The Den:

We have had a busy week in The Den with a focus on autumnal items and pumpkins! 

Playing and exploring: 

We have been exploring pumpkins this week in The Den with a range of autumnal items collected from the garden. We used a large tray and coloured paint so the children could get messy and explore the items. They used leaves, sticks and of course their hands to paint the pumpkins. We spoke about the different colours and the children were able to identify ‘green’ and ‘yellow’. 

This was a great opportunity to introduce some mathematical concepts to the children like ‘big, little’ and the weight of the pumpkins- one was ‘heavy’. The children used good gross motor skills to pick up the pumpkins. 

We have also been looking at woodland animals this week with our focused book ‘forest’. We have had the corresponding woodland creatures like owls, hedgehogs and foxes out with the book so the children can link what they see in the book to the prop. 

The children were really intrigued by the owl and bird so this prompted me to bring a large plant over and place an owl in the ‘tree’. Some of the children spoke “owl… tee”

I then found some coloured birds and placed them in our ‘tree’. The children were fascinated by this and copied me by balancing them on the ‘tree’.

Parents as partners: 

As part of our celebration of Harvest, we will be collecting any food donations that families may like to make. If anyone would like to contribute, please only donate what you feel able to and can we kindly ask for these to be handed to nursery staff between Monday 13th October and Friday 17th October. 

Examples of food that would be gratefully received as donations are: 

Tinned foods (vegetables, fish, soup, fruit), long-life food products (UHT milk, juice), and dried foods (such as pasta, rice, and biscuits). 

Thank you for your support.