Monday
As some of the children attended the Remembrance Day parade yesterday, we continued our work on this theme today. The children talked about what it meant, and made poppies from paper plates to display outside the nursery. The children also enjoyed playing with a small-world set up that saw them excavating numbers out of bark using a variety of toy vehicles - diggers, dump trucks, excavators and bulldozers.
Tuesday
The children were learning about gravity today, running cars down long bamboo pipes. This is an activity that children never tire of, and one that is easily replicated at home using cardboard tubes. We set up a table where children could explore play dough, using a wide variety of tools and cutters, and another area where the children were threading and sewing through cardboard pictures. Both activities are great ways to work on the children's fine motor skills. There was also great excitement today when the children helped to decorate the Christmas tree that is part of our Santa's Grotto role-play area!
Wednesday
Our small world set-up today was of a fire station, which really fired the children's imagination (if you'll excuse the terrible pun!). The children had noisy fun with the musical instruments, experimenting with the different sounds they could make - loud, quiet, fast, slow, deep and high. We also talked more about the Nativity story and practised our songs. We hope the children are singing them to you at home!
Thursday
Following on from yesterday's discussion of the Nativity story, the children had fun creating a Nativity scene today - they painted and made the main elements, and we talked about the people and animals that were important to the story. Elsewhere, the children were developing their problem-solving skills by creating marble runs, and getting creative with play dough to make little snowmen.
Friday
Even though it's getting cold, we still encourage the children to play outside. Today, they were out enjoying some winter sunshine, playing with the water tray and investigating whether items floated or sank. Other children had fun inside playing a CBeebies computer game, which not only develops their IT skills but also helps them to learn turn-taking. Our craft activity was making rain clouds - these were painted and decorated with cotton wool, and the rain drops were sprinkled with glitter. Let's hope this is the only rain we see for a while!
