Autumn and winter

Hello!

 This week we are continuing our weather activities. As you can see we have finished our rainbow, chicks and bunnies for our spring display board and our sparkly summer flip flops look great on the beach! 

Nursery are beginning to understand the concept of rolling dice and counting the dots and are keen to try it out themselves so this week we have been doing some TPR activities, letting the class count out the number using claps, taps or jumps has really helped them all get involved in the process and get the wiggles out!

  In our mark making area writing in the sand has been a big hit...the class have enjoyed making shapes and patterns with everything from fingers and  lollipop sticks, to buttons and beads and love giving the tray a little shake to start over again!

One of the wheels fell off the truck during free flow play, this presented a great opportunity for the kids to practise critical thinking and problem solving skills.  After a good few minutes of waiting for me to fix it for them they began to work together to figure out how to get the wheels back on!

It took a lot of trial and error but eventually they managed it with no adult intervention and a big sense of pride and accomplishment :)

 For Autumn we reread the "Tiny Seed" and observed how all the trees lost their leaves and seeds blew and scattered over the land. The class helped create their own Autumn tree by adding colourful leaves using sticky tape. A fiddley but fun job! 

 As we have been talking about different kinds of weather we have also discussed dressing appropiately for the season (not so difficult in Thailand!) and the class really enjoyed our dress up race. Most of the children are doing really well at dressing themselves and becoming more independent in self care but there are always more more opportunities to practise at home ... It may take a little longer but all these guys are ready to try so many things by themselves

We listened to sounds of rain and thunder and then used our hands and feet to tap, clap and stomp building up the noise level to create our own  rainstorm. The class loved it and were far too excited to be scared of the noisy thunderstorm!

Painting umbrellas and wellington boots for a rainy day

 Arthur painting a thunderstorm!

On Friday we talked briefly about the Earthquake in Nepal and how all our Mummies and Daddies were giving money to help people buy food and  rebuild their homes. Some of the class were already aware of something that had happened and were curious. We talked helping others in times of need.

 And helped choose weather approprate clothes for Mr Bear. 

 As part of our counting activities, we played the raindrop game. It's so much more fun counting things when you get to "win " shiny raindrops!

Seasons and Weather

We are beginning this term by looking at the four seasons and weather. We briefly introduced the changing seasons through the story "The Tiny Seed" by Eric Carle and for the next two weeks we will talk a bit more about what happens in each season and different types of weather...

 We started with spring, the season of growth and new life, something we talked about over Easter. After our recent topic of  plants and growth the class were aware that things need rain and sunshine to grow so they quickly made the connection between the warm and rainy spring weather and an abundance of plants, animals and insects! 

  The class liked the story "Ed's Egg" and were able to act out some of the animal actions. They are also getting good at predicting what will happen from looking at the pictures. You can help your child develop these critical thinking skills at home by flicking through the story before reading and asking questions such as  "what do you think this story is about?" "what do you think will happen next?" questions like "How do you think he/she feels?"  or "what would you do next? " can help your child engage more deeply with characters in a story.

                                      
We talked about how the shell protects the egg inside and discovered it was very easy to break. We enjoyed exploring the texture of the shell and the cracking sounds it made as we broke it up to collage our own eggs, 

  We used our hands to make a giant rainbow for our spring board 

  We introduced the dice to work on our counting skills. Everyone enjoyed rolling it and counting the dots to hop the frogs back to their logs.  We are getting more and more confident the more we practise. Playing any kind of board game at home such as ludo or frustration can really boost your childs confidence in math and improve sharing and turn taking.