Reindeer Food Bar

Today it was particular chilly and windy in our outdoor area. We love to be out in all weathers, and wrapped up to see our new reindeer food bar.

Pulling Father Christmas and his sleigh and all those presents is hungry work so we needed to make sure we had bags of food ready for Christmas Eve.

We had:

• Porridge Oats - to help the reindeers have long lasting energy
• Glitter Dust - Magic to help us fly
• Gold leaf - To help us see in the dark
• Crisps - our favourite treat, just a little
• Raisins - for energy
• Rice Crispies - to help us "snap" to it and listen
• Sparkly bits - for magic speed

Oh and sprinkled with ginger to ward of colds and because reindeer love the smell!

We talked about the different ingredients and why they might be important Why see in the dark? Why  do they need to go fast?

We wrote labels and sealed our bags with loom bands.

Book Creator

We have been enjoying using the Book Creator app on the iPad to capture our drawings and thoughts about them. Here are some Early Years drawings and emergent writing on the iPad coming out of our Billy Goats Gruff story. We can add recordings of what we say too.

Junk modelling and Book Creator

Following our interests

In Early Years we try to use a child led approach to learning - seeking to use the children's interests in our activities and provision to make sure they enjoy and are engaged in their learning.

I want to write about my teddy

I love monsters

Is this the penguin in the shops?

We love football - and it is helping strengthen our fingers

Power rangers help us learn key words

Billy Goat's Gruff

 This week our story focus is the Three Billy Goat's Gruff. This is one of our favourites, we love trying out different voices and are just a little bit in awe of the troll!

We made wonderful scenery and have drawn out the story. Do you like the bridge?

We tiptoed and trip trapped across the bridge. 

Look out for the nasty troll!

Can you see the bridge leading to the sweet green grass. There are fish in the river!

Wonderful writing

Acting out the story - and using an iPad  to photograph my friend!      

Ask your child to tell you the story and watch it together.

Watch the Three Billy Goats Gruff

World Nursery Rhyme Week

Last week we really enjoyed joining in with World Nursery Rhyme week

Our provision in Early Years was focused around the Nursery Rhymes we were learning over the week. 

We made Incy Wincy Spiders

And found some scary spiders in Clever Fingers

We had extra opportunities to make music and sing our rhymes with some new and exciting instruments and props.

We loved our big group celebration times - can you see Hickory Dickory Dock?

Polly put the kettle on and made lots of cups of tea, usually with added cake!

The children worked hard on literacy activities about Nursery Rhymes.

Ask your child to sing you their favourite rhyme for the week!

Fire and Ice

Today we really enjoyed colour mixing and painting with fly swatters, metal spoons, pan scrubbers and washing brushes. We banged and mixed to see what patterns we could make and to splash out firework patterns.

We also explored ice balloons. We were fascinated at the shapes the frozen water balloons made, and how heavy they were. We sprayed water on them to melt them, and talked about the textures and colours. The red balloon made all the water red!

Some fantastic sorting and counting! I loved the four bats particularly! 

Counting cards from http://stimulatinglearning.co.uk

Snack time is a great time to talk about the pictures on our snack table. This week we have images of firework paintings to inspire us.

Day 2 of our rope light - still very popular!

Welcome back

The children were excited to be back at school today. We are continuing to learn about Autumn and this week we will think about Bonfire Night and how to stay safe. Look out for some fun firework activities as the week goes on! We hope you enjoy a glimpse of our first day back.

We really enjoyed exploring our new rope light and making bright firework collages with glass beads and buttons.

The muddy kitchen was very popular today. I enjoyed some Spaghetti Bolognese with added sugar!

How many beanbags can we throw in? How many miss? How many are there all together?

We enjoyed threading leaves with real needles. Very good for helping our fine motor skills develop.

We were still enjoying sorting spooky confetti 

And worked hard to discover some hidden numerals!

Bowling Pumpkins

Today we really enjoyed bowling pumpkins! We found the pumpkins heavy so good exercise for our arms, and it was tricky to roll or bowl it towards our target. We were counting how many skittles we could bowl over and finding the right numeral.

First we lined them up and stacked them - very challenging and good for fine motor skills

We really enjoyed rolling and hitting the skittles. A queue of bowlers quickly built up, giving us chance to practise turn-taking and sharing!

I like the pumpkin!

Working with Nature

Today we were finding leaves and counting them. We decided to decorate our outdoor table with them. We stuck the leaves down with PVA glue and then added some more over the top to make sure they stuck. 

Some of us could count all 15 leaves on the table. 

Wonderful Water

We had so much fun today working outside in the sunshine. We have added more pipes and containers to our water wall and we now have a water butt. We spent our time filling, emptying, pouring and recycling the water.

When the digger came to Whitefield

We are fortunate to have a wonderful gigantic sandpit, where the children love to play and learn.

All that transporting has reduced our sand, so we ordered some more !

We didn't appreciate that a digger and some wonderful work men would come! What a great stimulus for conversation, and discussion. Many questions were asked from "How many times would they fill the wheel barrows?"  to "Why have they got yellow jackets" and "How can I learn to do that?". We were enthralled. We even got our own HiVis out and the wheel barrow. 

All of that talking made us want to write too. This digger driver needs a licence!