Investigation Hub and Discovery Hub at Deckham
Our Investigation Hub and Discovery Hub children have enjoyed lots of outdoor play this week. We have noticed some seasonal changes, as our outdoor area has been full of fallen leaves! Some of the children have been observing them closely through magnifying glasses and they have also enjoyed throwing the leaves up in the air, using large shoulder movements, and enjoying the sensory experience of the leaves falling back down. Over the coming weeks we will explore seasonal changes further as we move into Autumn.
The children have also enjoyed hunting for minibeasts and have talked about the creatures they found and handled them very carefully.
The children have shown interest in ice creams this week! They have been using the toy cones, and when we provided play foam for them to explore, many of the children chose to use it to make ‘ice cream’. The children have also developed this play in the sand pit and even independently created their own ‘ice cream’ shop, from which they sold chalk ice creams!
Characteristics of effective learning – Active learning
We have been enjoying our core story, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, including joining in with key words, phrases and actions while listening to the story. To extend the children’s experience of the story and understanding of the vocabulary, we made some of our own ‘thick, oozy, mud’ by digging up soil and squeezing in water from a bottle, mixing it together, and then using it for large scale mud painting. One child noticed that when he put a rock into the mud-water mixture, it sank.
This led to exploration of what happened when we put other items into a bucket of water – some of them floated and some of them sank.
The children have also been engaging in open ended play with bear puppets, and construction resources such as blocks and log slices. We have observed some great imaginative language and play as the children played collaboratively, telling stories with the bears and constructing beds or houses for them. The blocks also became a bowl of porridge, a blanket, and a cheese sandwich, among other things!
On Thursday our Investigation Hub children had a brilliant session of ‘Little Movers’ with Donna. The theme of the session was ‘At the Farm’ and the children joined in with movement games, dancing and singing. The activities were so much fun and we were very proud to see all of the children listening, following directions and showing us their fantastic actions and dance moves. A big well done to everyone!
Story of the week: We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
Song of the week: When Goldilocks Went to the House of the Bears
Parents as Partners:
September is a great month to go for a walk with your child and observe the change of season. You might spot some natural ‘treasures’ such as conkers or pinecones. You could notice and count together how many different colours of leaves you can see, or listen to the noise of the leaves as you crunch through them with your feet!
During our song this week, we have been using words such as huge, big, middle size, small and tiny. There are lots of opportunities to use this mathematical language with your child, by pointing out and comparing the size of items around your home, for example, three bowls that are all a different size, like Daddy Bear’s, Mummy Bear’s and Baby Bear’s bowls.