“Late February days; and now, at last, might you have thought that winter’s woe was past; So fair the sky was and so soft the air.” ― William Morris

Seedlings:

It’s been a super busy week for the Seedlings.

Thanks to the beautiful blue skies we were treated to, we were able to have lots of fun in our garden. The children all love wrapping up warm to play outside.

While inside our room, the Seedlings enjoyed a mark-making activity. The practitioners rolled out large pieces of paper on the floor and the children set to work decorating it with stampers and crayons among other things.

The Seedlings found our new animal game great fun. The children were challenged to name an animal before making its sound. We’re pleased to tell you that everyone sat beautifully throughout and treated us to some hilarious grunts, chirps and neighs.

Star Of the Week:

All our wonderful children! It would be impossible to choose just one child.

Saplings:

This week in Saplings, we’ve been talking about our pets. The children adored showing photos of their animals to their peers and members of staff.

We started our week off with a fun activity where the youngsters were asked to press animals down into modelling clay to look at the different kinds of footprints they made. The children enhanced their communication and language skills while also demonstrating excellent turn-taking.

The Saplings also really enjoyed mixing food colouring into baby foam, with Willow excitedly telling the group that the solution felt cold in her hands. The children were extremely happy that they were able to correctly identify the various colours that they had selected to mix into the foam  and watch as the droplets coursed through the solution. 

Star Of the Week:

James – For growing in confidence while exploring the garden. Well done!

Acorns:

Mark-marking has been central to the Acorns’ jam-packed week at Broughton Cottage.

Out in the courtyard, the youngsters set about making some fantastic marks using toothbrushes and paintbrushes.

We also spent time researching animals and learning the noises associated with them. The practitioners particularly liked hearing the children’s cow impressions.

To enhance the Acorns’ numeracy skills, we worked on counting up to five. All the children tried hard when doing this, and even if they didn’t say the numbers in the correct order, they demonstrated a good grasp of the topic. To help the little ones, we asked them to repeat each number back to the practitioner. 

Star Of the Week:

Cornelius – For showing excellent counting skills when reading a book about numbers.

Announcement:

We’d really appreciate more family photos so would be very grateful if you could send some in.

Forest School

Winding down to basecamp it’s clear that spring might soon be making an appearance with hundreds of bluebell shoots pushing their way through the thick muddy soil. The children have learnt that bluebells are protected and should not be dug up or sold on; we also try to tread carefully around these precious seedlings but it’s tricky as the forest will soon be awash with them!

Whilst the sun shone, iced pools and streams surrounded us and the children had fun removing the ‘glass’. Xander brought a bucket and all determined to experiment and see what would happen when they placed sheaths of ice into a saucepan over a roaring fire. The sun helped start the process but the intense heat of the fire rapidly brought it all to the boil, mission and predictions accomplished.

Helgi happened upon a huge mallet and used it to crush some biscuits for the birds whilst we went for a walk to collect ‘treasure’ and was pleased to see that every morsel had disappeared upon our return.

Upper Oaks:

This week’s slightly more mild weather has had everyone in Oaks 1 looking forward to spring.

The children have been helping us to prepare our garden ahead of the next season. They liked getting the forest area ready for the delicious barbecues we’ll tuck into al fresco in the coming months.

Upper Oaks proved to be very green fingered too as they planted a selection of new flowers. It was wonderful to see the whole group pitch in while getting their hands dirty.

The children smiled as they measured each other on our height chart. We learnt that Emma is the smallest member of our class, while Ada and Heer are the tallest. As the children worked out their heights, we explained that individuals grow at their own rate.

As always, we thought carefully about implementing our reduce, reuse and recycle motto. The Oaks showed off their musical prowess as they played their homemade instruments that had been lovingly crafted from yoghurt pots, cardboard tubes and butter tubs. Some of the children opted to place sticks inside their instruments to make a noise when shaken. We decided to use this natural resource rather than rice to avoid wasting food. This activity served as a fine reminder of proving that we can have lots of fun while remaining environmentally conscious.

Star Of the Week:

Poppy – For trying new foods.

Lower Oaks:

We said farewell to Melissa and wished her luck for the future.

This week Lower Oaks have taken part in a number of activities linked to painting. This theme was suggested by Isla.

An arty activity involving bubble wrap was popular with all the group. The children remained engaged as they got stuck into painting on the bubble wrap’s bumpy surface.

We’d like to thank Alice for bringing in the delicious cake that she baked at home. It certainly went down well with a glass of milk at snack time.

Congratulations to James for being awarded a Sporty Stars certificate – an impressive feat!

Following on from our jet pack making Annabelle wore hers with style when she left for home one evening.

Star Of the Week:

Amalie B – For tidying up really well. She’ll be receiving the power pack for her work this week.

Yours sincerely

The Broughton Team