Thank you to all who responded to our request seeking your views on our service. Most notably you have asked to be able to meet with the staff on a more regular basis inside the nursery, viewing your child’s base room and discussing progress. With the support of the staff, we are proposing to open up the nursery one evening a month to each group eg: Acorns and Seedings one week, Saplings the 2nd week, Oaks 2, the 3rd, and Oaks 1 the 4th. The evenings would commence at 7pm until 8pm. Unfortunately we wouldn’t have staff available to look after your child/ren but thought parents might alternate the occasions month by month; I shall email exact days and dates this week.
News from the rooms
Oaks 1
This week at Broughton we have fully embraced the seasonal changes. The children were excited to see a new Autumnal tuff tray in our classroom and were keen to investigate the items foraged, later translating their ideas outdoors as the children excitedly observed falling leaves.
We are continuing to encourage the children to be more independent and are honing their self-help skills such as introducing the ‘flick trick;’ a smart way of putting on their coats independently. We shall continue to support them with this skill throughout the coming weeks.
We also continued our hairdressers role play which proved very popular amongst all the children. They busily opened the “salon” and got to work busily booking phone appointments, brushing dolls hair and using hair rollers. It’s clear to see we have got some budding hair stylists here at Broughton!
It was very exciting to get some new items for our dressing up area; superhero costumes, dragon outfits and high heels. The children looked fabulous dressing up and they also had a good go at dressing themselves too which will further encourage their independence and self-confidence.
We would love to wish Danny a happy birthday! He turned 4 so we celebrated his special day with pizza and a big disco.
Annette cooked with us too, pumpkin biscuits and hedgehog rolls; the children mixed, stirred, chopped, rolled and shaped and later, enjoyed the fruits of their labour.
We also said goodbye to Maia, it was a pleasure to look after you and we wish you all the best in the future.
Next week we will be celebrating our happy Halloween party- we can’t wait to have our big party at the nursery. Throughout the week we will have Halloween themed activities such as orange water beads, pumpkins carving, pumpkin cooking, a Halloween disco and lots more.
We have enjoyed searching for bugs using tweezers – these are brilliant tools to help us improve our fine motor skills which will strengthen the children’s ability to hold a pencil using palmar grip, the children described what they saw and then categorised the bugs into type, size and colour.
The children have also enjoyed playing with wooden blocks, we asked them to place their favourite small world animals anywhere near the blocks and use their positional language to describe their position. Jamie was able to describe that his tiger was ‘above’ the block.
We also enjoyed our forest school days at the nursery, on Thursday and Friday the children went for a walk to the local wildlife reserve where they built a rather impressive den and imaginary bus using logs and sticks found in the immediate vicinity. We explored the surrounding area and found the best field where we enjoyed racing up the hill and looking at the different types of trees. Annabelle was able to find an oak tree in the field. We finished our forest school days with an open fire back at Broughton upon which we cooked our tea and enjoyed a glass of cinnamon spiced milk warmed by the fire.
Star of the week – Elsie-Mae for her increased confidence and leadership during group games.
Oaks 2
In Oaks 2 we been enjoying a Halloween theme based week around the children’s discussions. We have been involved in a range of fun and exciting activities in the lead up to October 31st with the children challenging their individuality creatively. A vibrant tuff tray featured multiple mark making materials with many an orange and green hue and included topical stencils for the children to explore including pumpkins, spiders and friendly ghosts; such resources help to focus concentration and hand-eye co-ordination,
Throughout the week the children have excitedly experimented with an array of ingredients, whipping up colourful, fizzing potions; they loved the way various colours and essences intermingled resulting in different effects both in colour and texture.
The addition of vinegar delighted the children as it fizzed and popped. Rawdon said it looked like fluffy ice cream whilst Emi remarked that it was fizzy and that she liked the look of it fizzing over the top.
The children really enjoyed helping to carve out a white pumpkin, each using a spoon to dig out the insides. Some of the children asked questions as to why this pumpkin was white and the other was orange. We are gradually making Halloween decorations in readiness for our party next week including bunting, lanterns, pumpkins and spiders to place around the room.
Our party takes place next Wednesday; please feel free to allow your child to wear dressing up outfits that day.
Star of the week – Emi, for her increased and accurate recall during circle times
Saplings
With the end of October fast approaching the children have been very excited about Halloween. We therefore thought it an appropriate time to begin to explore Halloween and everything surrounding it. The children were very excited to find the pumpkins situated in the garden and have enjoyed the sensory experience of carving a pumpkin and pulling out all the insides. We discussed with the children what type of face they wanted their pumpkin to have beit happy, sad, scary etc, presenting a good opportunity to develop their personal, social and emotional skills as we discussed the ways in which we may be feeling at certain times.
The children also enjoyed decorating some foam pumpkins and bats for our Autumn display board. The children used critical thinking to decide which materials they wished to use as decorations. Many of the children chose sequences and pom-poms. The children then used precision and accuracy to pick up the glue and carefully spread it onto the shapes. This was excellent for developing the children’s fine motor skills.
We also developed our gross motor skills while having fun with foam. The children used food colouring to create red and green foam spreading it across the table as they stretched their arms using big motions. The children then used their fingertips as mark making tools and gave meaning to the marks they made developing their imagination and expressive art and design. Freddie especially loved this activity and enjoyed forming a ‘J’ for James, his brother.
Star of the week – Henry- for always being so happy and willing to participate in new activities.
Seedlings:
A change in the weather prompted us to focus on and explore autumn with the altering of our immediate environment noting the beautiful colour backdrop in the garden.
The children have loved listening to the sound of fallen leaves crunching beneath their feet in the garden. They also enjoyed collecting a selection of colourful leaves in various shapes and sizes for an art project. We asked the group to craft a textured natural collage and the end result was beautiful.
We’ve started to decorate our window for Halloween too, with the class making handprint spiders and footprint ghosts. To create pumpkins, the Seedlings dipped apple halves into paint transferring straight to card – a fine way to strengthen fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination.
The Seedlings have also been using pinecones as a mark-making medium. As they worked on their seasonal creations, we spoke about the different textures the children could feel using language such as ‘hard’, ‘spiky’ and ‘rough’.
We shall continue to explore our changing landscape next week
Star of The Week – Alfie – For his growing vocabulary.
Acorns:
The Acorns had the chance to explore the local area this week.
They got plenty of fresh air when we took them to Tesco, an outing thoroughly enjoyed by all. It was lovely to hear the youngsters babbling away to one another in their buggies. We picked up some pumpkins instore in preparation for the fun, sensory activity we had planned.
On our return journey, we stopped on a bridge so the Acorns could watch the traffic. Many lorries sounded their horns, much to the delight of the children.
Once back at Broughton Cottage, the Acorns were intrigued by the texture of the pulp and seeds inside the seasonal vegetable, with some sniffing it. After deciding the pumpkin smelt nice, a few of the class couldn’t resist a little nibble.
This activity provided the opportunity to enhance the children’s language skills as we spoke about how what we were touching felt ‘squishy’ and ‘slimy’. For a touch of Halloween flair, we popped a few pretend creepy crawlies inside the pumpkins.
The Acorns also had a great time exploring the different textures of leaves in our courtyard and played happily with orange sand too.
We’ll be concentrating on Halloween next week and the children will be tasked with creating some seriously spooky artwork.
Star of The Week – Jessica – For trying new foods and becoming more settled within the group.
Messages:
Please may you send in more photos to add to our family tree display.
Yours sincerely
The Broughton Team