“I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer – its dust and lowering skies.” – Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye
Please be advised that news from the rooms is often set out, not in age order as we are hoping you will read all our groups news.
A reminder that age order (from babies to pre-schoolers) is: Acorns, Seedlings, Saplings, Oaks 2 and Oaks 1.
Seedlings:
The Seedlings had great fun this week exploring water both inside the nursery and outside in the garden.
The children explored a variety of water-themed Tuff Trays complete with gutterings and balls. The Seedlings giggled as they watched the balls float on the water and whizz down pipes. This activity presented a great opportunity to talk about and explore the concepts of floating and sinking.
Another Tuff Tray saw the children play with petals frozen in ice. The children took it in turn to pick up the icy petals, with Otis telling his friends they were ‘so cold’ and Genevieve quipping that hers was ‘slippery’. Annabelle picked up a petal and had us laughing with her shocked expression when she realised how cool it was to the touch.
Star Of the Week:
Lola – For showing great enthusiasm in adult-led activities and play.
Saplings:
Summer has been the focus for the Saplings this week.
We got busy making sand pictures by mixing sand with glue and paint. Amelie said the sand felt rough and we thought also, scratchy.
The children were thrilled to have the chance to make a fruit punch. They helped to cut up the different pieces of fruit which were added to apple juice. The drink was delicious and refreshing.
With lots of the children going off on holiday soon, we thought it would be fun to ask the Seedlings to make their own passports for our summer display.
Star Of The Week:
Finneas – For describing what fun he had on his holiday to all his friends
Acorns:
This week, the Acorns have loved exploring mini-beasts.
They enjoyed a number of crafty activities linked to the topic, one of which saw the children make bees, ladybirds and butterflies with paint, card and crayons.
The children were ever so interested to learn about simple symmetry as we chatted about how butterflies have matching patterns on both sides of their wings. The children went on to make their own butterflies with unique markings.
Julia Donaldson’s book Superworm was a key part of our week, with the children fascinated by the rhyming words and key phrases.
Towards the end of the week, the Acorns created fossils from Play-Doh. To create the markings, the children used fine motor skills to press toy insects into the modelling clay.
Stars Of The Week:
To all our little Acorns for keeping us all amused.
Oaks 2:
We were sad to say goodbye to our dear friend Casper this morning – we wish him well on his new adventure, but we’ve no doubt he’ll be brilliant.
Casper’s friends all worked hard to create a special leaving card, with each child stating their favourite memory with him. This was a brilliant way of getting the youngsters to think about their feelings and what makes them happy.
We also held a farewell party complete with balloons, party games and yummy treats. We wanted to make the day memorable and ensure his last day with his friends was a special one. We adored seeing Oaks 2 bust their best moves.
We had a brilliant time role-playing this week, with the children setting up their own coffee shop. It was a real joy to see the group using their imaginations as they made up their own narrative.
We have so many new books in our room and have noticed that the children love picking up a story to look at independently. They of course adore settling down to read one with a practitioner too. We always take time to discuss the plots – it’s so interesting to hear the children’s views on the characters and storylines.
Star Of The Week:
Connie Rae – For being a good friend.
Forest School:
Well, the festival was over and the bus had driven off into the distance!! The children are keen eyed and noticed immediately.
Keen to take a walk early, they voted to explore the field containing their favourite, the ‘swinging’ tree and all took turns to help one another climb aboard with some bravely climbing the higher branches to view their ‘kingdom’. We all joined hands and took a guess as to how many persons could possibly fit around a nearby tree, thick, gnarly and majestic – 8 being the winning guess.
George, Thomas, Ophelia, Theo, Bodhi and Sebbie thought they spied a fox darting into the boughs of the tree and all tried to peep inside with them all declaring that they had spotted … one shiny nose, two googly eyes! They then turned their attentions to the form of another fallen tree nearby, calling for everyone to board the ‘space rocket’ – a protrusion was declared to be the control stick and they all took turns to steer their way across the galaxy.
Ronnie was so excited to see cows in an adjoining field and stated that he knew they were cows rather than bulls because as they were black and white whilst bulls are only black. Scott (the land owner) came to chat to the children and told them that these cows would start to give us milk in one years’ time.
He showed them his dumper truck, tractor and quad bike with George declaring his daddy drives a tractor too.
As some children were off for a school visit shortly, we quickly returned to basecamp and prepared lunch.
Well done everyone for such incredible invention and teamwork.
Oaks 1:
It was a busy week of good byes to our lovely Fiona, Oliver and Adrian and obviously nobody leaves without a party, with glitter tattoos and homemade cakes we celebrated our friend Oliver and Fiona’s leaving on Friday.
During our weekly Sporty Stars sessions the children have been eagerly practicing for sport day; ‘Team Work makes the dream work’ is our mantra and our coach, James was very impressed.
With the weather holding out we took a walk over to the nature reserve where the giant grass cutters had certainly been busy and the fields were now loaded with hay ready to be baled. The children had great fun re-enacting The Three Little Pigs story, building houses of ‘straw’ with a ‘hidden’ George with Ralph and Freddie playing the leads of big bad wolves as they huffed and puffed their way in.
We also said farewell to our great friend Adrian as he sets off for a long summer holiday before starting school, of course a good bye party was planned with a campfire BBQ and special songs and arts and crafts made to send him on his way . We wish Adrian a lovely holiday.
Star of the week:
George for being so helpful in the garden.
Until next week…
Regards
The Team at Broughton