“The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest and most beautiful of all.” – Shiamin Kwa, Mulan

Saplings:

This week, the Saplings took part in a range of Valentine’s Day-themed activities.

One saw the children turn tissue paper into beautiful heart suncatchers, while another saw them dip heart-shaped cookie cutters into paint before gently holding them down on card.

We wrapped the children up warm so they could enjoy some water play in the garden. Armed with spoons, we tasked the youngsters with scooping up flower petals before adding drops of food colouring to make a pretty pink potion. Ashlynn dipped her hands in the water and exclaimed ‘it’s cold!’. The littles ones also had a blast zipping around the race track on trikes. Alba was impressed at how speedy she was.

The Saplings challenged themselves to balance along the wooden beams too, with James kindly telling his friends to ‘be careful’.

The Saplings had so much fun playing with different Tuff Trays this week too. One involved using tweezers to pick up foam flowers so that they could be placed into different containers. This activity was brilliant for strengthening fine motor skills. Robin wowed practitioners by correctly telling us the colours of the flowers.

Stars Of the Week:

All of the Saplings – For being engaged when singing from the nursery rhyme board.

Announcement:

We would love to see photos of what the Saplings get up to with their families at weekends, so please upload pictures onto Babydays for us to share with the whole group!

Seedlings:

Using apples as a mark making tool, the children dipped them in paint, immediately transferring to paper and watched as the revelation unfolded. They enjoyed malleable materials aa they prodded and poked, rolled and squeezed Play Doh, manipulating the dense mass to form all sorts of shapes and characters. With the aid of knives and forks they divided and sub divided whilst practitioners interjected with narrative around fractions and early maths. This continued as we sang traditional nursery rhymes with a counting element such as 1,2,3,4,5, Once I caught a fish alive!

Star Of the Week:

Us all, for our participation in singing and counting sessions including all the funny moves we add to the fun.

Acorns:

The Acorns enjoyed a week filled with love and laughter as we celebrated Valentine’s Day.

One arty activity saw the children paint the soles of their feet before pressing them down onto paper to make cards for their parents.

We also made a love potion by adding pom-poms, pipecleaners and flowers to water. As they stirred the liquid, the Acorns had the chance to improve their fine motor skills.

Axel particularly relished the challenge of making tasty heart biscuits. We challenged the children to combine all of the ingredients together before having a go at rolling out the dough. Next, they got to work with the heart-shaped cookie cutters. The Acorns were ever so excited to sample their bakes once they’d been cooked and cooled.

Stars Of the Week:

Finn, Arthur and Annabel – For settling in so well!

Lower Oaks:

Oaks 2 got stuck into an exciting science project this week involving white paint, baby oil and white vinegar.

Using fine motor skills, Lyra carefully poured the paint and baby oil into a bottle. We asked the children to watch what happened as the two liquids mixed. Finneas remarked that the solution inside the bottle looked like ice cream.

Otis then added the white vinegar before giving the bottle a shake. As he did this, he pointed out that the white paint started jumping to the top.

The children expressed themselves creatively this week by making Valentine’s Day posters by sticking flower petals onto card. Finneas decided to adorn his card with rose petals. Isla impressed us with how she expertly held a pen in her right hand to have a go at writing the letter ‘I’. Using her best cutting skills, Alice took scissors to her card before writing a capital ‘A’.

Our key word for next week will be ‘helpful’. We will enjoy lots of activities centred around the notion of being helpful to our friends.

Star Of the Week:

James – For the excellent ‘J’ he wrote on his Valentine’s poster and for proudly telling his peers that it’s the first letter in his name.

Announcement:

Each week the practitioners will be turning a cardboard box into a little jet pack for one child to take home with the aim of wearing when helping to tidy up. Annabel took it to her house last week and her mum shared some fabulous photos with us. Amalie was ever so excited to leave nursery with her purple pack this week.

Upper Oaks:

Simon Cowell get yourself to BROUGHTON because we have found the talent, what an amazing week we had getting ready for our talent show, Ada took charge of decorating giving everybody a task to help make the show spectacular, whilst using our reduce, reuse, recycle ethos to create a stage from an old pallet and some table covers, a lick of paint from Luca, Helgi and Joshua who made sure it was fit for a queen or king, which of course we had …… many an Elsa dazzling us all with their rendition of 

‘Let it Go’ with our very own greatest showman, Alex at the helm; another contender, a witch who cast a spell on us all and turned everyone into a frog, Colby making us all laugh at his jokes, there was no stage fright here. Some of the children even performed to their siblings. This activity allowed all the children to tap into their creative ambitions and learn something new about themselves, it gave them a huge boost in confidence and created an opportunity to work in teams to create the most magical day.

Stars Of the Week:

All our Superstars for showing such fabulous teamwork.

Forest School:

The children were excited to explore ‘to the right’ this week which took us to fields filled with sheep prompting everyone to recall and sing renditions of nursery rhymes incorporating multicoloured sheep! As we wandered further, we discovered sheep wool wrapped around fence posts and wire which the children suggested the sheep had used as a scratching post. We talked about what we could make with the wool, learning that jumpers were often made from this raw material. 

We ventured further and took a stroll around the golf course with Xander and Colby suggesting that the locked house we stumbled upon contained the big bad wolf – luckily it was padlocked so we can be confident that he would not be making an appearance anytime soon!

And then to the stream, the children were aghast at the build up of froth formed by the pressure of the rushing water. Some imaginatively likened what they saw to ’fleece’ a sheep’s jacket, exactly reciprocating the common shade.

See you next week.

The Broughton Team