And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.’ – Roald Dahl

Saplings:

Our Saplings got plenty of fresh air in our garden this week.

Arthur and Alba particularly enjoyed playing in our sandpit, making castles and chocolate cake. Jacob’s favourite outdoor spot was our mud kitchen. While indulging in a spot of imaginary play, he demonstrated excellent pouring and mixing skills.

On pancake day, the children had a go at making their own crepes by decorating paper plates with a range of different toppings.

Another activity saw the Saplings get messy with our foam dinosaur Tuff Tray. They mixed a range of colours into the foam before using different dinosaurs to make footprints. The children also used an assortment of tools to try and free small world bug figurines from blocks of ice.

Julia Donaldson’s book What The Ladybird Heard proved to be extremely popular with everyone this week too.

It’s safe to say the Saplings were most excited to celebrate World Book Day. After much deliberation, we named Ashlynn as our room’s best dressed character – she wowed with her scary Gruffalo outfit. To really mark the occasion, we read a number of books together including The Tiger Who Came To Tea, The Gruffalo and Hairy Maclary. Thank you to all of the children for bringing in their favourite stories to share.

Star Of the Week:

Ashlynn – For growing in confidence when communicating with her peers and practitioners.

Acorns:

Acorns spent their week focussing on Michael Rosen’s book We’re Going On A Bear Hunt.

To kick things off, the children enjoyed painting a bear using forks instead of brushes. As a finishing touch, the Acorns added googly eyes plus a nose and ears.

Later on in the week, the children made the most of the glorious sunshine with lots of activities outside.

Inspired by this week’s theme, we filled large trays with different natural resources including soil and grass. We poured water in too before adding cotton wool to represent the blizzard. The children loved walking in the trays without shoes and socks on. We chatted about how the textures felt underfoot.

To close the week, we treated the Acorns to a Teddy Bears’ Picnic on Friday. The children each selected a toy before sitting down to tuck into delicious filled wraps and slices of melon.

Star Of the Week:

Nellie – For settling in so well and putting a smile on all of the Acorns’ faces.

Seedlings:

We were all so pleased to have Amelie back with us, we’ve certainly missed her.

We’re embracing spring at last!

The children have been developing their skills as well as colour recognition and exploring new experiences when using scissors to nip and knees and then using PVA glue to make beautiful artists with them. We presented the children with balls of foil which secretly held a surprise within, it was a delight to watch them slowly peel away the layers as they excitedly watched in awe as the mystery unfolded. Throughout the week we’ve been taking advantage of the beautiful sunshine and spent plenty of time outside exploring the awakening season.

Star Of the Week:

Hope – for thoroughly enjoying making her spring college picture and being completely engrossed in all our activities; she was extremely proud of herself too.

 All the children have really enjoyed the new activities, they are just awesome.

Upper Oaks:

What an incredible Book Week we’ve had. It was a week filled with creativity, excitement, and a true love for reading. The children came dressed as their favourite characters, and we were thrilled to see the fantastic outfits they wore! From magical princesses to the clever, Fantastic Mr. Fox, the costumes were impressive.

Book Week has not only been a fun celebration, but also a great reminder of how important reading is in shaping young minds. It’s a great opportunity to get creative, develop their language skills and ignite their imaginations.

Writing our own stories whilst getting creative with our characters discussing the twists and turns of their lives and of course many a story featuring Cheeky Chico – Catherine’s cheeky dog who goes on daily adventures.

Our Mud Kitchen had a makeover, built entirely from reused materials, allowing the children to explore nature while developing important skills such as teamwork, problem-solving and sensory play all the while embracing the new reduce, reuse, recycle way of living.

Star Of the Week:

William – for being extremely helpful at tidy up times.

Forest School:

Using sticks to make a number of items was the order of the day and the children took it in turns to saw sticks and branches to an ‘exacting’ size, all with diligence and enthusiasm, working tremendously hard until they achieved their goal. Eli was particularly pleased, as were Heer and William. It was especially pleasing to see them both work in partnership, offering support and encouragement.

In an act of kindness Peggy acted as the perfect Florence Nightingale as she nursed Amelie back to health when she announced she had a blister on her heel. Cutting the bandage to size and using micropore as a means of adhesion, Peggy, with our assistance took great pains to ensure the ‘wound’ was covered. Splendid work Peggy. 

Until next week ………..

Lower Oaks:

This week, Oaks 2 have taken part in a range of activities linked to the police.

Amalie adored telling her friends she worked for the force while wearing a police ID badge on her top. Finneas was ever so excited to learn that the walkie talkie made several special police sounds.

Continuing on with the topic, Oaks 2 had a blast analysing fingerprints made in paint and clay. Genevieve was fascinated to learn that every fingerprint is different.

Oaks 2 also discovered that police sirens from other countries sound different to the ones we hear in the United Kingdom. We also spent time looking at police cars and how they differ in look depending on global location.

Genevieve was awarded our yellow back pack this week. She did brilliant tidying up and remembered that our week’s buzz word was ‘friend’. She told practitioners that it’s nice to help friends in need and touched on the importance of playing playing nicely with them.

World Book Day was extremely memorable this year – we loved seeing all of the children dressed up. Well done to Alice for winning our room’s best costume award. Her caterpillar outfit was simply brilliant.

Star Of the Week:

Theo – For concentrating so well on his toilet training. Very well done.

Announcement:

If you do a wonderful activity with your children at home, we would love you to come into nursery to demonstrate it.

Yours sincerely

The Broughton Team