“It was a fairy moon. Pearlescent, glowing, and hanging low in the sky – it was the kind of moon that spelled mischief and delight.” Nadia El-Fassi

Saplings:

Our Saplings have enjoyed a range of activities themed around Guy Fawkes and bonfire night.

The children were challenged to use a fork dipped in paint to create some fireworks on black card. River carefully placed the paint onto the card creating a beautiful picture.

Our Saplings also tried their hand at creating rocket fireworks out of paper tubes and sticks decorating them beautifully using paint sticks and other colourful materials. The children demonstrated excellent sharing skills throughout this activity.

Popular for us this week has been ‘Kitchen Disco’ written by Clare Foges and Al Murphy. The children enjoyed hearing about what all the cheeky fruit get up to during the night and danced along as the story unfolded. The alliteration peppered throughout helped them complete the sentences. Sentences which they found great fun.

Outdoors, the Saplings once again worked on their pouring skills. They used jugs and scoops to move water from one vessel to another and had lots of fun with cars and lorries following the track’s direction marked out on a Tuff Tray; Jackson and James challenged each other to a race.

Star Of the Week:

Finn – For setting into our routine so well.

Seedlings and Acorns:

We’ve spent the week working on the youngsters’ fine motor skills.

One activity saw the Seedlings and Acorns glue sparkly pipe cleaners and cotton threads onto card, their representation of fireworks.

Next, the children painted bonfires using different shades of red, yellow and orange. Sticks that were gathered up from our nursery garden added the perfect finishing touch.

While out collecting twigs, the children also enjoyed a fire-themed Tuff Tray. They were given spray bottles and a hosepipe and were tasked with working together to extinguish the flames.

The children absolutely loved painting on the Tuff Tray this week too. We covered the surface in tinfoil before handing the Seedlings and Acorns a variety of tools. Millie decided her hands and feet were a brilliant mark-making tool. The children were mesmerised by how the paint made marks on the silver surface and sat at the activity all morning.

We ended our jam-packed week experimenting with a combined gloop, glue with salt. The youngsters remained focused throughout as they squished, squashed and moulded the concoction.

Stars Of the Week:

Acorns: Ivy – For settling into nursery life so well.

Seedlings: Ernie – For being more confident on his feet.

Oaks 1:

We’ve spent plenty of time cooking outside this week thanks to the mild weather we’ve been having.

The children relish the chance to use our forest area when helping prep for our meals. We always talk about safety and respecting the rules around the fire. The children behave so well during our cookery sessions and really get stuck in!

Over the last few weeks, the children have been helping to stir our huge pot of hot porridge in the morning. Our delicious warming and nourishing meals this week have included chicken stew, omelettes and soup too.

In other news, Michael Rosen’s book Chocolate Cake has been a huge hit with our Oaks. They were completely engrossed for 20 minutes and have asked to read it again next week! We love that the text is full of onomatopoeia- and we will be encouraging the children to think of their own words to describe sounds. We plan to bake our own chocolate cakes too.

May we please ask you to keep on singing carols at home with your children. We can’t wait to hear the children sing in our show in a few weeks.

Star Of the Week:

Alice – for demonstrating mature responsibility

Forest School

Our walk took us to pastures new as we plodded through the harvested fields. We discussed what the farmer had planted as only last week the soil was barren. 

All agreed that it looked like grass and discussed why this might be after all it can surely only be of use to the cattle as feed? We also thought it might just be a year when the fields were ‘rested’ to preserve the nutrients for later years. We discovered that this, and crop rotation helps improve soil structure, increase fertility, and reduced pest and weed pressure, which can lead to higher yields.

The children found a new ‘sour’ apple tree along the way but decided that the fruits were rather tasty and only some pulled incredible facial expressions contorting with each bite!

Arthur cleverly used pegs to fashion the first letter of his name and then declared that there were another four children with us today whose first letter started with an ‘A’, Alice, Alaire, Amalie, Annabelle.

The sun falling on dew highlighted the many beautiful webs scattered throughout the fields and the children were fascinated by their delicate structure; they were also very careful not to disturb them showing great empathy for nature and the natural world. Well done team.

Oaks 2:

This week, Oaks 2 have been learning how to cut with a knife, while also discovering that knives can make using a fork more effective too.

The children crafted some brilliant rockets for Bonfire Night. Daphne and Ella came up with their own designs by enveloping bottles with coloured paper, demonstrating great fine physical skills. Theo and Ziad listened intently to the practitioners’ instructions.

We are planning to expand on our space theme with a number of exciting craft projects. If you have any spare sparkly decorations or bottles we’d gladly take them off your hands.

Star Of the Week:

Ivan – For listening well to the practitioner’s instructions.

Yours sincerely

The Broughton Team