Today on our welly walk, the children absolutely loved exploring our mud kitchen together. They selected their ingredients- mud, water, grass, leaves, twigs, stones and flowers etc and then used these in their cookery. We had some fantastic drinks and meals created and the children showed us what wonderful imaginations they have! 

The children really enjoyed our baking day today as they all had the chance to make their own butterfly bun. There was lots of learning in this activity including- mixing the ingredients to make the butter cream and talking about what happened, cutting their bun top in half to make the wings, carefully spooning the buttercream into their bun, placing their wings on top and finally adding some sprinkles. There was lots of fine motor practise involved! 

We have been working together with our friends in Teams CW and EO to build a balancing track with our tyres and wooden planks. We had to work together to lift and move our equipment as we found out that they were big and heavy. Then we decided to arrange the planks across the tyres so we could balance and walk along. This was great for our physical development and we learnt to put out our arms to help us to balance carefully. We discovered that some of the planks wobbled when we stood on them so we had to work out how to make them safe. One of our older friends held it with his foot so we didn't fall. What a great friend! 

Today we practised our careful counting using spots on ladybirds. We learnt to make sure that we pointed slowly with our finger and said one number for each spot. Then we had the challenge to find the number to match with the amount of spots. We used our finger to click the correct number. 
This activity also supported our early understanding of technology as we played the game on the interactive whiteboard. There were also lots of opportunities to practise turn taking. 

Our new book of the week is Mad about Minibeasts which is perfect for supporting our early phonics development as it is a rhyming story. It also has lots of interesting information for us to learn about the minibeasts that live in the garden. Today we read the book together and learnt the names of the different minibeasts. We also learnt to say and sign them using Makaton. 
In the outdoor area, we enjoyed a minibeast hunt! We explored under rocks and stones and behind the plant pots as we know that they like to live in dark, damp places. We were amazed to find spiders, worms, slugs, snails, ants and even a millipede and an earwig! The children used their magnifying glasses to look carefully and talk about what they could see and then they recorded what they had found by ticking off on a spotter sheet- a great mark making opportunity too! 

Some of our provision activities so far have included shaping and moulding our playdough to make our own minibeasts and creating a minibeast garden in the small world area. Some children chose to mix colours and paint their own minibeasts- superstars! 

We are very excited in nursery as we have had a delivery of five hungry caterpillars! We looked at them very carefully and talked about how tiny they are. We are going to keep watching them every day to find out how they grow and change. 
​Watch this space for more caterpillar news!!

As yesterday was St George's Day, we decided to celebrate it today in nursery. Firstly we spoke about the story of St George and we found out that it is a legend from a long, long time ago. One of the children asked "Is it ancient?" What a fabulous word and in the correct context too!! We read the story of George and the Dragon and the children were fascinated. They thought George was very brave to slay the dragon and save the princess and we talked about why he is so famous now. Then we found out that some people celebrate with Morris Dancing so we watched a clip of it on the interactive whiteboard. We noticed that some dancers had sticks and some had bells tied around the legs so we tapped our claves and shook our bells along to the music. Then we stood up and had a go at some of the moves to the music- tapping our claves and moving our bodies at the same time was quite tricky but the children did a brilliant job. Some of us even tried to tap our sticks with a friend like the morris dancers did! 

We also spoke about the flag with the St George's cross and how special it is as it is the flag of England. During provision time, the children were given a challenge to create their own flag using paint and collage materials. In the painting area, they had to be careful to go down and across with their brush to make the cross shape. In the creative area, they had to select red materials to decorate it in any way they liked. Look at some of our fabulous creations:

​Here are some photos of us in action. As you can see, we practised lots of skills as we selected our materials, coloured in, cut to the right size and attached them to our flag. 

We also had a castle with different knights and dragons etc in our small world area and a challenge to try to follow instructions to draw a castle. The afternoon children loved the story so much that they decided to build their own castle and act out the story outside. 

We explored the nature reserve for minibeasts on our welly walk today. We learnt that minibeasts like to live in dark, damp places so we looked underneath logs, wood and the litter bins. The children were amazed to find so many tiny creatures living there. We found spiders, woodlice, slugs, snails, worms and a centipede! The children spent time looking at them through their magnifying glasses, talking about what they looked like and how they moved around. We also learnt about how to be kind to them and that we must always put back the item we have moved so the minibeasts can have their home back. 
Next week we are going to explore the early years outdoor area and see if we can find anything different hiding there! 

Today we learnt about the celebration of Eid in nursery to support our Understanding of the World. Firstly we talked about different celebrations such as birthdays, Christmas and Easter and then we used our class learning journey book to help us remember when we learnt about the festivals of Diwali and Holi. 
We talked about Eid being a special celebration for Muslims and we learnt the word "fasting" as we spoke about it being the end of Ramadan when the people who have been fasting can have a big feast. Together we watched a cbeebies clip all about how a family prepare and then celebrate Eid through the eyes of a little girl- the Shooting Stars were very interested! Then we listened to some music and watched an EId dance, We spoke about the words in the song and how the music sounded. Then the children all had a go at copying the dance moves to create our own class dance. 
Finally we learnt to say "Eid Mubarak" which means "Happy EId." 

For our baking activity today, the children all decorated their own butterfly biscuit. There was so much learning in this activity! Firstly, they learnt to mix the icing sugar and water together to make the icing and talked about how it changed. Then they had to carefully pour and spread the icing onto their biscuit. After that they arranged a strawberry lace across the centre and finally they had the challenge to try to add their sweets to make their butterfly symmetrical. Lots of the children managed to do this independently! Well done children!