Recently in the Owl Room, lots of the children have had their curiosity sparked by patterns they have seen in their environment. When exploring the food in the Atelier and looking at trees and leaves when outside, the Owls have noticed the different patterns and repeated shapes on these items. To further the children’s interest the adults provided some natural materials with different patterns on the Atelier table. The Atelier is an area in nursery where children can investigate, create and express themselves so the adults provided the materials in this area to observe how the children would interact with these materials.

Many of the children chose to use wax crayons in order to transfer the patterns they liked best onto paper. With some of the larger items, such as the pineapple and the pumpkin, the children needed to problem solve to work out how to keep them still while completing their rubbings.

The children were fascinated by their own ability to recreate a pattern on paper in this way so the adults extended the activity to the outdoor area and challenged the children to find even more patterns. The children were provided with more paper and wax crayons and given the opportunity to explore and think of what other patterns could be found. The Owls were able to find lots more patterns, including natural ones such as tree bark and man made ones including the brickwork of the wall. The group spoke about what patterns they had found and shared ideas with each other about what else they could make rubbings of.

While a large part of the group enjoyed making rubbings, there were some who were having fun making up stories around their vehicles in the small world area. The adults asked the children if there was any way they could use their cars to make a pattern and the group spoke about the tyre tracks that cars made. After this revelation the children took their cars to the atelier and used paint to explore patterns, without having to leave their cars behind.

This activity really seemed to fascinate the children so, the adults reproduced the activity on a larger scale so that groups of children could work together to make large patterns.

Some children extended this activity to include patterned rollers, which they had found in the sand tray, and patterned rolling pins from the play dough area. As the children examined the patterns they had made there was lots of vocabulary relating to shape (”lines”, ”circles”, ”squares”, ”round”, ”straight”, ”dots”, ”spots”), and size (”thin”, ”long”, ”big”, ”small”). All of these concepts help to lay a foundation that will support the children’s mathematical knowledge as they move up into school.

Something that the children noticed as they were exploring the different patterns, is that different patterns often come with their own textures. This lead to even more new language from the children such as ”bumpy”, ”spiky”, ”hard”, and ”rough”.

The Gosling children enjoy opportunities to explore with play-dough. Play-dough is great for supporting muscles in their fingers and hands; gaining strength and improving dexterity in their hands and fingers, critical areas of development for writing and drawing.

Today the children were involved in the process of making the play-dough, collecting the water in containers, filling the bowls with flour and mixing the play-dough! This was a lovely experiment for the children as we spoke about the changes that were happening.

We extended this activity with some loose parts play, where the children used conkers and leaves to create faces on the play-dough.

Last week the children enjoyed exploring pumpkins and investigating the conkers that we have found on our autumn walks. This led to some discussions about seeds and all of the different forms which they take. The children were fascinated to discover that, even though they are very different colours, shapes and sizes, both the pumpkin seeds and conkers were types of seeds and would grow into different types of plant.

We, therefore, took some seeds, down to Fearne’s Garden, along with some gardening tools, so that the children could plant them. The adults also found some seed heads in the nursery garden which the children enjoyed shaking to discover another different type of seed. The children used the tools to plant the seeds in pots and spoke about how we could look after them. The children decided that the plants would need to go somewhere where they could see the sun and that we would need to water them to help them grow. The children also tried to predict what the seeds would change into and how they would look once they had grown

While they were waiting for their turn to plant some seeds, the children had lots of fun exploring Fearne’s Garden. Some of the Owls searched for sticks, used the magnifying glasses to get a better look at the natural objects on display, or enjoyed making marks on the brick walls and stones. While we are in Fearne’s Garden, children are able to choose what they would like to do as long as they think about how to be safe and how to make good choices regarding how they interact with other people and their environment.

One popular activity this week was rolling down the hill. The children can benefit from this activity in both a sensory and physical way, while also remembering how to be safe and how to respect others.

Later on this week the Owl children had the opportunity to participate in some baking. The children had been pretending to make bread and cakes in many areas of the nursery such as with the play dough, in the home corner and in the mud kitchen so the adults provided the equipment and ingredients for the children to make some hedgehog rolls.

The children worked together to combine the ingredients of flour, water and yeast and then used their hands to knead the dough. This was quite a messy task that the children seemed to really enjoy.

Once the dough was all mixed it was left in a warm place to prove and rise. The children thought about how the dough looked before and after proving and noticed that it was smaller before and a lot bigger afterwards. Many of the Owls used some great mathematical language when discussing the size of the dough.

Once the dough was ready the children shaped it with their hands and snipped the top with scissors to make spikes for their hedgehogs before adding raisins for eyes. An adult baked them in the oven and, once again, the children looked at how the bread had changed and looked different to how it did before.

This week the Owl children have been exploring some different fruits and vegetables in a variety of ways. At the start of the week the adults provided some vegetables in the home corner for the children to cut with child safe knives. These included some items that the children may be less familiar with, such as fennel, pak choi, celery and broad beans in the pod.

The children had a wonderful time being able to cut the real food and using the knives gave them the opportunity to develop both their fine and gross motor skills, their hand eye co-ordination, and their knowledge of how to stay safe when necessary. By providing some more unusual items the adults were able to spark the children’s curiosity and encouraged questions such as what the vegetables were, what they would be used for, and where they come from. As the vegetables were in the home corner, many of the children incorporated them into their imaginative play by making lunch for their friends and the adults or by feeding the dolls. Many children recognised some of the vegetables and related the experience to their home life by stating what they had eaten before.

Due to the children enjoying being able to investigate the knives and vegetables in the role play area, the adults then added these to the Atelier, alongside paper and paint, as a provocation for the children to use them in a different way. The children showed that they could cut the items before adding paint and either using the food to print or using it as a natural paintbrush.

The children were able to transfer the skills they had used previously in the role play area and extend them in order to use the items in a creative way. The children chose which items to use, what colour paint they would like and how to cut their item to be able to print with it. Some children spoke about what they wanted to accomplish before they started and others chose to use multiple items and colours to make different effects.

As the children had enjoyed exploring the food items so far, towards the end of the week the adults provided some seasonal gourds, namely an orange pumpkin, a white pumpkin and a butternut squash for the children to explore using a variety of tools. This gave the children an opportunity to engage with food in a multi-sensory way by seeing what it looks like both inside and out, what it feels like and what different scents they could smell. The children also enjoyed using a the tools such as large spoons and a potato masher to make changes to the items.

This week the Gosling children had the opportunity to explore the Sports Hall. As children develop self-regulation skills, it enables them to adapt to transitions and new surroundings. We spoke to the children first, and as you can see, they had a wonderful time exploring in such a big space.

We started off with simple running games, using those gross motor skills to run from one side of the room to the other. The children were supported with their listening skills through “ready, steady, go”. Listening skills also support with language development.

They also enjoyed balancing along the beams, supporting the children to have control of their bodies and moving in a variety of ways.

The children have shown a real interest in the signs of Autumn, and we have supported this through provocations around the room to support and extend the children’s learning.

Using the resources that the children had gathered from their Autumn walks in the week, they had the opportunity to explore glue to create their own Autumn collage. This activity is important in the development of fine motor skills, working the tiny muscles in their fingers and hands that are needed for important tasks like to learning to write.

The children also used apples from the apple tree, which they collected. Using Autumn colours the children enjoyed apple and leaf printing, having the opportunity to talk about colour mixing too, supporting children with their communication and language skills looking at the descriptive language.

Here the children enjoyed more gluing and sticking on their Autumn leaves.

Following on from last weeks interest around trains and colours, we extended the children’s learning, still looking at colours, through a range of inviting and challenging activities.

The children started the week with rolling balls to knock down the correct colour tube. This rolling motion stemmed from the children rolling hoops, balls and themselves down the hill. Another great opportunity for the children to use those gross motor skills.

As we move into Autumn, extending on a colour walk that we went on last week, we looked at the different coloured leaves that we found on the ground, sparking an interest in the children discovering more about the world around them. The children took charge of the baskets and collected all things Autumn.

The children had the opportunity to use their senses as they spoke about what they saw, the noise of the kicking of the leaves and the smells around them.

Being in the outdoors also provided the children with the opportunity to be with nature. We found a frog! We spoke about our use of gentle hands, and how we care for living creatures.

Using resources that we collected from our Autumn walk, the children enjoyed conker rolling. Another opportunity to talk about colours and extend the learning into looking at colour mixing.

What a busy week it has been again for the Owl children. After they enjoyed collecting leaves around the school grounds previously, we went down to our Outdoor Learning area to see what other signs of Autumn we could find. The children were provided with iPad’s and encouraged to take photographs that show signs of autumn.

Some of the children took some fantastic pictures of the seasonal changes they found…

while others decided to use the iPad’s to take photographs of their friends…

or take some brilliant selfies.

However the children chose to interact with the tablets, they all showed that they can use technology for its intended function and are curious about how it works.

The children were fascinated by all of the different colours they saw while exploring outside. To extend this interest and learning we added some Autumnal coloured paints and leaves in the Atelier for the children to explore and investigate.

This gave the children a multi-sensory experience as they were able to see how the paint changed and mixed with other colours as they moved it around with their hands, as well as exploring the textures. The Owls were also encouraged to use their language to describe how the paint looked and felt while being introduced to new descriptive words.

A provocation was set up in the Atelier which provided an opportunity for the Owl to investigate different food items, such as rice, oats and peas. As some of the children were pretending to make cakes, we decided as a group to bake real chocolate cupcakes to eat for snack. Baking gives children a chance to think mathematically by weighing and measuring ingredients and also gives them chances to observe cause and effect as the ingredients mix and change.

Welcome to a new academic year.

We have welcomed new children into the Gosling Room, and they have all settled well into Stamford Nursery School, guided by the Reggio Emilia approach, providing a safe and nurturing environment which promotes knowledge and inspires a lifelong love of learning.

The children have shown confidence in exploring their new surroundings, both indoors and out.

This week we observed the children’s interest around trains through their child-initiated play. This interest has been followed on through the learning environment with meaningful enhancements of resources added to support and extend the children’s learning.

The Gosling children have enjoyed imaginative role play of train journeys. Through pretend play, children are learning social skills such as sharing and collaborating, problem solving and turn taking.

The children were provided with opportunities within the Atelier to use glue to create train pictures, extending their knowledge on shapes. Learning to use glue develops hand-eye coordination, alongside fine motor skills. Colours were explored through sponge printing, and a colour matching carriage game.

The children had a lovely time visiting Stamford train station. Please search for ‘Stamford Nursery School’ on Facebook to see the train visit.

Welcome to the start of a new academic year. Our new children have settled in well and forming new friendships and our returning children are full of stories from their summer adventures.

We are now in our Autumn Term and the Owl children have been noticing, and discussing, the seasonal changes. To enhance their learning the children went on a walk around the school grounds to find some fallen leaves and other autumnal items.

Despite the inclement weather the Owls spirits were not dampened, and they donned their waterproofs and wellingtons before setting out. The children are encouraged to try and do this independently as it helps to develop their self-help skills.

The children used some great observational skills to look around and find places where the leaves might be, such as around the trees and bushes. When collecting leaves, we discussed all the different sizes and shapes which gave the children a chance to use some mathematical language. We also looked at all the different colours that the leaves had turned.

As well as all the different leaves the children also enjoyed finding conkers both in and out of their shells, feathers that the children said had been dropped by the birds and twigs from the trees. The children were able to work together in small groups to find the items and communicated well throughout. This gave the children a chance to re-establish friendships from last term and form some new ones too.