‘The best way to treat obstacles is to use them as stepping-stones. Laugh at them, tread on them, and let them lead you to something better.’ Enid Blyton – Mr Galliano’s Circus 

Staffing news – we are delighted to have welcomed Megan to the Oaks 2 team. She will continue to introduce herself during the coming week.

Seedlings:

The Seedlings spent their week focussing on a new ‘under the sea’ topic and also looked at a book with the same name, illustrated by Kait Eaton.

To celebrate National Bee Day on Monday we got crafty in small groups making bees out of tubes and tissue paper. The children took it in turn to share the glue and tissue as they carefully formed their bee’s body before adding googly eyes and wings.

The Seedlings had great fun thinking about what creatures they might find in the sea as they pretended to row their boats made out of boxes. George found the driving toy and decided to put in his box to make it a speed boat. Otis excitedly told his peers he spotted a turtle and octopus. During their play, they sang ‘1,2,3,4,5 Once I Caught a Fish Alive’ and ‘I Had a Little Turtle’. 

Armed with paintbrushes, the children painted bubble wrap blue to represent the sea for a special Tuff Tray. They were intrigued by the clear material’s texture, describing it as smooth and giggling as it popped as it was painted. Sea creatures and coloured scarves completed the Tuff Tray.

Stars of The Week:

Oliver and Ashlynn – For settling in so well with the Seedlings’ routine and for their participation in our activities.

Saplings:

This week, the Saplings’ theme was ‘giraffes’.  

They analysed the colours and the spots, before thinking about the different parts of the animal. 

William discovered that a baby giraffe is called a calf and Finneas revealed that he liked the tallest ones best. 

While out in the garden, the Saplings gathered up sticks, leaves and grass to make giraffe food. Once back inside, they got creative with yellow and orange paint to make a giraffe height chart. 

This week also saw our Saplings learn some basic French words, including ‘bonjour’ and ‘merci’.

Star of The Week:

Holly – For wowing everyone with her pronunciation of French words. She was thrilled to receive a sticker for her efforts.

Acorns:

The Acorns have continued to learn about the zoo this week. 

The children were interested to find out what different animals they might find at the zoo, considering where they’d live in the wild too. 

To enhance the Acorns’ learning we played with animal flash cards throughout the week. The children were able to recognise lions, tigers and giraffes. Some of the class even treated us to the sounds the different creatures make. 

Next, we got stuck into an animal unwrapping activity. We challenged the children to peel tin foil off the animals using their fine motor skills. Each child was able to carefully unwrap an animal. 

Rod Campbell’s book Dear Zoo was a hit with everyone and offered the chance for the children to explore a different texture on each page.

Towards the end of the week, we took a look at animal habitats using sand and water play. We chatted to the children about which creatures might be found in an arid landscape, and also covered ones that live in the water.

Star of The Week:

Teddy for his increasing confidence when interacting with his peers.

Oaks 1:

Oaks 1 continued to learn about growing this week and planted their tomato seedlings. We also added to their seed collection, with some melon seeds and date pips. Particular thanks are sent to Margot’s mummy for providing some beautiful strawberry plants.

Our book of the week was The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry and it really inspired the children to think about all of the different plants that grow on Earth and how we should care for our planet. The in-depth look at this book really helped to extend the children’s vocabularies with words such as ‘extinct’ and ‘rainforest’. Raul told his friends and practitioners that David Attenborough helps us look after the planet. 

We also introduced a new member to Oaks 1 – Mr Goodboy, our circle time dinosaur. The children all suggested a name and we picked the winner out of a hat.

Star of The Week: 

The whole group for their immense interest, commitment and contribution in our planting sessions this week, taking care to be extra careful with our delicate seedlings.

Forest School

Our new group were excited to get back into the woods and enjoy the natural ‘playground’. Thomas, Ralph, Freddie and Rosie spent time creating letters out of sticks, carefully wrapping them in string to emphasise their shape. We discovered that the most common ‘natural’ letter is ‘Y’ so the children thought about how many words began with a ‘Y’. Whist on our walk away from basecamp we happened upon a new doggy daycare centre, recently set up in the surrounding fields. The lovely lady introduced a few of the dogs and explained Toby was deaf. Naturally, the children had a lot of questions and she demonstrated how she uses actions to call him over. He responded to her instantly. The children immediately empathised with Toby and went on to tell us all about their dogs. Well done everyone for being so attentive.

Oaks 2:

Oaks 2 have continued to explore natural phenomena.

A fun creative activity saw the children use branches as paintbrushes and do some impressive leaf rubbing with crayons. This enhanced the children’s fine motor skills, while also supporting their expressive arts and design learning opportunities 

For our mid-morning musical movement sessions, we’ve been doing something a little different. We’ve been making the most of our Possum Play Couch and have been using it to strengthen physical development and gross motor skills by making obstacle courses. We were really impressed with the way the youngsters were able to listen and respond to more complex instructions. Oaks 2 demonstrated excellent team working skills throughout these sessions. 

We have also been busy creating a wormery as a home for some of the wiggly friends we spot in the garden. This activity helped give the children a chance to think about why they should care for other things living in our world. 

Star Of the Week:

Dylan – For writing part of his name. Very well done!

Until next week…

The Broughton team