February Update

The weather is warming up and we are making the most of it, spending as much time outside as we can.  We have been very busy cleaning up our outside area - edging the grass, cleaning out the water butt, weeding the garden and looking after our lovely spring flowers as well as watering our sand, watering our muddy pit and generally watering any dry space available!  

We have been playing with our loose materials making lots of obstacle courses and ramps exploring how fast we can move ourselves or small objects along them. We have been developing our awareness of taking risks and our negotiating skills as we agree on how we are going to use the materials safely. 

We also had the stilts out this week and have been improving our sense of balance.  

On the chillier days, we have been creating our own obstacle courses either in the nursery or in the hall.  The ones in the hall are our favourite as we can run around bits of them.  

We have taken an interest in the puppets so have set up a small area of the nursery with the puppet theater.  There are many creative stories being told here.  

We have been comparing sizes and broadening the language we have been using to talk about sizing as we played with the unifix cubes.  We have made and compared loads of rockets and towers. Some of us have even discovered that we can make patterns using the colours.  

As we have been talking about our bulbs outside, we decided to have some compost in our tray.  Some of us have been planting seeds and bulbs at home and have been sharing these experiences with the rest of the nursery.  We will be making plans shortly of what to plant in our own garden ready for the Summer and Autumn.  The children are already asking to plant some more tatties.  

We have been painting with a variety of objects at the art table and have made some amazing pictures using vehicles, rollers, cutters and textured sponges.  

We have been visiting different areas of the school this past week.  One group of children enjoyed exploring all of the books in our library in particular the non-fiction section.  In one child's words 'the library is amazing, there are so many books in there that we can look at! I hope we go there lots and lots of times'.  

Another group of children had an adventure up to the sensory room where they had a relaxing time turning on all of the sensory lights - the bubble machine, rope lights, coloured lights and an amazing under water show.  It is difficult to see it in our photos, but it is a beautiful relaxing room to go to.  Both groups who visited this room fancied staying there for the whole session!

The final group went up to the ball pool and what fun we had there learning to assess risks, making sure we kept ourselves and others safe as well as using our whole bodies as we moved around the room.  We discovered that 'Geronimo' is our new favourite word to use as we jumped into the balls!

Our groups will be rotating over the next few weeks so that we all get the chance to experience each of these areas.  If you fancy sharing in these experiences, please feel free to sign up on our noticeboard to join us on a Wednesday (or any other time if you would like to come in for a play.  The children love sharing sessions with you all).