Over the month of December the Bluebells have been super busy exploring our ‘Winter Wonderland’ topic. We have been looking closely at how our environment is changing, particularly on our outdoor adventures and noticed that the trees are now losing their leaves and frost is beginning to appear in the mornings! The children have also noticed how it is beginning to get much colder and have shown great independent skills in attempting to put their own hats, gloves and scarves on to keep nice and warm. We have of course also been talking all about Christmas & and the children have worked very hard to create beautiful Christmas crafts which we hope you enjoyed.
Many of the children have also been very excited to talk about their upcoming Christmas plans. It has been great to see photos of the Bluebells winter activities at home and the children have been so engaged in telling their peers about these. Please do continue to send us some more photo’s of your activities during the Christmas break as we would love to add these to our adventure board!
Many of the Bluebells have begun to show a great interest in colours over the last month. Therefore, we thought this would be a great topic to start our new year! During January we will be exploring colours in a variety of ways including how colours can be changed, colours of items around us including types of foods & animals & how colours have a purpose such as the colours of traffic lights. We will also be exploring colours linking to different celebrations including new year fireworks.
Last month we have been looking at the topic Winter. The children have been very engaged in the topic especially with the lead up to Christmas. Firstly we looked at winter animals and habitats. The children had the opportunity to create animal sculptures using clay and natural objects which were collected by the children in the walks to the fields. The children have thoroughly enjoyed playing the animal dice game which involved rolling a dice, and acting by movement and sound the animal which they had rolled on the dice. This was such a fun game which was played during our circle times.
Next we looked at Christmas and Santa’s workshop, this was full of lovely craft activities. They children loved writing their letters to Santa; the children practiced holding their pencils correctly and making marks to represent letters (we hope you received everything on your list!!!). The children have worked so hard creating lots of Christmas gifts for their loved ones including cards, calendars and decorations. We have practiced singing many Christmas songs with our favourites been ‘When Santa got stuck up the chimney’ and ‘We Wish you a Merry Christmas’. The children have used various different musical instruments to make a beat whilst singing along to our Christmas songs.
In January we will be looking at the topic ‘All about me’ which we will look at our families, self portraits and our homes. We hope you will help us along the way with lovely pictures to support our topic.
We have had lots of fun in Daisies exploring our topic of transport last month. During December we discovered that the children really enjoyed using different objects to make marks during messy play and throughout craft activities. So we thought this month we would use that interest with their love of transport vehicles and provide new, exciting experiences for the children to take part in.
Some of the activities we provided included paint and different sized vehicles, encouraging the children to roll the wheels into their chosen paint colour and then move the vehicle along their paper to create their masterpiece!
We also noticed that lots of the children have shown a new interest in the cling film painting activities. They have all taken part in moving the paint around under the cling film to colour mix, discover different textures and create new patterns through movement. This has also been a great experience for the children who aren’t as keen on getting themselves messy during painting activities.
Throughout January we will be continuing with their interests of transport and incorporating this into our new topic of Health and Fitness. Instead of transporting vehicles, we will be showing the children different ways to transport themselves around within their environments. This will include new experiences both inside and outside to get them up and active. Alongside this we will be introducing our new yoga lessons and planting sessions to grow our own healthy food!
Tulips (Ages 3 – 15 months)
Throughout December in Tulips our topic has been ‘Winter’. We have had a busy month exploring natural resources and the babies have taken a particular interest in exploring the ice and fake snow. The babies liked looking at how the ice melts and splashing in the water it has created. We have explored all things Christmas including decorating our own felt Christmas tree in the room as well as being very busy making special Christmas presents for our loved ones.
In January we are going to introduce basic colours, exploring different coloured tuff trays with a variety of textures and resources. We will also be doing some large scale painting using our hands and different resources including sponges, tooth brushes, paint brushes and many more to explore the different marks we can create.
Outdoor Clothing
As we are entering into colder and wetter weather, please can you bring in a named puddle suit and wellies for your child to have at nursery so when they go out to play they can make the most of the farm and get stuck in all the mud and the puddles without ruining our shoes!
Can you please also consider bringing in a winter hat and gloves as the temperate starts to drop. Please note that we cannot have gloves that are on string due to the hazards they can present. Please can you make sure all clothing items are labelled with your child’s name or initials so we can make sure they are returned to the correct family.
Fund Raising
Raffle
Thank you to everyone who brought raffle tickets this Christmas which helped us to raise over £500 for Cancer Research!
Defibrillator
Our defibrillator has arrived! Thank you for those of you who have helped us to raise money to be able to purchase this for the nursery. The defibrillator will be located in the reception area for emergency use. All staff have also had defibrillator training as part of their Paediatric First Aid course.
Monkey Puzzle Astwick
