Mary Seacole using oil pastels

Today was the final day of Rainbows investigation looking at changes over time. Rainbows learnt about this to help with their understanding of chronology.

They had previously placed bread, a pear and a banana skin in bags to document what happened over a couple of weeks. Today they were shocked at what they found!

The bread that was wiped on the door handles, computer keyboard, table and was sneezed on had turned mouldy and was fluffy and blue. The bread that was placed in the bag without that had gone harder but remained white. The pear had turned into a liquid and turned an orange-brown colour and the banana skin had turned brown.

The Rainbows enjoyed talking about the changes they had seen over time from start to finish.

Learning about the world around us is one of the building blocks for learning about history in KS1. Before learning about life in the past, children need to be secure about understanding different places and events that occur now.

Shooting Stars have been learning about Chinese New Year and also began to link this to history as they learnt that each year different animals are celebrated and this moves through a cycle.

Shooting Stars came to nursery wearing red as it is the lucky colour!
At register they answered their names with "hello" in Chinese which is "Ni Hao." Then they learnt to say Happy New Year (Gung Hey Fay Choy) and sung a Happy New Year song together.  
They talked about the ways in which they celebrate and watched a BBC clip to help them find out more. 
In their provision, they had a go at lots of different activities including:

Chinese writing with black paint on red paper in our painting area, they all made a paper lantern and practised their scissor skills while they worked. They learnt to snip and cut strips with scissors and sprinkled glitter to make it sparkle too.  They explored noodles in their investigation tray. They tried very hard to pick them up using chopsticks! It was quite tricky but great for their fine motor development. They also loved making their own Chinese dragons and made them dance like they do on the parade. Shooting Stars also enjoyed dragon dancing using their ribbons. They moved their bodies in different ways and tried to move like the dragons on the parade. At snack the children enjoyed tasting some special Chinese food and some really liked it all and asked for more! They tried noodles and prawn crackers and also had some sweet chilli sauce and plum sauce to try.

GUNG HEY FAT CHOY! 

Now the Shooting Stars have developed their understanding of the World Around them, they can begin to learn about events in the past as well as chronology.

In nursery they have begun to develop their understanding of the world by observing some changes over time. They have some daffodil and hyacinth bulbs on our window sill and Shooting Stars are going to watch them closely and talk about how they change. This supports their early understanding of Science and also History as they talk about how they are the same and different as they were using words such as yesterday and last week. ​

This week the Rainbows have been learning about Chinese New Year. 2025 is the year of the Snake.

Team CW have been looking at the signs of the zodiac and know that there are 12 different signs. They know that each year a new animal is celebrated and when the 12 signs have been celebrated, the cycle starts again.

Learning about this has helped the Rainbows understand the concept of chronology and has helped them understand the past and how this repeated cycle will continue to change in the future.