This week’s activities

Below is just a snapshot of the things the children have been getting up to this week.

The children have spent a lot of time this week exploring the whole of the Pre-school environment.  They have learnt that they can now go from Robin to Wren Room and Wren to Robin Room and this is ok.  They have also had the chance to use each of the gardens and the different experiences they can get from each.  Not only have they had the chance to explore the environment, they have met all of the teachers. It is amazing how quickly the children adapt to the new way of doing things, with the teachers on hand to help them overcome any reluctance to explore and to be able to follow the updated routine. This is all very important for their personal, social and emotional development.  It allows them to build self-confidence, become more autonomous, work on relationships and navigate a whole new set of people.

It has been lovely to see the new friendships forming amongst the group. Many of the children will be making the transition to primary school in September and it has given them an opportunity to make new friends who they will be going to school with.  They have used the photos on their pegs in the cloakroom to introduce themselves to each other – something they have done completely independently.

We have reverted to having a self-selection snack time. The children are once again able to pour their own drinks, choose their own fruit and clear away their bowls, cups and any utensils. These skills are really important to promote their self-care, encourage them to take responsibility for their environment, discuss portion size and what foods are good for us, as well as being a lovely time for social interaction.

In their play they have loved being able to use two gardens, each with their individual characteristics.  For those children who haven’t been able to access Robin Garden, they had the chance to use the climbing frame and slide, and for those who haven’t been able to access Wren Garden, they have had the chance to see the ‘bug hotel’ and explore the very naturalistic aspect of Wren Garden.

The weather has been very kind and this has meant that the children have been able to have lots of lovely waterplay and mud kitchen play.  Both of these activities are fantastic activities for children to explore. They learn about the properties of items, eg if I pour water into dirt and mix it together, the dirt goes from dry to wet.  When it’s wet it acts differently and I can mould it using different containers.  The children use all of their senses outside and just watching sunlight playing through water as it pours from one container to another is fascinating when you haven’t seen it before and you are making sense of the world around you.

Before the Easter break, the children helped to plant some sunflower seeds.  These began to grow and were doing quite well.  As we weren’t here over the holidays the children helped to transfer them in their container to outside.  However, we didn’t have any rain and the poor sunflowers didn’t survive.  Whilst this is sad, it is a good learning opportunity for the children to see that if they don’t take care of the natural world, things won’t survive and flourish.  We are glad to say that we have some other sunflowers and vegetables that have been planted in the allotment garden at the front of the building which are all doing well!

Playdough remains a firm favourite with all of the children.  This week they have been able to mix in some beautiful blossom to enhance the sensory experience.

Sensory/messy play is really important for young children.  As well as playdough, waterplay and the mud kitchen, the children have explored green pasta! Children learn through using their senses. This helps them make discoveries about the world around them and puts things into context.  If you don’t get to play with real things you won’t understand what someone means when they say something is, for example, sticky or slimy or cold or bumpy.

The displays in the rooms are at child height wherever possible.  A beautiful, neat, obviously adult-made display does not have any relevance to the children.  Whereas, some of their own artwork, photos of them playing, posters of things they are interested in can spark curiosity, conversation, questioning and therefore cognitive development.  An example this week is the interest the children showed in a poster of flags from around the world.  They talked about which countries the flags are from and this led to them asking how the people in that country say ‘hello’.  Whilst we are not multi-lingual, the children were able to hear some new words and put them into context.

They have had lots of fun building and using dens.  Dens are great on many levels.  You need to plan and think about what you need to use to make it effective.  Once it’s made it can give you somewhere quiet and cosy to relax, to read a story and be calm.  It can become a ‘bat cave’ or a ‘castle’. It can help you understand that not everyone in the world has a house made of bricks and that some people live in different homes made from different materials. It can help to begin to build those empathy skills when you think about how you would feel if you had to share your den with lots of people without a bed or a kitchen or any of the other things our children have.

To make learning numbers fun and engaging, the children have taken part in a ‘number run’ game.  There is a number line on the fence in Wren Garden.  The children chose one of the numbers (which helps with recognising numerals).  They then counted how many objects that represents by counting the number on their fingers.  Finally, they ran the length of the garden however many times to match the numeral they had chosen.  Maths doesn’t have to be difficult or something that children need to sit at a desk to learn.  Maths is all around us and by making it fun, children will learn without feeling that it is something they can’t do.

Finally, we were very, very lucky to be visited by a female duck today.  She must have been very hungry, as she sat in the middle of a group of children to eat some of our bird food.  The children were able to get a really close view of the duck.  They were all very careful, calm and quiet so that they didn’t scare her. They could see her lovely feathers and watch as she eagerly ate the bird seed.  We are so lucky to be close to the river and surrounded by beautiful countryside and the children loved having a very special visitor.