“Autumn seemed to arrive suddenly that year. The morning of the first September was crisp and golden as an apple.” — J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows

Seedlings:

This week in Seedlings, we started a new ‘All About Me’ topic. With new children and staff joining, it proved to be a brilliant way for everyone to get to know each other.

To kick things off, the youngsters enjoyed a spot of mark marking with different tools. The children self-selected card in colours they wanted to use, as well as which shades of paint. As he got to work, James was particularly good at naming the different paint colours.

Once their creations were dry, we extended the activity by placing tin foil in the centre to represent a mirror.  With the children able to see an array of colours, hear the crinkle sound of the tin foil, as well as feel its smooth texture, they engaged in conversations about their five senses.

The Seedlings also enjoyed lots of dance parties this week. Devon and Jasper busted some excellent moves, bobbing up and down and stamping their feet in time to the music. Dance is a wonderful way of encouraging the children to learn to control different parts of their bodies.

Star Of the Week:

Arlo – for settling so well

Acorns:

The little ones are settling into our room. It’s a whole new and daunting experience for them being away from their parents for the first time but we are spending lots of time allowing them to find their way whilst we all get to know each other. We’d like to thank all our new parents for their time and patience.

All our Acorns are stars this week

Saplings:

It’s been a creative week for the Saplings who have been exploring different textures.

One activity saw the children decorate foil using brightly coloured paints. Genevieve used her hands to spread yellow paint over her piece of foil. She loved the cool feel of the paint beneath her fingertips.

The Saplings also painted on parchment paper, selecting paint in bright shades of green and red. Using a paintbrush provided an opportunity to work on fine motor skills.

We challenged the Saplings to get in touch with nature by painting on sticks and leaves then transferring this by imprinting upon a tuff tray.

Star Of the Week:

Genevieve – For having a good understanding of how to help her friends and act with kindness.

Request:

We are on the hunt for pots and pans to use in a sensory activity we’re planning which will also involve ladles, spoons and fish slices. If you have any you no longer need, we’d be most grateful for them.

We are building up our shiny and twinkly store of items, if you have anything at all fitting this description that you no longer need, we would be grateful to receive them too.

The Oaks:

This week, the younger Oaks have been settling into their new routine well. They’ve loved exploring their new space and discovering all of the fantastic toys.

Finneas impressed practitioners by using Mobilo to build fire engines complete with intricate details such as bumpers.

William has been using his imagination

and become a tiger at meal times. This led us to read the Tin Forest by Helen Ward, a story depicting an elderly man who dreams of tigers in the forest. The children sat beautifully as they explored the delicate illustrations while listening to the story.

The children in Oaks have also spent lots of time exploring the outdoors this week. They enjoyed using the hammers and nails in the forest area, learning how to use them correctly.

The children really took on board what they learnt and had so much fun pretending toy hammers, drills and saws were the real thing.

The Oaks children used them to create a ship. This activity was brilliant for helping to develop the youngsters’ social skills as they chatted away to their friends throughout. One of the little ones suggested: ‘We are sailing on holiday to Portugal and grandma’s house.’

Star of the week:

Finneas – for such great attention at Forest School

Forest School:

We welcomed all our new children and spent some time teaching them the rules of safety in the woods. They took everything on board and went to explore their new environment enjoying whipping up apple ‘pies’ and blackberry ‘crumbles’ in the mud kitchen, proudly ‘serving’ them to a responsive team. This was their first attempt at fire building and lunch preparation. Once they realised Annette wasn’t there to cook for us, they all soon contributed and made a fabulous meal. Toasting marshmallows was certainly very popular as they sought out long sticks as cooking implements.

Despite the atrocious weather the children bore it well and showed great resilience.

Well done everyone.

                                       Until next week.

                                    The Broughton Team