onto the paper and things actually stuck! This is where so much learning happens as the children get creative with their ideas.

We have finally made the ‘Family Tree' in the classroom and the children have been busy painting their leaves, ready for their family photo from home. Please, if you haven't done so already, can you send in a family photo that we can stick on our tree. We have found in the past that the children enjoy talking to their friends and adults about who is in their family and showing them their photo. It is also a lovely, comforting, reassurance when children feel a little sad. We will laminate the photos to keep them safe and return them at the end of the year. Alternatively, send it to me at s.watson@lanterns.hants.sch.uk and I will print it for you. Thank you in advance.

The story group have been listening to 'Just like Jasper' about a Cat who goes to the toy shop with his Birthday money to buy a new toy, what will he buy? The Attention and listening group have engaged with Brown bear, brown bear and enjoyed watching and labelling the animal that was being created with the paint. We will continue with this book next week as there is so much learning involved e.g. animal names, colours and lots of repetition!

Some of our favourite songs have been Five in the bed, See the slippery crocodile, the rainbow song and the wheels on the bus. We hope you have been hearing lots of singing at home as the songs become familiar to the children.

We always have water play inside and outside and have had a lot of wet clothes this week. Please can we have a spare bag to pop the wet clothes in for you. Socks are always handy as lots of water is poured onto feet. Many thanks.

As always, please ‘like’ our Tapestry posts so we can see who has read them. You can add a comment or add entries of your own too. We love to share photos with the children and hear them talk fondly about their activities or just enjoy looking at the photos.

Next week we will be designing Christmas cards (sorry about that, I know it’s too early!) We need to get them sent off for printing so they can be ordered and back in time for Christmas!