Rabbits News January 2015

From the beginning of this year, the Rabbits have been following a new approach to planning, whereby we aim to cover all 8 areas of the curriculum through providing opportunities to engage in a range of cross curricular activities.

This month the Rabbits have shown excellent writing and literacy skills through the brilliant stories they wrote all about what they did during their Christmas holidays. The children also drew a picture to go alongside their stories. The children then thought about the new year and each chose some personal goals which they would like to achieve this year. A lot of the goals are in relation to the children going off to school this year.

As part of our Eco schools, the children wanted to make a Bug Hotel as a safe and cosy place for all our garden creepy crawlies to live. They took the time to design their own Bug Hotel, thinking about its size, the kinds of rooms it may need and who may live there. We then used a variety of materials to build the Bug Hotel which you can see in our front garden. After building the hotel the children all made up their own short stories about a bug coming to stay at the Bug Hotel.

This month the Rabbits took part in a mini topic on Road Safety. All of the children shared their knowledge and what they would like to find out about in a big discussion which was recorded in our floor book. We then used this as a basis to plan fun and exciting activities for the children.

These activities involved a visit from Dorothy, the local lollipop lady who explained her job to us and the importance of road safety; the children drew their own road signs and learnt a little about what the different signs mean; we added a little drama by acting out our own road safety scenarios and deciding what to do in different situations and, finally, the children carried out a survey of how each child travels to nursery. To do this the children all made a tally mark next to the form of transport they used and then totalled them up to see the majority.

Towards the end of the month we had our Burns’ night celebration day where we all came to nursery dressed in tartan or something Scottish. We then spent the day listening to Scottish stories or music, having a dance to bagpipe music and enjoying a yummy snack of leek and tattie soup and haggis, neeps and tatties – Yummy!

Foxes News January 2015

This month the Foxes have showed great interest in letters. We are all able to recognise the letter for our name and our friend’s name, which is fantastic. Most of the Foxes can say other words with the same letter as their name e.g. “E is for elephant”.

We can also match two letters using different resources i.e. we can choose the letter for our name using laminated letter cards, and then match it with the same letter on the alphabet rug. We looked at letters using lots of different resources, magnetic letters, alphabet sponges and laminated letter cards.

 

We have done lots of baking this month. We made rainbow fairy cakes, carrot cakes and shortbread.

All of the Foxes have really enjoyed taking part in this learning experience and then using our new skills. To help us make the shortbread we used our fingers to make the mixture into breadcrumbs. It was great fun, although our hands got “messy” and “sticky”.

 

This month we introduced Mickey and Millie the Meadows Monkeys. For the first week we had lots of fun playing with them in the nursery, and then they went to some of our friend’s houses. First they went to Alex’s house and from there on to a birthday party at a trampoline centre. They had a brilliant time there. Next Mickey and Millie went to Abbey’s house. They had lots of fun playing with her toys and exploring her garden. They especially liked going on the swing and climbing in the trees.

 

To end the month we celebrated Burns Day. We designed our own tartan using different coloured paper.

To begin with the Foxes found it a bit tricky but soon mastered how to do it. We also made delicious shortbread to take home. Then to end the day we had our Burns Supper: haggis, neeps and tatties

 

Foxes News November 2014

Messy play

This month the Foxes have enjoyed exploring the sand tray and trying out new things in the sand like dinosaurs, buckets and spades and things which make patterns. The Foxes have also been getting creative making poppies using tissue paper and pipe cleaners as we thought about Remembrance Day. The Foxes have been really interested in transport and vehicles recently and so they used their imagination and creativity to create cars, buses, fire engines and more out of junk. They all look brilliant!

Outdoor/physical play

Out in the garden the Foxes have been practicing their balancing skills on the beams, crates and wobble chairs. They have loved trying out their ball skills through playing hockey, badminton and tennis. Some of the Foxes are great at hockey!

Inside the Foxes have loved dancing around in the Flower room to action songs and music and movement. They have also really enjoyed doing some yoga using cosmo kids on youtube.

Discovery Play

This month the Foxes have been really interested in Animals and so have had a brilliant time role playing with the animal toys, making all the noises of the different animals and even made their own animal masks so that they could explore the movements and sounds of different animals through drama.

Towards the end of the month the Foxes began to show a real interest in vehicles and transport and therefore we have been exploring and discovering new things about transport through our activities. The Foxes have been listening to the different sounds from a variety of vehicles and trying to make the noises themselves.

Rabbits News

We have a few exciting dates coming up for the Rabbit’s group! On 5^th December we will be heading to out on our yearly trip to the Pantomime! On 19^th December the children will be performing in their Christmas show. We have all been practising our lines and songs!

Literacy

This month we have been finishing off our Space topic and beginning a new topic all about the Rabbit’s rights as children. While working on our Space topic, the children did some fantastic writing to tell us all the names of the different planets and how long they take to orbit the Sun. The children were brilliant at using different sources to find out the information such as books and posters.

At the end of our Space topic we all had a big discussion about all the new things we had learnt (and there was a lot!) and what our favourite activities had been. We then began our new topic on Children’ rights with another discussion where we all told each other all the ideas we had about children’s rights.

At the start of our new topic all of the Rabbits had a go at writing in their new writing jotters. They used these to think about some things that they believed to be their rights as children and wrote these in their jotter before drawing a picture to go with their writing. Everyone had brilliant ideas!

Numeracy

This month our numeracy focus has been all about sorting objects. We did this through sorting the planets into their order, starting at the closet to the sun. We know that there are 8 planets and they are all different sizes and take different lengths of time to go all the way around the sun.

With our new topic, we have a new numeracy focus and this time it is all about using signs and charts. At the beginning of activity time each day we have all been joining up with the Foxes to update our calendar and sing our days of the week song. Everyone is great at their dates and seasons!

Health and Wellbeing

This month we had a visit from Heidi from the Finish your food workshop. She told us all about just how important it is to eat up all your food at every meal. She set us a challenge of eating all our food at home as well and we all had a little sheet to fill in.

We have all been really enjoying our Recipe of the week and finding out what new recipes we will be trying out each week! The Rabbits love to explore all the new flavours.

Social Studies

This month, as we have started our new topic, we have been exploring some new ideas all about making decisions and thinking of others as we do different things. The Rabbits have been thinking all about their right to be heard and listened to and have therefore been joining in with evaluating their playrooms in the nursery and looking out for any risks or things they feel need changed.

Forest Schools

Some of the children have been attending Forest Schools this month. While at Forest schools the children have been focusing on different forms of communication. They have been taking the walkie-talkies with them and hiding around the wildlife garden to see if they can hear each other. The Rabbits also really enjoyed building Spider’s webs to use their problem solving skills to climb through or over it. We also built a rope swing which was a great hit with both the children and the staff!

 

Foxes October News 2014

Messy play

This month the Foxes have enjoyed exploring textures during their messy play. They especially liked the squidgy, slimy jelly and getting arty using cars to roll paint over paper. The Foxes were also being creative making their very own space rockets using toilet roll tubes, glitter, card and tissue paper. They look great!

 

Halloween Party

We have been enjoying having fun at our Halloween party towards the end of this month! We all made paper plate ghosts to decorate the nursery and had a fantastic time at our party dressing up, carving our pumpkins and having a spooky snack of pumpkin soup all together! We also danced to spooky music and listened to some (a little bit) scary stories!

Outdoor/physical play

Out in the garden the Foxes have been wrapping up warm and getting energetic! They have loved zooming down the slide, playing on the scooters and bikes, practicing their balancing skills on the beams and blocks and making ‘tasty’ treats in our mud kitchen!

 

Discovery Play

We have been discovering which objects we can use in our playdough to make different patterns, such as lego, cutters and cars. We have also been discovering music and the different sounds that we can make with the instruments. The Foxes even had a go at making their own shakers using plastic bottles.

Health Week

At the beginning of October the Foxes and Rabbits had ‘Health Week’ where they discovered which foods are good for you and created their own healthy food plate using tissue paper to create fruits and vegetables. They all discovered how to properly wash their hands and clean their teeth.

 

Rabbits News October 2014

We would like to welcome Maggie to our Rabbit’s room! We look forward to having her join our group!

Literacy

This month the children have shown an interest in Space, so we have worked on developing their existing knowledge. The children have been exploring events and characters in stories and expressing their own thoughts in different ways. They wrote their own space stories involving planets, space ships and astronauts then drew pictures to illustrate their creative stories. There have been many story and reference books the children have enjoyed reading. They have been creating their own stories and journeys within the new Space corner where they can explore the concepts of space in their role play with twinkly stars, posters and globes.

Numeracy

This month our numeracy focus has involved investigating objects and shapes and being able to sort, describe and be creative with them. First they used a toothbrush to flick yellow and white paint on the paper, and then they explored different sized and shaped collage pieces. They used these to create space ships and planets on their paper. The children have also created a countdown for the rocket ship in our space corner, which is hanging up for them to countdown from ten ready for blast off! In the garden the children have been using different shapes to trace around with chalk to create planets, stars and rocket ships. They have used a variety of junk modelling including boxes, triangular shaped card, plastic containers and cardboard tubes to build space stations, space craft and astronauts.

Health and Wellbeing

This month’s focus was for the children to become aware of cleanliness, hygiene and safety and how it affects their health and wellbeing. We incorporated Health Week into this, where each day we focussed on a different area of healthy living. The children learnt about the importance of hand washing, and used glitter to demonstrate how germs spread when we touch things. They were involved in Zumba where they enjoyed learning dance routines that keep them fit, and cooled down with some yoga. The children received a certificate for showing they can brush their teeth, as they watched in the mirror to make sure they were brushing them correctly. The whole Nursery took part in Healthy Lunch day where everyone was encouraged to bring healthy snacks to eat. The Rabbits have also baked some yummy healthy carrot and cinnamon muffins.

Science

The focus this month to extend on the space topic is to explore the vastness of the sky and learning to recognise the Sun, Moon and Stars. The children have had the opportunity to lie on the grass and watch the clouds, seeing what shapes they can see in them. They enjoyed learning about the different qualities of the planets amongst the solar system. The children found the most interesting part was how long each planet takes to orbit the Sun. We have read a book about star constellations where the children then glued on their own stars, and drew a picture joining all the stars together for their own constellation.

Forest Schools

This month the children have been using their imagination and creativity to construct models and problem solve. They used sticks and string to create fishing rods and went fishing in the pond and built boats to trial what items sink and float. They explored mixing different natural materials to make ‘paint’ and found different colours in nature to make more colours to paint with. To develop their problem solving and gross motor skills the children helped to build a rope swing, and held their bodies up as they swung across the garden. The children created their own journey sticks where they collected various natural items that were meaningful or of interest to them and attached them to their stick to take home and revisit their journey to Forest Schools.

Events

The children explored different cultures and beliefs as they watched a video about Diwali and how it is celebrated. The children also enjoyed dressing up and playing ‘spooky’ games for their Halloween party. They made pumpkin soup and then helped design the pumpkin into a spooky face to be carved.

Welcome to Rabbits News September 2014

Literacy

This month we have been extending on our Eco topic! Our literacy focus this month is all about where to look for information and how to use the information we find. After reading and looking at a variety of books about birds and wildlife, the children used binoculars to spot pictures of birds that were hiding around the room. When they found a bird they referred to the booklets to see if they can recognise which one it is. The children have also been practicing their Eco Song which some of the children helped to write.

Numeracy

This month our numeracy focus has been all about measurements and recording. After making the rain gauge and placing it in the front garden, the children have been checking each day and recording the amount of rain fall on a chart. This has lead to various discussions about what it means for our plants and garden, and the importance of watering the garden when it doesn’t rain. This month the children created a weather chart that will be placed outside. The children wrote the months, seasons and drew pictures of different types of weather to change it daily. We are hoping to get a thermometer for outside, and discussed with the children how to read it and the difference between the temperature inside and outside.

Health and Wellbeing

This month our Health and Wellbeing focus is learning about the people in our community and the wider world of work. Linking this to our Eco topic we have organised a workshop ‘Finish your Food’ to visit where they will weigh our food waste and teach the children skills in reducing their food waste and aiding our compost bin. The children also learn about the role of the Rubbish collectors as they discussed where our recycling goes and who picks it up. The children drew picture s of what rubbish goes into each of our coloured recycling bins to extend on their knowledge. We had a visit from Zoo Lab this month to learn about the people who take care of different animals and the different care each animal needs.

Technologies

This month to encourage the children to use their imagination and creativity they have used junk modelling such as empty boxes, cardboard tubes, bottle tops and other recyclable materials to create and build bird houses.

The children also made bumble bees using pine cones and wrapped different coloured wool around them. They had to use their problem solving skills as they then had to figure out how to attach the beech nuts on for the wings. We are still working on our project of building a bug hotel for our front garden. If you have any old bits of carpet, old books, bricks, bamboo canes, sticks etc that we can use for our bug hotel the children would be very excited to use them and get our project started.

Forest Schools

Some of the children have been attending Forest Schools this month. They have been developing their problem solving skills and gross motor coordination as they have been climbing the trees in the garden at Johnston Terrace. The children found a treasure map and discovered that treasure was hidden all through the garden. They loved going on a treasure hunt and then drew their own maps. They have been challenging themselves with climbing up and over the spiders web we built with a rope between the trees and have shown a lot of confidence in testing their abilities.

Welcome to Foxes News September 2014

Messy play

This month the Foxes have been exploring paint and the many things we can do with it or add to it to create different textures! We tried adding flour, rice and glitter to the paint to see what would happen, it was very exciting! Everyone enjoyed using different things to spread the paint like their hands or our new textured paint scrapers. Have a look at our lovely artwork! The Foxes also practiced their fine motor skills through trying out their cutting skills. They all chose pictures from magazines to cut and stick onto paper. One of the Foxes even found a Gruffalo picture to cut.

Role Play

This month the Foxes have had a great time zooming the car toys around the garden and the Busy Bug room. Some of the cars even make noises which is very exciting! Out in the garden the Foxes have loved to role play, pretending to cook dinner for their friends and teachers in our mud kitchen. It all looks very tasty!

Outdoor/physical play

We love to play in the garden! When the Foxes have been out in the garden their favourite thing to do is to run and jump and play games all together. This month the Foxes have been using their gross motor skills and practicing their co-ordination by trying out a few obstacle courses which the teachers have set up for them. Have a look at the picture of some Foxes trying out the hurdles! They also have a great time bouncing on our trampoline! They are great at taking turns.

Discovery play

This month the Foxes have been exploring and discovering the wonder of magnets! They have really enjoyed using the giant magnets to discover which objects attract and which don’t. They tried with paper clips and a variety of other objects. The Foxes have also been showing a real interest in the magnetic blocks and have loved finding new ways to connect them to make cars or houses or people!

Other News

This month the Foxes and Rabbits were lucky enough to have a visit from Zoo lab! The Zoo lab man brought lots of creepy crawly animals for us to look at or hold. The Foxes were all very brave and loved holding all the animals! He brought African snails, cockroaches, a rat, a rabbit, a snake and a tarantula!

At the end of this month it was our Tea Party! We all enjoyed doing lots of baking to sell in our McMillan bake sale. We made yummy chocolate crispie cakes!

 

Welcome to Rabbits News August 2014

The Rabbits have been saying goodbye to some of our friends who are off to school, we wish you all the best of luck! We have also said hello to Max who is back with us after some time in America and we will soon be saying hello to Esme F who will be joining the Rabbits.

Literacy

This month, and into September, we are working on our Eco topic! Our literacy focus this month is all about where to look for information and how to use the information we find. So far we have been using Bird books and wildlife books to identify different birds and have been using what we have learnt to help us discover which birds we can see in our nursery garden. So far we have spotted some Sparrows, a Robin and a Blue tit.

Numeracy

This month our numeracy focus has been all about measurements and recording. As our topic is Eco, we decided to make a rain gauge using an old plastic bottle and we will use this to measure and record the rainfall over a 6 week period. We are also planning to make a weather chart and will soon be having a discussion to find out what this could look like and what we information we will find out from it. As we are looking out for birds and different wildlife around our nursery, we will keep a record of the number of times we see each different bird or animal and think of new ways to attract more.

Health and Wellbeing

The Rabbits’ Health and Wellbeing focus this month is all about the people who work to help conserve the environment and look after our wildlife. We will be finding out a little about a variety of these jobs such as RSPB workers, Woodland trust, Wildlife trust etc. We may even try to invite some of these people to tell us a bit about their jobs!

Technologies

This month we will be using our imagination to be creative and use natural or recycled materials to construct different things. A big project we will be working on is making a bug hotel. For this project we might need your help in finding old bits of carpet, old books, bricks, bamboo canes, sticks etc that we can use for our bug hotel. Have a look at the picture to get an idea of what it will look like! We will also be having a look at some bird’s nests and having a go at making our own, choosing the materials we think would work best.

Forest Schools

We are just about to start our next block of Forest schools and this time we will be heading to Johnston Terrace Wildlife Garden for some more exploring and discovering through nature!

Welcome to Foxes News August 2014

This month we have made a change in the routines and groups. We now have Foxes, who are 2.5-3 years old and the Squirrels are 2-2.5 years. The Foxes now spend their day downstairs whilst the Squirrels follow their normal routine. This month the Foxes are becoming familiar with the new routine. The first week we had an observation week which worked really well and helped us to know what the children enjoyed, including role-playing shops using the wobbles as shopping baskets.

The Foxes have also shown a great interest in the car tracks and connecting them together to build a road, then rolling the cars along.

 

Now that the Foxes are downstairs they have been getting out to the garden a bit more. Louei and Alex have really enjoyed putting the hula hoops around their waist saying ‘Hula Hula’.

 

All of the children’s speech has really come on and more of them can now put a few words together to create a sentence. They can also recognise a few colours and match them to the same colour of plate, cup etc.

 

 

Zoe has been really enjoyed the colours and was able to put all the purple objects and match them up together on the purple plate.

We would like to welcome our new teacher Carolann who started with us this week. All the Foxes have got to know Carolann and enjoy having her around.