“The world is not in your books and maps, it’s out there.” The Hobbit – J.R.R Tolkien

Thank you to everyone who attended our Open Morning, we really appreciated your presence and for talking to prospective parents too.

Seedlings:

Our Seedlings have had a fantastic week learning all about shapes.

Through messy play, the children familiarised themselves with circles, squares, triangles and rectangles, plus stars and hearts too.

In the classroom, we also explored different shapes by discussing how many sides they had. We’re firm believers that it’s never too early to start introducing basic maths principles. Harvey did a fine job of matching up the shapes. As the children got to work, they sang along to The Shape Song. We’d like to say well done to Finley for his fabulously enthusiastic singing. This activity provided the chance to boost fine motor skills too as it involved sticking and arranging shapes.

A spot of baking was enjoyed by all when we challenged the Seedlings with pressing different shape cutters into cookie dough. When the cookies went into the oven, the aroma that filled the nursery was delicious. It’s safe to say they were tucked into with gusto once cooked and cooled.

We were really impressed with the way the children were able to recognise common 2D shapes by the end of the week.

Stars Of the Week:

Finley and Harvey – For their amazing participation in our shape sorting activity.

Acorns:

This week Acorns have been having fun with messy play activities. The children have shown a particular interest in playing with trains recently, so we started off the week mark making using our engines and paint. The children drove the trains through paint transferring to paper to reveal track lines in varying shades. Freddie got stuck in with this activity and was thoroughly engaged.

With the lovely weather, we had lots of fun with our water tray outside, incorporating ducks, boats and fish. Ernie enjoyed this activity and loved splashing the water around. We also made a gloop tuff tray with flowers, spoons and pans, mixing the gloop all the while working on our fine motor skills.

They enjoyed the repetition of up the slide, down the slide outdoors, clambering over soft play and making cakes in the mud kitchen with pots and pans.

Star of the week: 

Freddie for getting involved in all our activities.

Saplings:

This week in Saplings, we have been busy using different resources for various engaging mark-making activities.

One saw the children gently dip the feet of animals into paint before walking them around on a sheet of paper. Once their works of art were complete, the Saplings washed the creatures with sponges to restore them to their original state.

During another colourful activity, the Saplings rolled vehicles through paint before driving them across paper excited to see the patterns which emerged.

The children also thoroughly enjoyed picking conifer fronds from our trees to help create a painting tool. This exercise was brilliant for helping the youngsters develop their fine motor skills. Bamboo sticks provided the perfect vessel into which the fronds were pushed with no additional fixings required!

Elsewhere in our jam-packed week, the Saplings have had fun threading using great determination and had a blast dancing and singing.

Stars Of the Week:

Axel and River – For transitioning into Saplings so well.

Lower Oaks:

This week, the children have expanded their knowledge of maths.

As we enter the garden, the children make a wonderful line and each time, someone is selected to count just how many make up that number line. If it’s getting a little too easy we ask the children to count in reverse.

The Lower Oaks also learnt about group counting using numerical placemats. The children gathered up different objects before counting them on the mats. Finneas, George, Genevieve and Lyra did really well at this task.

To bring an element of maths to baking, we asked the children to make domino biscuits. The Lower Oaks counted out their spots using icing pens.

Star Of the Week:

George – For demonstrating an excellent grasp of counting.

Upper Oaks:

We kicked off the week with an imaginative role-play session as members of Catherine’s family.

Helgi and Luca stepped up as Catherine’s older boys, taking on the role of diligent workmen. Alex and Amelie K became her well-behaved pups, Chico and Dexter. Everyone played their part brilliantly — Catherine was amused to see that these ‘doggies’ listened far better than they do at home!

Football fever spread throughout Broughton Cottage when the Wild Cats (the girls) took on the Wild Lions (the boys) in our tense cup final. After a nail-biting match, it came down to penalties with Joshua slotting the winning goal to secure a victory for his team.

We rounded off the week with a cardboard creation session – a firm favourite for all. Xander was full of determination as he set about building a wrecking ball. The children also worked as a team to piece together two fantastic robots. The Upper Oaks constructed an excellent house for Ada too, perhaps it will rival her playhouse at home.

Star Of the Week:

All our Oaks for their fantastic team spirit

Forest School

Ropes are such a versatile resource, and the children are really coming to grips with tying and knotting and finding all sorts of ways to utilise them; today, Xander and Helgi spent an incredible amount of time making a pulley, using excellent problem-solving skills they tried various ways to 1. Secure it in a tree, 2. Attach articles to the rope and 3. Make it work. How proud were they (and we) when they achieved their goal. The conversations between the two, the collective goal and the result was quite incredible.

Amelie, Sophia, William and Imogen used rope for other purposes, to make a zip wire (yes, a zip wire!). Well, together they attached various objects which slid their way along the length between two trees. Amelie rather liked using it as a hanging rail and soon had an array of objects swinging in the breeze.

Superb work, team.

Until next week.