Week Commencing 23rd June

The Investigation Hub at Sidney Grove

Characteristics of Effective Learning

What a privilege in Natalia’s absence to sit with the staff team and talk about all of the learning taking place in our Investigation Hub this week! Staff shared so many examples of children’s creativity and critical thinking with a continued focus on ‘mini beasts’ extended through opportunities to observe and document our caterpillars. Children described what they could see ‘they’ve got spikes on them’ and made links to their own experiences and prior learning making comments such as ‘I saw a caterpillar on a leaf’ and ‘it’s turning into a butterfly’. Some children used language such as ‘spinning’ and ‘cocoon’ in their observations and were able to begin making comparisons each day, commenting that the caterpillars are ‘turning bigger and fatter and fatter’. Opportunities for children to return to an invitation to learn with staff tuned into their developmental thinking supports deep levels of learning, attention and focus and is just wonderful to see! We can’t wait for them to share new observations with us over the coming days!

Chidren also revisited an old favourite, making paper aeroplanes, this time with a challenge to find out how to make the aeroplanes fly as far as possible. Experimenting and investigating alongside staff they found out that adding a weight to the nose of the aeroplane in the form of a paper clip leads to flying success and they were also challenged to add their names and designs to their aeroplanes in a link to literacy and early writing.

Parents as Partners

Our children moving to Reception have continued to be visited by their new teachers and we have witnessed the beginnings of some lovely relationships forming as children showed their new staff around our Nurssry environment with confidence. These relationships support a sense of belonging needed for a successful transition and we will continue to speak positively about the move to School over the coming weeks. If you have any questions or queries about your child’s transition and how best to support them at home, please do ask Natalia, Lesley or a member of the wider team.

Outdoor Learning

Our garden transformed into an art studio this week as children were encouraged to source their own natural materials to create art with loose parts, which we call ‘Transient Art’. Susan was thrilled to find herself represented in this art style and enjoyed listening to the children describing their creations.

A number of children also enjoyed building dens with tarps and began hiding from the big bad wolf, drawing on a previous core story of The Three Little Pigs and bringing the story to life, recreating the sequence of events and using story language. Just fabulous!

Our staff are so skilled at responding to children’s interests and we look forward to seeing what learning awaits next week. If the weather forecast is anything to go by there will certainly need to be some water play!

The Investigation Hub Team