2-3: The Discovery Hub

We would like to thank everyone who joined us at our Stay and Play session this week. It was lovely to see the children engaged in the nursery and showing their favourite areas to you.

The children have been very excited as we begin to decorate our nursery for the festive period. They have helped us to put up the Christmas tree and hang the baubles onto the branches. We will be continuing to decorate the nursery and begin to look at festive books and songs next week.

This week our core book has been “We’re going on a bear hunt” and the children have loved engaging with the book. Across the week, we have explored sensory and physical experiences and the children have been very curious and focused throughout. We have explored using figures to act out the story moving through the grass, sticks, water and flour till they reached the cave. The children have been beginning to join in with repeated phrases and fill in the gaps to the story.

Outdoor Learning

Mark making in the garden continues to be an interest with using brushes to follow the chalk marks on the tray to make them disappear. When all of the marks had disappeared, the children asked for the chalks to create exploratory marks themselves on the tray to then repeat to wash them away. The children also explored using the spray bottles to add more water to the tray to help wash away the marks. They then proceeded to walk around the garden spraying the fences, trees and ground.

We have continued exploring our core book in the garden as the children have searched for bears high and low. The children were so excited as they found the bears commenting:

“Up there”, “Bear!”, “I found one” and “In tree”

We also explored acting out the story walking around the garden through the grass, stomping through the river, stumbling through the forest and twirling in the snowstorm. As we reached the cave, the children went “through” the ‘cave’ and we found the bear. The children then ran away back to the ‘house’ where we “forgot to close the door!”. We have enjoyed this in the garden so much the children have asked to repeat this daily.

Communication and Language

It has been lovely to see and hear the children so engaged with our core book this week. The children have been beginning to join in with repeated phrases and fill in gapes to the story such as “big one”. You may wish to watch this short animation of the story (https://youtu.be/IizB48orckY) to see if your child can recall any phrase or events in the story with you. We have been introducing the vocabulary “over” and “under” through activities with children moving the animals. Alongside this, we have been modelling sign “over” and “under” to support the children’s understanding of the words.

We have noticed over the week the children have shown great progress in identifying real life animal sounds to the correct animal image. When shown two options the children are able to identify the animal they think it is from the two options given. The children continue to identify environmental sounds when exploring in the garden as we hear many trains throughout the day.

Parents as Partners

Thank you to everyone who joined us at our Stay and Play sessions! We have placed the sign-up sheets on the door for ‘The Clumsiest Elf’ Show’ and our Singalong. If these session are on a day your child does not usually attend please feel free to sign up and join us for the sessions.

‘The Clumsiest Elf’ Show’ – We are looking forward to a festive show for the children to enjoy with parents/carers. The show will be held at Bensham Grove Community Centre at 2:20-3:05pm on Monday 15th December. Please can you let us know if you would like to attend the show with your child.

Christmas Singalong – Wednesday 17th December 11:30am and 3:15pm. We would love for parents/carers to join us as we engage in sharing the Christmas songs we have been practicing. Refreshments will be provided. Please let us know if you can make it.

As we are moving into the cold and wet weather, please can we ask the children have appropriate clothing to access our outdoor areas. Could we please ask for hats and gloves to be labelled if possible to help identify clothing.

Have a lovely weekend!

The Nursery Team