05.06.2023

Core story - The crunching, munching caterpillar

It was wonderful to welcome back all the children after half term, and a warm welcome is extended to our new starters and their families, we hope you enjoy your time with us at The Owls Nest! 

We turn our attention to Summer 2 and our last half term of the academic year, and our last with our wonderful Rising 5 cohort!  

Our theme for the half term is 'Down at the bottom of the garden'. Staff and children alike love this theme and the many and varied learning opportunities it provides. 

We drew some chalk flowers on the tuff tray and the children were using the water sprays to water the flowers - not only do we love water, and have it as part of our continuous provision, but the action of using the spray is developing fine motor skills which prepare our children for holding a pencil and mark making in the future. Children also used mathematical language discussing the heights of the flowers - tallest, shortest etc, and also exploring the colours. 

On the mark making table children have been using stickers, cardboard bugs etc to create collages and our play dough is lavender scented, thanks to Carey's garden! We have enjoyed using our interactive whiteboard to play a maths game where we count and match ladybird spots. We have created bug hunts and garden scavenger hunts for the children to take into the garden with a magnifying glass to explore. 

The children have loved accessing our mud kitchen and digging in the mud as well as picking daisies and smelling the herbs. 

The children have been exploring the life cycle of a caterpillar this week and we have been adding finishing touches to Fathers Day cards. 

Quinn went home with Sebastian this week for a birthday tea and he was sure to take his sun hat to keep safe! 

15.06.2023

Core story - Mad about Minibeasts 

The children are continuing to enjoy our garden centre role play, taking turns to be shop keeper and customer, exploring mathematical language as they pay for goods. We have also created a role play allotment with vegetables growing, spades, watering cans and lots of books about the garden. Most of our sunflowers have now been sent home and the children have engaged so well with this, thanks to Rachael for organising. Lots of vocabulary learned - seed, petal, stem, shoot, grow, bud etc. 

Later this week the children will be sewing some tomato and bean plants in our garden and will help to water them and observe the changes as the tomatoes (hopefully) grow! 

Some of our children have enjoyed building a den in the garden with Emma this week. We do love a den and have enjoyed pretending to be the animals that might live in there like a hibernating hedgehog!

We will be exploring 'The Snail' by Matisse, and making our own snails or other artwork in the style of Matisse as part of our afternoon activities.  

We have been exploring prepositions looking for minibeasts 'under' logs, and looking for birds 'on top' of the tree, and finding slugs 'next to' leaves. 

We are lucky enough to have a selection of minibeast/garden dress up which the children enjoy - pretending to be a bee or a ladybird or a flower. 

We have our favourite nursery rhyme, incy wincy spider, but are adding to our repertoire with Ladybird Ladybird and There's a worm at the bottom of the garden. 

We have enjoyed drawing large caterpillars on the playground with chalk this week, and using pots of water and paintbrushes for mark making. 

Another of our trays in the garden is filled with soil and different sized digging tools - spade, large spoon, teaspoon etc to encourage children to change their grip and technique according to the equipment they are using. 

In this hot weather, please ensure the children have sunscreen applied before they arrive each morning, arrive with a hat and please be assured that we keep the children in the shade for large parts of the day and provide extra drinks to ensure they are staying hydrated.