“Life is precious. Every moment is precious. We should be kind to each other. While there is still time.” ― David Walliams, The Midnight Gang

Seedlings:

This week, the Seedlings continued their love of bug searching.

With the help of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monk’s book What the Ladybird Heard, the children learnt all about the red and black spotty insect. The Seedlings each chose an animal from the book and treated us to their best impressions whenever the name of their selected creature was mentioned. Kit opted for the horse, while Oliver chose the pig. Daneyal excitedly pointed out the ladybird on each and every page.

The children adored making cress heads by decorating a pot with eyes, nose and a mouth before filling it up with wet cotton wool and cress seeds. This activity was designed to commemorate Earth Day. We went on to talk about how to grow plants that we could eat. The children’s cress heads are on display on the window ledge and the Seedlings have loved watching their hair grow.

For St George’s Day, the children made flags using glue and red tissue paper. Lola and Penelope loved sticking down the tissue paper, selecting it ever so carefully piece by piece.

Star Of the Week:

James – For growing in confidence and showing independence.

Saplings:

This week, the Saplings have had fun participating in activities linked to the country Barbados.

The class created colourful collages, using their scissor handling skills to cut pictures out of a travel brochure. A Barbados-themed Tuff Tray complete with sand, sailing ships and water had the children captivated. We loved Finneas’ suggestion of adding a tractor to the Tuff Tray after he decided it would be useful in helping move the sand.

It’s safe to say that Bertie the guinea pig’s visit was one of the Saplings’ weekly highlights. Connie described Bertie as ‘so soft’ and declared her love for him.

The children also made a drink consisting of pineapple and coconut milk. Using child-safe knives, the Saplings cut up the pineapple with the help of an adult.

After looking at various photographs of Barbados showing stunning sand, sea and sky scapes, Connie revealed that she’d visited the country. She even added that the sea was very blue and warm.

Star Of the Week:

Connie – For teaching our new staff member Angela our Good Morning song.

Oaks 1:

Science has been our favoured topic this week and the children have been very interested in volcanoes. Michelle’s friend lives in Iceland and sent video footage of an erupting volcano, the molten lava cascading down, fast and furiously was fascinating for all to see!

We made use of unwanted items by turning recycling into a homemade volcano complete with an exploding solution of vinegar combined with bicarbonate of soda. Freddie had the good idea of painting the volcanoes red, orange and brown. While the children loved seeing the volcano come to life, they weren’t so keen on the smell of the bubbling lava.

To extend this, Oaks 1 had a closer look at some volcanic rock Fiona brought back from Italy. Rosie quipped that she’d like to go to Italy to have ice cream but quickly added that she wouldn’t touch the volcano.

We marked Earth Day this week with the children, reminding them about the wonders of Mother Nature. We chatted about why it’s important to be surrounded by trees and the significance of growing flowers and vegetables. Charlie impressed by sharing lots of gardening tips.

While celebrating St George’s Day, we investigated different English traditions and made yummy shortbread biscuits with Annette.

Star Of the Week:

Oscar – For always offering to help when setting up for mealtimes.

Forest School

We had enormous fun working together as we gathered natural materials to create wonderful items for use in the woods and on our travels. The children made decisions about height, length, depth etc for their chosen ‘product’ to fulfil their vision. Using rope and string they also managed to make tools to enable them to move items such as logs from one place to another. It was great to see such a collective team spirit and calculated critical thinking between them all.

Oaks 2:

This week in Oaks 2, we’ve been focussing on the sea.

The children particularly enjoyed creating their own fish and jellyfish. For the latter, the youngsters helped punch several holes on the bottom of their sea creatures before using fine motor skills to carefully thread some string through each hole. We decided to add numerals to the jellyfish to give the children the chance to work on their counting and number recognition.

We had so much fun celebrating St George’s Day with our friends in Oaks 1. We learnt all about Saint George and why he became the patron saint of England. The children cleverly compared George to Sir Gadabout The Great from Julia Donaldson’s story Zog. We concluded our celebration with a delicious picnic tea.

Star Of the Week:

Emma – For being such a kind friend.

Acorns

Spring is in the air and in the Acorns room this week we have been embracing the season by creating beautiful butterflies, glueing and sticking different coloured tissue paper onto our butterfly template. The children demonstrated a fine pincer grip by picking up each piece one by one, quite meticulously. Once the children’s creations had dried the children explored their own sense of touch by running their fingers over the tissue paper and feeling the altered texture, now crunchy and stiff.

Next the children did some physical exercises by dancing and moving to different nursery rhymes showing off their amazing dances skills and laughing along with their friends. A firm favourite was our ‘What’s in the Box’ challenge. The children sat beautifully demonstrating excellent turn taking.

When it came to singing, the children clapped and smiled to the rhythm of the beat.

Star of the week

Clemence for being so chatty this week and babbling away to her friends

Until next time…

Yours,

The Broughton Cottage Team