Investigation Hub and Discovery Hub at Deckham

We have begun to think about Autumn and notice some of the changes it brings. Our Investigation Hub children have been listening to the story ‘Leaf Man’. They spotted different animals and objects created from leaves, within the illustrations of the book. Some of the vocabulary in the story was new to us, so we discussed what it meant. 

Some of the children explored our own collection of leaves and talked about their colour and size. They used the leaves and sticks to create pictures inspired by the story of Leaf Man.

“This is my leaf man.”

“He needs big eyes. Two eyes.”

“Mine is a turtle. It’s needs arms.”

“It’s a monster. It’s got loads of eyes!”

Characteristics of effective learning – Playing and Exploring

On Thursday one of the children asked to make a train outdoors. The children used the mud kitchen chairs as seats for the train. They told the ‘driver’ where they would like to go and handed over their ‘money’. There was lots of cooperative play around the theme, with children taking turns to sit on the seats, pretending to give out ‘tickets’ to one another and using language related to the theme.

Some of our Discovery Hub children wanted to put the dolls into water to ‘wash’ them this week. In response to the children’s interest, Amy provided a washing station for the dolls. The children carefully bathed and dried the dolls, demonstrating fantastic role-play based upon real life skills and experience.

Story of the week: Leaf Man 

Song of the week: Wiggly Woo (There’s a worm at the bottom of the garden)

Parents as Partners 

Investigation Hub children – At group time, the children have explored making patterns using actions for example clap, jump, clap, jump….. 

This is an activity that could be continued at home. Your child could think of two actions which they could carry out repeatedly to form a pattern. It is a fun and active learning opportunity.

We are trying to grow our collections of loose parts at nursery. If you have any of the following, they would be gratefully received:

Pinecones

Large cardboard boxes 

Recycled items for model-making e.g. kitchen roll tubes, empty cardboard packaging from food, milk bottle tops etc.

Thank you.

We hope you all have an enjoyable weekend.