Welcome to Squirrels News August 2014
This month we have had a bit of a change within the nursery. The Squirrels group has now split into two separate groups. The Squirrels are now the younger group at 2-2.5 years old and the new group the Foxes are the older group at 2.5-3 years old. The Squirrels currently begin the day downstairs, having free flow and snack. At 10:30 we come upstairs for our activity time. Lunch and sleep remain the same. In the afternoon we now stay upstairs and have snack with the Hedgehogs and go down to the garden at 4:30 with them. The Foxes now spend all day downstairs including lunch and sleep. This is working really well in the nursery.
This month the Squirrels have shown great interest in mark-making with the playdough. At the beginning of the month we used dinosaurs to make marks in the playdough with their feet. We then decided to do our own foot prints; it was very squashy on our feet and got stuck in between our toes. We also used kitchen utensils to make marks in the playdough. We especially like squashing the playdough with the potato mashers and wooden spatulas, causing a pattern to appear.
Painting has been much fun this month. We used a variety of resources to paint with. We used shower scrunches to splodge the paint onto the paper. We also used the kitchen utensils to paint with. Our favourites were the fish slice and the metal spoons. We especially liked the fish slice as we could splat the paint. Some of us used metal spoons to scoop up the paint and splash it onto the paper. Painting with our hands is our favourite way to paint!
We have all loved being outside this month. Some of us are getting really good at using the bikes in the garden. The Squirrels all seem to enjoy exploring the sand pit, using the buckets and spades. We all like using chalk outside adding some colour to the garden. Some of us can now draw circles and even faces! We also had a trip to the park were which we all had a blast. Climbing up the ladder to the slide and zooming down and swinging high on the swings were great fun.