Spring term community project

This term we have been collecting bottle tops to create a seasonal piece of art. The wider community has supported us in collecting lots and lots of different coloured bottle tops. Our tree is displayed in the school entrance for all to see.

As a group we all worked together sorting the different colours and looking at the different sizes.

 

The children decided that the different coloured tops in the tree represented different fruits everything from pineapples to pears all sharing a great big tree.

 

The trees outside nursery are starting to get buds on them. Hopefully this is a sign of spring. New life is around us on the farms, tadpoles in the ponds and flowers and plants in our gardens.

 

From all the staff and children at Sparklers Nursery may we wish you all a Happy Easter.
We look forward to our summer term starting back on     Wednesday 13th April

 

 

So many heroes

We have spent quite a lot of time talking about the superheroes we all know from books and TV. We have thought about all the different super powers they have and what makes them special.

When thinking about super heroes from the media we had time to think about real heroes around us and what makes them special.

We all said our parents were heroes as they are always helping us, teachers in nursery and school and the lady who makes our lunch! We thought of ways in which we could thank our heroes.

In the wider world there are more heroes. Heroes that help lots of people in many different ways. We have been very fortunate to have some of these heroes come to visit us. We would like to thank

The two soldiers that came to show us their uniforms and really big back pack full of lots of equipment. The helmet they had was really big and heavy. One showed us his medals from when he went to help people in another country that was at war.

The doctors and nurses. The paramedic who came with his ambulance and told us all about what he does. He too had a big kit we even tried some things. The paramedic showed us so many things we spent the rest of the day helping people get better.

The firefighters who came and brought us resources to support our learning and explain what they do. We had a fire drill pretending there was an emergency where we all followed our procedure. We wanted to do this again a couple more times over the weeks so now we know exactly what to do in an emergency.

We too are Super learners, we have the Characteristics Of Effective Learning they show how we learn in our own unique way. The characteristics of effective learning are…

Playing and exploring - observing how children engage with their learning
• Finding out and exploring
• Using what they know in their play
• Being willing to have a go

Active learning - observing how children are motivated to learn
• Being involved and concentrating
• Keeping trying
• Enjoying and achieving what they set out to do

Creating and thinking critically - observing how children are thinking
• Having their own ideas
• Using what they already know to learn new things
• Choosing ways to do things and finding new ways

 We all come to a super nursery. Sparklers has been awarded the Step into Quality  mark from Lancashire County Council. 

We would like to thank everyone for what they do to make us safe and help how they help other people. We are all unique and have our own super powers, let us all continue to sparkle and shine.

February/ March Newsletter

We are simply out of this world!

 After celebrating Chinese new year the children had decided that the only way to see a dragon would be to go into space as "they fly really, really high in the sky up near the moon" So off we go to see if we see any dragons.

After deciding how we were going to get to space we made our own rocket and space station.

Making snips in paper to put in the rocket's window 

"It needs to be blue and have sticky bits"

Looking at outer space through a window

"I can make buttons and controls"

 After listening to the story Aliens Love Underpants we used a variety of loose materials and dough to make our own aliens.








Our small world space station

 
 
 Counting down to blast off

 

We have  been helping our friends decide if they would like to travel to earth, the moon or the sun and how they would like to travel there.  

Then off we go!

 

 

Kung Hei Fat Choy!

Kung Hei Fat Choy! means Happy New Year! All the children have enjoyed learning about Chinese New year. 










We explored the celebration through active role play, small world play retelling the great race story, creating cards and red envelopes for good luck and fortune.








We made a fantastic Chinese dragon together as a group using bright colourful material for the body  and a variety of creative resources to construct the head.    Some of us looked at the Chinese dragon dance on the computer and I pad to see how they moved and what colours they used, whilst others looked for ideas in books. Our younger children created a small world of their own with dragons in the sand using natural materials to create an environment they thought they would like to live in.

We had our own Chinese restaurant with different traditional food types. We had fun mixing and selecting food for others. Some of us even tried to use chopsticks!

Super hero super numbers and shape

"I am a superhero shape hunter what can I find?"

What a week our super learners have had. They decided they were going to look at the shapes of containers and fruits in the Sparkle Shop as well as the cost of them.

When it comes to shopping having a child who comes from a family with a shop all the children have received first hand training on sorting type and size of fruits as well as how to be a good shop keeper.










Every item has a price where if a child has wanted to buy something they have needed to use the correct number of counters to make the purchase. Some children have even managed to buy two items and find the total number of counters needed.
 

"I will put on here how much money you need"

 How exciting to get four big boxes delivered for us from the Post lady. We had to work together for some as they were big and heavy.

 

Our superhero towers this week have been made with cubes. We looked for cubes in our environment especially in the shop. How many cubes can you see in your kitchen ?

 

So what will our Super learners be looking at next week?

 

Transient art with natural materials and endless possibility

  This week the  children have  worked with a variety of natural materials which opened up many possibilities. The resources selected with the children were packed with variety, promoting deep and complex thinking.

The range of sizes and materials selected encouraged them to look closely at the detail and to notice the differences in colour, texture, size and shape. They were fascinated by  making patterns and creating things special to them. In doing this they began to think about the fine details in places and things they were representing.

"It's Gareth in the picture box"

 The children wanted to explore them and create images and structures creating 2d and 3d art. The children showed creativity, imagination, problem solving using positional language to explain place and position within the patterns they made.



"This is my new house and bedroom and
Mummy's bedroom and that's my chair and table"

 By the time they finished and recorded their creations materials were shared in the group with their art here one moment, gone the next. Transient and unique works of art  with endless possibilities.

A busy start to 2016

Super Sparkler learners are ready to go!

 

The children have come back after the Christmas break and have been busy sorting the setting just how they want it.

The plan of action started with our pre-schoolers (with a little help) producing a mind map of what is to be in each area then everyone got to work finding the resources they wanted.



"I make my house at 9"

Following instructions, matching quantity and numeral

Shape, size and sorting our favourite food in the shop

Team building

Giving meaning to pictures

Recognising and ordering number

 

It's all about the process

and us getting it just how we want it.