vehicle discovery

Nursery are still really engaged with our vehicle topic and really enjoy this  number recognition and tracing activity. Some of the class are motivated enough to play by themselves during free flow time and love rolling the die and racing each other around the number tracks.

 We have been putting the recyclables brought in by parents and teachers to good use, building our own vehicles. The class are beginning to make independent choices in selecting materials and colours and are really enjoying the freedom to be creative.Figuring out how to get the tape off of the dispenser and on to the boxes was just one of the challenges faced by tiny fingers, knowing where to put it to actually stick things together also takes some patience and a lot more trial and error!

 

We are learning to handle tools correctly and cutting safely is still a difficult skill to master. Small fingers really benefit from any cutting practice so mums and dads please let them snip away (with supervision) at a variety of materials from straws and play dough to leaves and twigs. One of the activities which everyone really enjoyed was chopping through the 'bars' to find the vehicles.Not only did they work on holding the scissors correctly (thumbs up, cutting away from the body) but they were excited to reveal the vehicle underneath and tell me what it was they found so there was plenty of  topic related vocab being shouted out "I have a blue plane!"  "Look Miss Sarah, my steam train!" ....

We have had some interesting visitors this week... Freya tracked down a baby gecko which, luckily for the gecko, was impossible to catch!

 And we found a couple of friendly rhino or unicorn beetles to take care of for a few days. The class are inquisitive about new creatives and getting braver, some were even happy to gently touch the beetles.

 Our pirate ship is a big hit and the children love to sit and drift away with a book....

We explored colour mixing and texture by taking some finger painting prints straight off of the table. This simple activity is messy and fun and certainly gets those fingers moving. Some of the class are able to talk about the new colours they are creating and enjoy how easy it is to make patterns and shapes and wipe them away and start over again.. and again!

Here are some more of the activities we enjoyed this week!

 

Carwash!

We have been experimenting with texture and making impressions in playdough this week. We looked at and named different shapes and discussed what objects were round, square shaped etc, before attempting to make some vehicle shaped prints together. The class had some fun exploring the different imprints they could make and how some shapes fit together  

We used our sponge print cut outs to build submarines piece by piece, a few of the class remembered  the parts we had talked about such as the propellers and the periscope  and they were all able to create some great looking underwater craft!

We have introduced some pre-writing skills into our dice games. Nursery are still enjoying rolling the dice and getting some counting practice in but now they are challenged a little further to recognise the correct numeral and race down the road following the correct formation. This is a great way to get the boys especially to practice pre-writing skills, similar to tracing but a whole lot more fun! 

  The class really loved making their name trains and have been becoming more aware of the letters in their own names with some of the class pointing out familiar letters around the class. We drew some lines to make the train tracks and then we used our name tags to help us to place the letter carriages in order to spell our names. 

 

 The car wash sensory play activity was a big hit! Nursery loved using the syringes and spray bottle to hose down the vehicles before scooping up lots of lemony scented foam and covering them all in lots and lots of bubbles! The class really worked together, sharing resources and co operating to get all those cars, bikes and buses squeaky clean...