This week’s activities

Autumn has finally arrived and so we are exploring what the season has to offer in terms of colours through exploration of the natural environment. The children have then drawn on these experiences and reflected them in their arts and crafts; learning the names of the colours, brown, yellow, orange and experimenting with mixing the colours to create darker/lighter shades and learning that red mixed with yellow creates orange.  They used the leaves they had collected to make patterns and went on to create hand prints, feeling the cold paint on their hands and between their fingers.

We have managed to grow a pumpkin in our allotment garden. The children observed the pumpkin in its natural environment and we then went on to explore other pumpkins inside.  They explored the pumpkins texture, size, weight, colour, shape – learning the 3D name.  They then drew the pumpkin, talking about what our pumpkin needs to be able to grow and wondering when it will turn orange? They discussed cooking and eating pumpkin, drawing on their own experiences and imagining what it would taste like.

In their sensory play, they used the playdough to re-create the pumpkin, manipulating it into a pumpkin shape. Really good for developing those fine motor skills essential in writing.

Dinosaurs remain a firm favourite; listening to stories about dinosaurs, as well as retrieving information from reference books and fact sheets.  Lots of lovely use of language, not only naming dinosaurs, but words connected to them, such as ‘extinct’, ‘volcano’, ‘asteroid’, ‘fossil’, ‘paleontologist’, to name but a few.  Talk about the size of the dinosaurs, comparing the tallest, the longest, etc, alongside learning about those that eat meat, ‘carnivore’, eat plants, ‘herbivore’, and eat a mixture of plants and meat, ‘omnivore’.

In their outside play, they have used the large wooden blocks to create different structures, including a bus, a boat and a horse.  As they built each one, they sang songs connected to their structure; so ‘wheels on the bus’, ‘down by the station’, ‘horsey, horsey’ and ‘row, row, row your boat’.  They also built a throne and a robot to use in their role play. Blocks are fantastic for many reasons, including mathematical concepts and role play, but also learning how to use things safely.  The blocks need to be ‘locked’ into place to make sure they are secure.

In their mark making, they have explored what they can do with chalks outside.  They were inspired by the wonderful spider webs we have in our environment to recreate them, leading to stories and rhymes about spiders.  They also created a hop scotch grid, learning number recognition and counting skills, as well as being great for whole body exercise and co-ordination.

To further develop their large motor skills, they have continued to practice their ball skills – throwing, catching, football, netball – encouraging not only physical skills but perseverance, teamwork  and a ‘can do’ attitude.

Finally outside, they created a road using the slide for the cars to go down. They worked out how to keep the cars on the ‘road’, what worked and didn’t work through trial and error and thinking about what adjustments they needed to make, eg did the car go too fast. This was also great for turn-taking and sharing of resources.

As always, this is a snapshot of some of the activities this week.  Please see our website for some lovely photos.

Thank you.

The Pre-school Team