Children’s Learning

The children have explored the weather in all its glory! Lots of rain , some snow and ice. There has been lots of fun in the garden with Chris who came over from Vogrie country park nursery to support us here. He knew lots of new games and the children really enjoyed having him at nursery.

We have enjoyed lots of outdoor learning experienced in the woodland. Sadly there has been so much rain recently there has been two large trees that have subsided and slid down the banking in the normal woodland area we go to. Until I have this confirmed it is safe for the children to use again we will continue to stay close to the woodland entrance. This however has given us more opportunity to explore much more established and ancient trees and this has been great for the children to practice their rope skills. We have abseiled down the hills , used the ropes to support our climbing and used them to make a rope swing . Many of the children have found that using the ropes has given them much more confidence when climbing.

We have enjoyed stories in the woods and made our own story about the little Robin who couldn’t find a home. The children had some lovely ideas as to where the robin could live from a letter box to a chimney pipe!

Its s wonderful to hear the children when out in the woodlands, supporting,encouraging,sharing and cooperation with each other.

Next week the afternoon children will be going to the woods.

Some of the children have been investigating the new magnets and discovering what types of materials attach to them. We managed to get some resources from play base (our local resource center) to use with the magnets and the children seemed to have really benefited from these. Using the compass they were able to see the magnetic force working.

Over the past month the children have been listening to the story of the Gingerbread man. They were able to listen to this each week in different ways. First they listened to the story with the book with the staff reading it with no expression, from this we were able to see who was engaged in the story and who was not. The second week the story was told without a book and just from the staff’s memory and using lots of expression. From this we could see that more children were involved in the story from the time before. On the third week the story was read using puppets and props and this seemed to be a big favorite with the children as all of them were really focused and engaged in the story. The children also had the opportunity to listen to the story outside and role play with the puppets and props on a daily basis. This experience is allowing the children who learn in different ways to enjoy the experience of story. Some are visual learners some are kinaesthetic learners and some are just not ready to sit in front of the book yet. Experiencing stories in many different ways promotes everyone’s enjoyment of story time.

Story of the Month will be “The Three Bears and Goldilocks” for  March chosen by one of the children from the blue group.

Next week staff will have the opportunity to read their favorite child hood stories for story time and share these with your children.