To develop our understanding of the world, we enjoyed celebrating Chinese New Year today. The children were all invited to wear red and we learnt that this is the lucky colour. On entering nursery, we had a dragon dance parade playing on the screen and the children were fascinated by the sights and sounds! We answered the register by saying Ni Hao which we learnt means hello in Chinese. Following this, we watched a short clip where some children told us all about how they celebrate Chinese New Year. Then we had a go at our very own dragon dance! We played the music on the computer and the children moved in different ways with their ribbons to represent the dragon. Then we formed a long line and did our dragon dance up and down the school corridor. During provision time, the children all had a go at making their own paper dragon and they then made them dance to the music. Whilst we were busy learning in our provision, we had a go at using tweezers to pick up noodles, some Chinese writing using black paint on red paper and making a Chinese meal in our home corner. Finally, we tasted some different food for our snack- noodles and prawn crackers with soy and sweet chili dipping sauces. Some children were surprised to find they liked the sauces and most children enjoyed the noodles and prawn crackers.
At home time, each child took home a fortune cookie!
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We have been working in small teams in our creative area, learning lots of new skills. Each team had a challenge to make a house of bricks, sticks or straw from our story of the week. We learnt how to attach materials using pritt stick, pva glue and tape and we also learnt how to choose materials that looked like the real thing. We talked about what parts our houses needed and the children learnt how they could make a roof, windows and doors. We are hoping the children will now be able to use these new skills in our creative area when they are working independently. Here are some photos of us hard at work: Once the houses were complete, we added them to our small world provision so the children could use them to re-tell the story with our puppets and props:
In our investigation area this week, we have been exploring magnets. The children have enjoyed learning to use the words "magnet" and "magnetic" and have been fascinated to find that the magnets would stick to different objects around the nursery. We have some super early Scientists!
We are continuing our Magical Storyland theme with a focus on The Three Little Pigs. Today we read the story and the children were brilliant at changing their voice for the big bad wolf and the pigs and they joined in with the speech "I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down." In the provision today, we have had the chance to tell the story using books, puppets and props, build houses using wooden bricks and duplo, investigate how to mix pink paint to paint the pigs and use lollipop sticks and matchsticks with pink play dough to create houses and pigs.
For our baking activity today, we followed a recipe to bake our own gingerbread men. One group of children helped to weigh, pour and carefully mix the ingredients to make a dough and then everyone had a go at rolling and cutting out their own gingerbread man. Finally the children chose how they wanted to decorate them with cherries and raisins before they were baked in the oven.
It was extremely windy today so, following a risk assessment, we decided it was not safe to go into the nature reserve. Instead we decided to go for a walk on the school drive. It is amazing how much learning there was in this activity.
Firstly, we talked about the weather and what the wind felt like on our faces as well as what it sounded like as it blew through the trees. We talked about using our senses to see what we could hear and see on our walk. We spotted lots of different cars which we counted and talked about the colours. There was a few opportunities to practise crossing the road on different parts of our school drive and we learnt how to stop, look and listen for vehicles before crossing safely. We heard lots of birds singing in the trees and noticed that they had different songs! The morning children spotted a squirrel scurrying through the trees as we passed the nature reserve which prompted lots of talk. As we walked further, we saw different plants growing and noticed red branches on some and red berries growing on others. The children knew the berries were not for us to eat as they could make us sick. Unfortunately we did spot some rubbish on the floor and we talked about how it was making our school look untidy. The Shooting Stars knew that it should have been put in the bin. We also practised a bit of phonics as we orally sounded out some of the words we saw as we walked. What a lot of learning on a simple walk down the school drive. We will go again in a few weeks time so we can notice and talk about the changes we see. We are loving our new winter reading garden. We can snuggle up under a blanket or sit on our soft cosy rug to share a book. We are learning to hold our books carefully and turn the pages one at a time, taking care to turn them from the corner. At the moment, we have lots of traditional tales available and we are learning to re-tell the story using the repeated refrains.
To support our developing knowledge and understanding of the world, we have got some hyacinth and daffodil bulbs in nursery. We will be observing them carefully and talking about how they grow and change.
Our new story this week is The Gingerbread Man. We have read different versions of the story and the children have been learning to join in with the repeated phrase "Run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the gingerbread man." We have been talking about rhyming words and listening carefully so we can hear the rhymes,
Our provision activities this week include: -telling the story with puppets and masks of the characters -trying to build something so the gingerbread man can get safely across the river -making and decorating gingerbread men with gingerbread scented playdough -designing our our gingerbread characters using mark making materials and also by cutting and sticking different materials of our choice. We have some very creative children! We were excited to go on our first welly walk of 2023 and show our new friends how we learn in the nature reserve. Everyone put on their wellies and got all wrapped up as it was a very cold day! The children explored and played together, using their imagination to role play lots of different scenarios. Hide and seek was also very popular with lots of opportunities to take turns, count and interact with new friends.
We can't wait for welly walk again next week! |
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Wombwell Park Street Primary School, Park Street, Barnsley, S73 0HS Telephone: 01226 752029 Email: [email protected] General Enquiries: Our Admin Team will be happy to assist you with any enquiries and direct you to the relevant staff as necessary. Our Leadership team will always be happy to help, as will our Parent Support Advisor Mrs Carol Mason. If you require a paper copy of any of the information found on our website we will be happy to provide you with this free of charge upon request, Please contact a member of our office staff who will be more than willing to help. ECM Trust: http://www.ecmtrust.org/index.html |