2-3: The Discovery Hub

This week the children have been very busy across the indoor and outdoor environment. The children have been exploring many experiences themed with our core book Wow! Said the owl as we explore matching and identifying colours.

We also celebrated Children in Need and it was lovely to see the children wearing so many colours throughout the day. We explored finding Pudsey Bear around the room and the garden, noticing the colour on the flags. The children explored adding spots to Pudsey with stickers and paint as we added his spots.

Outdoor Learning

Over the weekend, we have had lots of leaves fall from the trees in our Blossom Garden. The children could hear a noise and moved to the window to find out what the noise could be. We observed the gardener using the leaf blower to pile all of the leaves together. The children were very excited watching the leaves blow up into the air when he pressed the button. When we moved into the garden the children explored physical challenges using the dustpan and brushes to collect their own pile of leaves to place into the bag. The children worked together to take turns with the equipment and helped to open the bag for each other.

Hide and Seek continues to be a great interest of the children’s as they play together in the garden. Again, the children have been taking turns to count and to hide. Some of the children worked together to find their friends shouting “we found you” and “over there”.

In the garden, we explored ripping up leaves into small pieces to place into globes. The children then used funnels and containers to pour water into the globes. Once we placed the lids on and screwed them tight, the children explored shaking them and observed the leaves moving in the water. Some of the children noticed they could hear noise as they shook them and held them close to their ears to listen. The children were very engaged with this and explored unscrewing the lids to empty out the water and repeat again.

Communication and Language

This week our core book has been Wow! Said the owl as we look at labelling colours and noticing features in the book such as the “moon”. We have explored lotto games and colour matching activities across the week. The children have had opportunities to select a choice of colour items to sort into the matching colour place. While exploring lotto games, the children were able to look at the colour and image to match to their board. Some of the children listened to the clues and checked their board to find the match. It was lovely to hear the children’s excitement as the found the matching image “it mine” and “I have it”.

As it has been Nursery Rhyme week, the children have been exploring creating their own musical shakers. We then explored using these shakers to create music while singing rhymes. Staff modelled language to describe the creating ‘loud’ ‘quiet’ ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ movements with the shakers. The children then began to use the vocabulary to suggest ways to sing the next rhyme “now fast” “twinkle star quiet”.

Staffing updates

On Thursday, Emma attend a workshop for Launchpad for Literacy – Vocabulary and Expressive Language and Speech Skill Strands. Thinking about all of the smaller steps involved in children’s vocabulary and speech skills. 

Parents as Partners

This week has been World Nursery Rhyme Week and we have been singing lots of our favourite songs at nursery. Singing nursery rhymes with young children can help develop their language and communication skills. They often feature rhythmic patterns and simple repetitive phrases that young children find enjoyable and easy to remember and repeat. Many also include opportunities for counting, and most rhymes have some actions for children to engage with physically.

There are some lovely nursery rhyme videos on the CBeebies website if you are looking for ideas of rhymes to sing with your child. Here is a link to the website:

Stay and Play – Our stay and play session is Thursday 27th November 9.15-10.30am or 1.00-2.15pm. This is a lovely opportunity to explore your child’s favourite areas with you and we would love for you to join us. Please let us know if you can make it and sign up to the Discovery Room sheet on the door.

Have a lovely weekend!

The Nursery Team