This week we have been learning about Frozen and we have had lots of opportunities to learn about freezing and melting using ice. On Monday our cheeky elf froze some of our toys in ice and we investigated how we could free the toys. On Tuesday Elsa froze some different ice shapes for us to play with and on Thursday she froze a Christmas tree! On Friday we had the opportunity to explore lots of different shaped and coloured ice cubes. We definitely have some budding Scientists in nursery. Here are some of the amazing comments they made over the week:
"To get the toys out we need to get a hair dryer and blow it on and it will melt cos it is hot."
"It's freezing" It's melting on my hands."
"My hands are just the right temperature to melt this ice."
"We can pour water on it and then it will melt. The ice will melt when it got something hot on it."
"It's freezing. It's melting look! It's so cold and soft."
"It's so slippery, it's cold. Look, it's melting water here." 
"Ooooh it's really smooth, feel it! It's melting now look, the water's coming out."
"It's water, look at this. The water come from the ice cos it's melting cos we are putting our warm hands on it. I wanna blow it see if it works."
"If we pick it up, our hands are warm so it will have a little drip."

This week has been Frozen week in nursery. As well as all our ice explorations, we have also been very creative. We have used different materials to create frozen wintery collage pictures, we have mixed different shades of blue paint and created pictures and we have been drawing and writing letters to Elsa. We have also used our scissor skills to make our own snowflakes.
Here is our display which shows off our amazing work! 
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Today all the children were very excited to come to nursery for our Christmas party. We wore our party clothes and did lots of dancing and playing party games. We also enjoyed a special party picnic together. The children were mesmerised when we received a message from Santa, especially for the Shooting Stars! He also left us all a Christmas present. 

Today we received a letter from our elf giving us a challenge to make some reindeer food to be sprinkled outside our houses on Christmas eve. The elf told us that it will help Santa and his reindeer to find our houses! 
We mixed oats with glitter and, as we stirred it together, we made a wish. We then carefully spooned it into a Christmas bag and added a tag and ribbon. We will be bringing it home next week so it is all ready for Christmas eve! 

The children learnt all about melting chocolate while making chocolate reindeer today. We have some budding Scientists who were able to explain that the chocolate needed to be put in the microwave to melt so they could pour it. They also found out that, after putting it in the fridge, it had gone hard again by home time. Some of the children guessed that it would be hard and they found out that they were right! 

Today the children in nursery enjoyed watching the pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk. They soon learnt and were able to join in with the panto phrases such as "He's behind you"" and "Oh no he isn't, oh yes he is!" 
It was lovely to see them all looking so festive in their Christmas jumpers too. 

This week we are learning all about number 4. Today we watched Numbeblocks to help us learn how the number is made up with 3 plus 1. We also learnt that number 4 likes the be square because a square shape has four sides and four corners. 
Following this, we learnt how to show the number four on our fingers and we did different actions four times. 
We are using our number four table to help us to learn lots of different ways to represent the number. 

Today for our baking activity, we followed a recipe to make Christmas shaped biscuits. Firstly, a small group of children weighed and mixed the ingredients. Then all the children had a go at rolling out the dough using a rolling pin and cutting out a Christmas shape using a cutter. When the biscuits were cooked, we found they were too hot to eat straight away so we left them to cool until home time. I hope they were yummy! 

In nursery we are learning to be Mathematicians by focusing on different numbers every week. This week we have been focusing on numbers one, two and three as we have learnt about each number in detail over the last few weeks. We have found out that one is the smallest numbers and three is the largest. We learnt that two comes in between one and three. The children have been showing the numbers in different ways on their fingers and have also been carrying out different actions such as jumping or stamping a given number of times. 
We learnt to put the numbers in order and find one less as we sung the song "There are three Christmas Trees" with numbered trees to help us. 
On our Maths table, we have been sorting out different representations of the numbers and some children were able to find different ways to show the number from around nursery and add them to the table.