Monday
We have several dinosaur-crazy children at nursery, so we created a dinosaur land for them to enjoy. It's always amazing hearing them correctly naming all the different dinosaurs - if you can't tell the difference between a Parasaurolophus and a Pachycephalosaurus, then just ask one of our children! Away from the dinosaurs, there was some serious tower-building going on, using Unifix cubes and Duplo. This was an opportunity for the children to use the language of comparison - which is the tallest/largest/smallest/shortest? We also challenged the children to build towers with a specific number of blocks, helping them to practise their counting skills. There was some great imaginative play going on as well today, with some of the children making pretend sweets out of paper and material (using their fine motor skills to cut them out). They looked delicious!
Tuesday
The children had fun today painting Easter chicks with Wendy (and getting very excited about Easter in the process). Other craft activities - all child-initiated - were going on at the same time, including making collages from different materials and making zebra masks. In the morning, some of our children listened to the story of Fay the Frog - this is a story designed to help the development of speech and language, something we are active in supporting in our children. Our circle time focus today was "friendship", and we talked about our golden rules and the importance of British Values in our everyday lives. We rounded off circle time with a rousing rendition of 'If You're Happy And You Know It', with some very enthusiastic actions from the children!
Wednesday
We were hugely excited to welcome a very special visitor to nursery today - George's Nanny brought in her tortoise to meet the children. A definite highlight of this term, and we'd like to say a big thank you for giving the children the chance to get up close to such a fascinating creature. Some of the children were so inspired that afterwards they wanted to draw tortoises of their own. After the excitement had died down, there was more fun to be had - the children enjoyed some junk modelling, exploring different textures and materials, and modelling with air-drying clay. We also made a "train" for a make-believe trip to the sea-side where we sang songs and went for a pretend swim.
Thursday
The children were practising their pencil control skills today, by tracing over dotted lines. If this is something you think you'd like to try with your child at home, there are some downloadable sheets here. In the book corner, the children were retelling familiar stories in their own words; this lead on to a story theatre performance of 'Room on the Broom' using our puppets and the children wearing masks to portray the dog, cat, frog and bird. In the role-play area, we were enjoying pretending to go shopping, using money and giving correct change from the till.
Friday
It was Katie's birthday today, and Rose kindly brought her in some balloons - thank you Rose! There was definitely a celebratory atmosphere, with the children wanting to play party games. The Easter activities begun in earnest today, with a drop box full of rice dyed yellow, fluffy chicks and coloured eggs to fill. We also had Easter play-doh mats, where the children could make numbers or specific lengths out of the play-doh. The dinosaur world was also back by popular demand (so much dino-love in Nursery!), while other children continued to practise their pencil control by tracing on our print-outs.
