What is lurking in our Garden's
Continuing with our Garden topic, we have moved on to looking at what other delights our gardens hold for us to explore.
We found some wildlife hiding in our own Nursery garden - Slugs and Worms some of us were very keen to look at and handle our new friends other were not so keen.
We have begun our new book this week,
'Mad About Minibeasts'
Which has introduced the children to a range of different small animals that we might find in our gardens.
We were eager to find out more about Bees to start with, since Monday was 'World Bee Day'. We read the Bee poem from our book, danced like a Bee and painted Bee's too.
Listen to some more of the poems again here.
We have then moved on to Spiders!
The children have had a super time pretending to be spiders, counting their legs and making them out of junk modelling however we had the best time up in Forest School where we made our very own giant spiders web!
We weaved it around the trees and Forest School Furniture and had to be very careful to not get stuck in it by climbing over and under the strands.
Thank you for a lovely Summer 1 Elmers.
Titch
Our focus story this week is 'Titch' a lovely story about how something tiny can grow into something big.
The children have enjoyed making Kites in our creative area and watching them fly with thanks to the lovely wind we have had in the playground.
Please click the link below to listen to the story at home
Click the link below to watch a video of how we made our kites so that you can make more at home
This story links beautifully to our understanding the world where we have been learning how to plant seeds with Mrs Bracken and Mr Rist
We are very excited to see how our seeds will grow and if they will grow bigger than us like Titch's plant did.
Mark Making!
Mark making is always a much loved activity in Elmers but sometimes we feel we need to spice it up a bit. This week the children have been enjoying mark making in place you wouldn't expect! Can you find them?
As well as being fun, its a great way to develop the muscles in their shoulders and arms in preparation for writing.
We still enjoy our more traditional mark making activities as well. Its always a pleasure to see the pride on the children's faces when they have completed their morning name writing task.
Stickers play a big part too.
Even our newest children are enjoying the challenge.
We have also continued our learning on 'The Enormous Turnip' This week thinking about what a Turnip is. We talked about other vegetables we eat and where they grow we have then used them to print with and see what shapes and textures they make in the paint.
And finally a snap shot of some out the other lovely activities that have been on offer.
How does your garden grow?
Well, the summer term is here and as always we have been waiting for the sunshine to take full advantage of our outdoor learning! Yep... Its still raining!
This hasn't stopped us though. The children have still begun planting, nurturing and pruning our little garden and enjoying exploring the wonderful smells and tastes of the herbs that are flourishing in our mud kitchen.
We have been enjoying learning about the seasons and looking at the changes in our immediate environment. We discovered that our fingers would make excellent paintbrushes to recreate the beautiful blossom growing on the trees.
It also gave us a great chance to talk about why the trees are in blossom and what will happen next.
Our story of the week is, based on looking at things growing is,
The Enormous Turnip.
The children enjoyed listening to the story and looking at what a real turnip looks like.
We used some great describing words to talk about how it felt and what it looked like. We even discovered that we can cook turnip in the microwave and some of us were even brave enough to have a taste all be it just a lick!
To listen to the story again, please follow the link below.