Dear Parents,
We would like to invite parents of children in Oaks 1to come and chat with the team; Monika, Becca and Jodie and we will be sending a date out this week. We are hoping that you will be able to join us.
We have had many items of clothing go missing (or simply not married up to their owner). As the children have such similar wardrobes, please could we ask that all clothing is named; simply written in biro on the label will suffice as this will give us a better chance of returning them to their rightful owners.
Oaks 1:
We have a fantastic new team caring and educating the children in Oaks 1. Monika as Room Leader is assisted by Becca and Jodie. The practitioners have been learning everyone’s interests, as well as their likes and dislikes.
The trio have been welcomed so warmly and can’t wait to start their journey with the pre-schoolers. Before we tell you what happened in our week, we’d like to wish a happy fourth birthday to Ollie. We had a fabulous time celebrating with a party on Wednesday.
Our post office play continued this week. Oaks 1 busied themselves designing postcards, carefully gluing on stamps before sending them off. Ottie, Thomas and James F were elected to be the postal workers and they did a fine job hand-delivering the letters.
This activity presented so many opportunities to support the children’s development. Firstly, their pen grip was worked on as they made marks with felt-tip pens and chunky pencils. Oaks 1 also improved fine motor skills while using scissors. We encouraged mathematic development too by providing scales. The children weighed all of the parcels, reading out the numbers as they went. Harry and Nova were great at deciphering which packages were heavy and which were light. The role play aspect of the activity strengthened the children’s social and communication skills.
Oaks 1 also started their new twice-weekly cooking lessons with Broughton Cottage’s chef Annette. The first session saw the youngsters pick apples and blueberries from the garden to make a delicious crumble. Thomas and Alf were amazing at combining butter and flour to make the topping, while Joshua demonstrated fantastic knife handling skills as he sliced the fruit.
Annette was so impressed that she asked Oaks 1 if they’d like to help with lunch preparation – and everyone enthusiastically agreed. Nova’s clever idea of using scissors to cut spring onions worked a treat.
Stanley and Theo weren’t afraid of getting messy as they had fun at our sand and water play station. They were thrilled when a practitioner added crazy foam to a Tuff Tray, with one of the boy’s mark-making with his fingers and another using a brush.
Star of The Week:
All of the children! They made the new team’s week extremely pleasant.
We were delighted to welcome our new children to Forest school where we have started to learn the rules to keep us all safe. The children enjoyed making a fairy home and foraged for suitable materials to fashion a roof. To support this they used a mallet to drive in sticks, creating a ‘fence’ by weaving grasses between the ‘posts’. They also went ‘off track’ to collect wild flowers to form into bouquets which later adorned our dining tables.
Messages:
We’re still looking for more photos to add to our family tree, so please send some in. We’re also always keen for boxes, toilet roll tubes and yoghurt pots that can be used for junk modelling projects.
Oaks 2:
We focussed on shapes with Oaks 2 this week.
During circle time, we talked about simple formations including triangles and squares. The adults went on to tell the children how shapes can be spotted in the world around them. Oaks 2 were interested to learn that the roof on a house is a triangle, while the windows are square.
Inspired by this conversation, the group gathered lolly sticks to make their own houses. The children enjoyed linking this activity to their lives at home and happily chatted about who they live with.
Oaks 2 also engaged in shape-themed water play this week. They enjoyed soaking up water in rectangular sponges and poured water out of round vessels including bowls.
We read a number of stories that can be linked to the week’s topic too. Julia Donaldson’s ‘Sharing A Shell’ was a firm favourite among the class. It gave us the chance to explain that bubbles are circular and triangles can be spotted on starfish.
Oaks 2 extended their learning outside and a number of the children said that the balls they played games with were circles. One of the practitioners pointed out that the building blocks were rectangular too.
Finally, the children enjoyed a musical activity that saw them hold up different shapes as they were called out by the adults.
Star of The Week:
Rawdon – For his excellent perseverance when using the potty; well done!
Messages:
We’d like to thank parents for bringing in objects of various shapes for us to discuss at circle time.
Saplings:
Learning has been all about sensory experiences for the Saplings this week. The children enhanced their skills with their senses by smelling, tasting, touching, seeing and hearing. Water play (with added ingredients to enhance their senses) was just one activity of this nature that the children participated in.
The Saplings engaged in a spot of mark-making too that involved finger printing with paints. They all listened to instructions beautifully. It was wonderful to see the group express themselves creatively, boosting their expressive art and design capabilities. We talked to the Saplings about colours and shapes throughout, with the children able to trace shapes through the paint. A discussion took place about how the paint felt and the group questioned whether it was cold and if it was smooth like water.
The children were ever so eager when it came to touching and tasting different fruits. They were familiar with strawberries, watermelon and raspberries but some were cautious when it came to trying mango. Luckily, those who had reservations were pleasantly surprised by its sweet taste and exotic aroma.
Freddie noted that one of the fruits was round like a circle and successfully counted how many fruits we had.
Star of The Week:
Mia – For her growing confidence and independence.
Seedlings:
The Seedlings have loved learning all about animals this week – a theme we chose after seeing how much fun the children had playing with our small world creatures. Archie and Alfie certainly kept everyone entertained by replicating different animal sounds.
The class enjoyed getting crafty creating a lion’s mane mask in keeping with their interests. Our touch and feel books went down well too and provided a great opportunity to introduce language surrounding different textures. We talked about how parts of mammals on the pages were soft, shiny, bumpy, hard and rough.
Samuel, Sebastian, Raul and Ralph teamed up to explore our new tool station. They sweetly even offered to ‘fix’ a number of items around the classroom.
The Seedlings really wowed with their enthusiasm during song and story time this week by recalling actions and lyrics they’ve recently learnt. Finally, Theo proved to peers that he’s excellent at identifying different parts of the body.
Star of The Week:
Sebastian – For his use of single words such as ‘toast’ and ‘please’.
Acorns:
The Acorns started the week making baked treats from pastry, apples and plums.
It was a sensory activity that saw the children explore the different textures of the pastry and fruit filling, before and after they were cooked. They were delighted to sample a taste of the fruit before it was carefully spooned on to the pastry using pretty accurate hand/eye co-ordination. The Acorns were then instructed to carefully push down the sides of the pastry to create the parcel shape.
Messy play has also been a staple this week, with the Acorns getting to grips with sand, water and gloop. One of the boys couldn’t work out how to pick the slimy solution up, watching on in amazement as it ran through his fingers.
The Acorns became rock stars when they decided to turn pots and pans into musical instruments. They beat their makeshift drums with wooden spoons. It was wonderful to see the children taking turns ever so well as they made music.
The children’s impressive turn-taking skills were highlighted again as we read a variety of touch and feel books. Some of the group repeated different words they heard such as ‘bumpy’ and ‘soft’. This activity was designed to add new words to the Acorns’ vocabularies.
Star of The Week:
Zachary – For settling so well in our room and for sharing with his friends.
Messages:
May we ask that parents ensure all possessions that come into the nursery are named. A coat would also be very useful, given the ever-changing weather.
Finally, we’d like to request some family photographs from home to add to our family tree.
We hope you have had a lovely weekend.
The team at Broughton