“In November, the earth is growing quiet. It is making its bed, a winter bed for flowers and small creatures. The bed is white and silent, and much life can hide beneath its blankets.” In November – Cynthia Rylant
Now the weather has turned much colder, may we remind you to please send in some warm spare clothes for your children. We’d advise thicker lined puddle suits plus wellies and winter accessories.
At the start of the week, the children got stuck into a messy activity with foam and food colouring. The food colouring was combined with shaving foam to create a swirly pattern. The Seedlings were encouraged to lay paper on top to transfer the pattern. The children loved watching their creations come to life.
The Seedlings were delighted to work with a new medium this week, clay. The children all expertly manipulated the smooth substance with rollers and cutters to make an array of different shapes.
The youngsters also loved playing with the slide this week too, boosting their gross motor skills.
Star Of the Week:
Teddy – for his developing communication skills.
Saplings:
Colour recognition is something we’ve spent time working on with the Saplings this week.
On Monday, the children enhanced their fine motor skills by carefully pushing coloured pipe cleaners through the holes in a colander. We asked the Saplings to tell us what colours they could see.
And during an engaging colour matching activity, we tasked the Saplings with pairing bold and bright pom-poms with the corresponding coloured pot.
Dressing up has been popular amongst the children this week too, and the Saplings all enjoyed the challenge of completing different puzzles.
Friday ended with a seriously fun game of colour bingo.
Star Of the Week:
Otis – For setting well at nursery after becoming a big brother
Acorns:
The Acorns have had a brilliant week, jam-packed with lots of different activities.
Embracing the season, the children had a blast creating gloop with leaves and sticks hidden inside. The children played so well together, babbling and giggling throughout.
The children also enjoyed an afternoon activity where they had the chance to work on their physical development. The adults set up a space with slide, box tunnels and soft play jumping mats. It was wonderful to see the Acorns conquer their fears on the obstacle course.
In the garden, the Acorns were challenged to free animal figurines from ice. The children were so fascinated to see that the ice melted and made little puddles before freezing all over again.
Star Of the Week:
Harvey – For showing us all how he can now walk by himself.
Christmas preparations are now in full swing for our Oaks.
Using the three Rs (reduce, reuse and recycle), the children made a Christmas tree. They sourced large fallen twigs in our nursery garden and used cardboard for the base. As they got to work, the Oaks sang Christmas songs.
A second festive activity saw the children make some fabulous salt dough decorations. We also spent time rehearsing for our Christmas show – we can’t wait to welcome parents to Broughton Cottage to watch it on Saturday.
This week, we used snack time as a chance to continue to educate the children about why it’s important to eat a healthy, balanced diet. We decided to have a go at making our own sushi on a bamboo board. The children giggled as they rolled out the seaweed and rice before sampling different sauces and fresh ginger (spicy for some)
Star Of the Week:
Jacob – For encouraging his friends to try new foods.
Wow, the rain was certainly challenging this week.
The team realised quite quickly that in order to build a fire and sustain it the whole set up needed to move and they rapidly agreed that the ‘Story Tent’ was THE place. What incredible teamwork (possibly spurred on by hunger!!) They moved piece by piece to ensure the firepit was undercover and dry.
The children enjoyed reconfiguring their den and spent equal time putting people in their ‘jail’ as hiding from the Big Bad Wolf as they continually changed the focus of their play.
The previous week we had found a golf ball embedded in the mud which the children washed and dried then set to work making a golf club out of sticks. With Cindy’s encouragement they managed to find a suitable flattish piece of wood to attach to the pole (handle) and soon created their very own home-made club which worked a treat!
Yours sincerely
The Broughton Team