“The Great gift of Easter is hope.”

-Basil C. Hume

Wishing you all a very happy and restful Easter with cherished moments, surrounded by family and friends.

Seedlings and Acorns:

This week our Seedlings and Acorns have been focusing on all things Easter. We set up a sensory water activity consisting of flannels, sponges and a variety of water vessels. The children watched in fascination as the water transferred from one container to another, in and out, over and under.

We then challenged the children, their task, to make Easter egg suncatchers using sticky back plastic and tissue paper, Georgia and Olivia loved feeling the stickiness beneath their fingers despite it being a little fiddly. We then set up an Easter tuff tray with shredded paper, chicks, eggs and nests. The children had lots of fun exploring though Thea wasn’t quite so keen.

To end the week, we celebrated with a fantastic Easter party. We started our morning preparing some chocolate nests with the children who demonstrated fabulous gross and fine motor skills whilst crumbling the shredded wheat and stirring the mixture together. In the afternoon we put on some music whilst we got stuck into prepared activities which included the adornment of our own Easter eggs, crafted with an array of decorative materials.

Stars of the week: 

All our little Acorns and Seedlings for being so immersed in all their activities.

Saplings:

We started our week concentrating on some focus led, topical activities which really tested the children’s diligence as they threaded string through a hole punched egg.

Annabel showed great fortitude as she worked hard to align using her thumb and index finger.

The children then turned their attention to other craft activities making egg collages with pipe cleaners, tissue paper, stickers, paint, and string, the whole caboodle! A wonderful way to strengthen accuracy and precision.

We completed our week with an Easter party and an egg hunt which was great fun for all.

Stars of the week

Our superb group for following instructions so well.

Oaks 2:

This week we have enjoyed celebrating Easter with our little ones, we have enjoyed expressing our creativity by making crowns, biscuits and cards. The children showed us how their fine motor skills are developing and how good they are becoming communicating their likes and dislikes.

We had an Easter bonnet parade with Oaks 1; all the children amazed us with their creative skills, then completed their day with a

delicious party tea which was greatly enjoyed by all.

We’ve continued our weekly woodland walk into Crown Meadow woods. This is the third week we’ve wandered into the woodland and it’s been a joy watching the children grow and develop each week. This week we ran with confidence to the big hill where we chose whether we wanted to run down the hill or roly poly. Ivan’s roly poly skills were impressive.

We then moved into the woodland where we found many fallen trees, ideal for climbing. Devon impressed us with her ability to climb the trees, with little adult support. Cornelius also amazed us with his confidence in climbing. A lovely time was had by all and we returned back to nursery where we heated milk for an end of term hot chocolate treat.

Stars of the week: 

All our Oaks 2 children for their engagement whilst completing their crafts.

Oaks 1:

Easter arrived early in Oaks 1 as we made an Easter tree to decorate and engaged in lots of craft and spring creations!

Our topic of spring and lifecycles is in full swing, and we have been planting micro herbs and lettuce in tins and pots salvaged from our recycling. The children have been watering and weeding, and we now have carrots, potatoes, peas, lettuces and herbs whilst germinating, we have cucumbers and tomatoes.  We have spent some time learning about water and food waste, in that regard a huge thank you to all who donated to our wonderful sunny cycle race. We raised around £250 for children who live in poverty or need support.  In other news we have been exploring yeast and what happens to foods when we feed it. The children have loved making crumpets, bread and hot cross buns, the natural cause and effect provides a superb learning opportunity. All the children are making fantastic progress with their phonics and we have really enjoyed reading the Julia Donaldson series about the joy and wonder of trees. We are now moving on to the Eric Carle books about insects and seeds; life cycles provide a plethora of learning we are looking forward to receiving our caterpillars and eggs for hatching next term.

We are always in need of any spare craft and art resources if you have any to spare. 

On a personal note, I would like to say a huge thank you for all the support and information you offered and provided me during my end point assessment for my Level 5 Leadership degree, I am thrilled to report I received distinction across all areas and am totally blown away!! Wishing you all a safe and restful Easter, come and find me or my fab team if you need anything.

SEN UPDATE:

After attending the Best Practice SEN early years Conference recently, it was evident that the support for SEND children is reaching new outstanding levels. There was a panel of leading early years experts whose experience spans leadership, SEND best practice and neurodiversity and charity. Cheryl Warren is a neurodiversity champion and has written books on understanding and accepting neurodiversity in early years which are fascinating and vital to provide an inclusive provision. In Kent there is a new triage system for children with language and communication delay, there are new walk in sessions that are accessible to all parents that have concerns about their child.

Talking Walk-ins are:

• Play-based drop-in sessions where you can speak to a Speech and Language Therapist, Family Hub worker or other staff.
• For pre-school aged children where there may be a concern about their speech, language or communication.

Please come and have a chat if you need any advice or support for your child or need a list of the walk in sessions.

Forest School

The children voted to stay at basecamp and embraced the many wonders of the woodland.

They worked hard to combine cornflour and mud (that they had extracted from the forest floor) to an exacting consistency, in order to create mystical spiritual characters which later adorned the ancient oak trees encircling the campfire. They let their imagination run wild as they described the figures whilst they added foraged materials.

Using rocks and hammers as tools of choice they enthusiastically broke down charcoal to create their own writing instruments and then set to work drawing upon wooden tree stumps and logs.

Alice, Amalie, Alaire and Lyra discovered many ‘letters’ amongst the trees and twigs and made connections between them and the names of their friends whilst a woodland walk nearer to nursery saw the group figuring out directions as we discussed destinations to the left and the right of us.

Finally, a treasure hunt saw a collective competitive spirit amongst the group as they battled to solve the clues, well done Otis for such quick-fire responses.

Until next week …….