Little Stars

Forest explorers 🌳

We found so many things in the forest today!

With our clip boards and nature check sheet, we went on a scavenger hunt! We matched up all the nature around us to the colours that we needed to find.

The children did amazing and worked hard to find the things on the list; acorns, flowers, sticks, animal prints, birds nests, butterflies, cob webs. They looked high and low, foraged in the forest and worked together.

The children found a hole in the ground. We talked about what animal could have lived in the hole. The children started digging in the hole and found buried pine cones and roots of a plant.

We lifted a large log to find lots of critters underneath. We saw a centipede, slugs and a woodlouse. A lovely place to live if you’re a bug! 🐛

We all went to the top of the hill and looked out as far as we could we see. In the distance we saw some water which could have been a pond and some horses. We then shouted as loud as we could to hear our echos.

We did some fantastic vocabulary building today; centipede, bark, habitat, twig, butterfly.

The experience gave the children an opportunity to build on their speaking by describing what they could see, expressing excitement and curiosity.

🌟🌟🌟

Sharks big surprise 🦈 🎂

Together we read one of the children’s favourite stories…. Sharks big surprise!

We set up a story tray to explore alongside the story. The children found the relating sea creature from the story and placed it into the bag. We created the sea creatures movements as described from the story…crabs pincers click clacking, star fish plip plopping.

The children had lots of fun with the tray ☺️

After we had finished the story and playing with all of the sea creatures, the children created mosaic fish pictures.

The children ripped up pieces of tissue paper and stuck them to their pictures using glue.

They all looked amazing! 🤩

🌟🌟🌟

🌟🌟🌟 ❤️

Moors Valley 🌳

What a fantastic day we have all had!

We went off into the forest and collected pinecones, sticks, stones and even a feather. We then took all of our items to the ‘cabinet of curiosities’ and sorted all of our items into the correct spaces - the children loved doing this!

We went off onto the play trail, exploring all of the different structures, climbing up high, crawling through tunnels. There were some lovely sensory play areas.

We ventured through the enchanted woods and talked about the different fairy tales; Goldilocks, Hansel and Gretal, little red riding hood.

Woo woooo! We heard the train so we went to watch it leave the station, waving at all the passengers as they went pass.

We finished off our day playing together in the sand park. The children worked together to transport sand. The children swung on the swings and slid down the slides.

🌟🌟🌟

🥰 🙌🩷

🌟🌟🌟

Our forest walk 🌳

We’ve had lots of fun in the forest today, running though the forest together and looking at the beautiful views from the top of the hill!

We children used crayons and paper do some tree rubbing. The children were fascinated to see the print of the bark appearing on their paper.

We all sat down together and had our picnic lunches. Once our tummy’s were full, we read ‘wow said the owl’ and talked about all the colours that we could see around us.

🌟🌟🌟

Car wash 🚗 🧼 🧽

We used cocoa powder to create mud and shaving foam and soapy water to create a car wash.

The children used a variety of brushes and sponges to clean the ‘mud’ off the cars.

The children dunked their hands into the warm soapy water and mixed it with the shaving foam.

We smelt the cocoa powder, explored the different brushes and felt all the different textures.

The children parked their cars into the car parking spaces and we looked at the numbers 1-6 together.

We used a range of lovely vocabulary, role modelling lots of words as we talked about what we were doing, how we were doing it and the things we were using.

🌟🌟🌟

Chinese new year 🧧

Today we read a story about Chinese New Year 🤩

We talked about what Chinese New Year is and what was so special about it - Family and good fortune!

We talked about the colour read and how it symbolises good luck.

This year - it is the year of the snake 🐍

We drew a huge snake onto paper. The children had a great time painting it in with the paint sticks, telling us all the colours!

Well done little stars!

🌟🌟🌟

Scavenger hunt 🔍

Today little stars went on an outdoor scavenger hunt. The children had to find items and colours on their lists. It was lovely watching the children work together and help each other out.

We had lots of fun along the way…we did a bit of train spotting from the bridge. Flapped our arms and pretended to fly around just like the birds that we had seen. And we played together on the obstacle course!

🌟🌟🌟

Weighing - less, more, heavy, light…..

This week the children have been exploring the scales.

We have been looking at quantities, less, more.

We have looked at whether something is heavier or lighter than another object and trying to balance out the scales to make it equal.

A lovely range of vocabulary and role modelling of words relating to mathematics.

The children have also enjoyed scooping and pouring the pasta, and exploring the different textures of the pasta, stones and wood.

🌟🌟🌟

Hot chocolate ☕️

On a rainy cold day….lets have hot chocolate!

The children scooped up the chocolate powder and mixed it into the milk using the spoons.

Once mixed the children used a ladle to serve their hot chocolate into their cups before sprinkling some mini marshmallows on top 😋

Whilst making our hot chocolate, we used lots of words such as yummy, ladle, tasty, scoop.

We talked about the hot chocolate; how it smelt, how it felt, if we had hot chocolate at home.

We accidentally spilt some - oppps it’s ok, that’s how we learn!

All the children rubbed their tummies and licked their lips - chocolate faces all round!

The children loved it when I sprinkled extra powder onto the wet tray, making a thick chocolate mud. The children used their fingers to do some mark marking!

A fantastic activity today, covering many areas of learning!

🌟🌟🌟

Remember remember the 5th of November 🎆

This week we have been focusing on Guy Fawkes.

I set up a tuft tray for the children to explore. On the tray we had black coloured rice to represent the night sky, a round mirror to represent the moon, coiled pipe cleaners to represent fireworks, orange and yellow tissue paper to represent flames from a bonfire. I also placed metal pots and spoons on the tray.

Whilst exploring the tray, we had some lovely conversations about Guy Fawkes. I explained the history of what happened on the 5th of November and why we have fireworks and bon fires. I also read a story about fireworks night 📖

The children told me that they had all seen some fireworks 🤩

We made lots of fantastic firework noises - boom, crackle, pop, zoom - pretending to be fireworks!

Using our fingers and hands, we drew lots of swirly marks in the rice.

The children scooped and poured the rice into the tins, listening to the lovely sounds that the rice made as it landed in the pots.

🌟🌟🌟