Dear Parents,

This week, the Oaks and the Saplings have been very busy in the garden, tending to the vegetables that were being observed over the last few weeks. The children have also particularly enjoyed the mud kitchen, making lots of cups of tea and cooking up all sorts of meals for us to try. Belle made a potato and spring onion soup and when asked if she copied the way daddy cooks (her dad is a chef), she was very adamant that it was ‘her way of cooking’. Many of you may have heard and saw the thunderstorm we had on Wednesday, the children were fascinated to count how many miles the thunder was from us – using the method of watching for lightning then counting ‘one Mississippi, 2 Mississippi’, before the thunder made a sound. Evie and Bertie pointed out when the thunder was further away or was closer than it had been.

The children have also been working on their culinary skills. We worked together as a team to make a cheesecake, using a rolling pin to crush up the biscuits and considering which ingredients we needed. The children helped us to improvise as when we went to find the blueberries (for a blueberry cheesecake), we found that john had eaten all of our blueberries! We decided to use oranges instead – Humphrey pointed out that they are fruits too so would make it just as yummy.

The Acorns and Seedlings have further extended their focus on ‘Dear Zoo’ by practising different animal sounds and attempting the corresponding Makaton signs. They used the animals to match the two together. The children have also been enjoying lots of water play, exploring their senses with varying temperatures, cold and warm water and adding some bubbles for extra fun. Joshua in particular enjoyed this and repeated “bubble, bubble pop” over and over again. The children have experimented by bouncing balls in water noting cause and effect, watching as the force created ripples and very soon realising that their own actions caused themselves to be splashed!

Due to the work that has been happening in the garden, the Acorns and Seedlings have been fascinated with the diggers. Extending this, the children created their own ‘building site’ with wooden blocks and diggers, developing constructions of all different shapes and sizes. Joshua, Jasper and Sophia, particularly enjoyed this and spent considerable amounts of time building their own towers.

As many of you already know, the children have worked really hard this week to prepare very special gifts for Father’s Day. Using fine motor skills, the Oaks and Saplings created heart chocolates, spooning chocolate into moulds and choosing which sprinkles they thought their daddy’s would like. Throughout the nursery, the children have all created some lovely cards, the Acorns and Seedlings used their senses to explore the sensation of paint on their hands to make handprints, the Saplings used their concentration skills and fine motor skills to spread the glue onto each part of their cards before choosing where they wanted to position each section; and the Oaks worked very hard on cutting out their handprints and ocean before sticking them all down. All of the children were very proud of their works of art and were excited to give them to you.

We would like to welcome back Oscar this week who has settled in really well and has been enjoying seeing his friends again. We would also like to welcome Theo and Jasper who joined us this week and are enjoying their new surroundings and already making lots of new friends.

As always have a fabulous weekend and enjoy the nice weather!

Stay safe,

The Team at Broughton.