As part of continuing summer expedition, âWhat happens where the sea meets the shore?â Today the children of Nursery were celebrating âWorld Ocean Dayâ by all wearing blue in support of keeping our worldâs oceans clean and safe. They also began thinking about their own experiences of the seaside and what there is to see and do at the coast. We were extremely lucky to be able to host our expert visitor Mr Dan, who performed a wonderfully, traditional, seaside favourite; A Punch and Judy Puppet Show for us. The children had a magical time and there was lots of fun, laughter and enjoyment all around.
Today was a memory that the children will remember forever! Such a wonderful treat – Beautiful Work!
Last week Nursery explored positional language, such as; âOn topâ, âBehindâ, âUnderâ and âIn front ofâ as part of expeditionary learning, whilst exploring the Maths based text â10 Little Piratesâ by Mike Brownlow (as part of our ongoing expedition âWhat happens where the sand meets the shore?â) The children practised counting backwards in the theme of the story and sang along to the song version of the text as a hook into where our friend Pirate Pete maybe hiding. The children used a sentence stem like; âPirate Pete is on top of the Treasure Chestâ to explain his position on the pirates map. Here are a few of the examplesâŚ.
âPirate Pete is on top of X marks the spotâ.
âPirate Pete is on top of the big sea shellâ. âPirate Pete is stood on top of the crabâ.
âPirate Pete is behind the Palm treeâ. âPirate Pete is hiding behind the photoâ.
âPirate Pete is behind the Stingrayâ. âPirate is laying behind the treasure boxâ.
âPirate Pete is under the Mermaidsâ. âPirate Pete is under the big sea monsterâ. âPirate Pete is swimming under the mermaidsâ. âPirate Pete is under the shell.â
âPirate Pete is in front of the whale.â âPirate Pete is front of my headâ. âArghh legâ. âPete is in front of the treasure chestâ.
The children also took part in a pirate hunt, finding the pirates which matched the wanted posters at the front of Nursery. When they found a pirate they had to match it to the poster and say how many golden coins their reward would be.
Following a more artistic theme the children were inspired by Receptionâs drawing of the â10 Little Piratesâ characters in the style of Mike Brownlow and Simon Rickerty. Therefore we followed the same drawing tutorial and created âWantedâ posters of our own. The children did an amazing job.
Beginning in hook week, Nursery began to draw pictures of a Sea Perch carefully chosen for itâs simple and recognisable outline and detailed body. The children first observed only the picture of the Sea Perch and completed their first drafts of the fish. Nursery worked very hard at creating drawings using lines and circles, whilst concentrating on the visual and this activity took quite some time as everyone was trying their best.
Three weeks later our Nursery children attempted a second draft of their fish, but before they began, Nursery watched a short clip about a little boy called Austin, who drew a Butterfly. When Austin drew his first butterfly, despite having the picture in front of him, it looked like the one he visualised in his head. With the critique, help and support of his peers who gave small wonders on how Austin could gradually improve his butterfly to look more like the original picture. (Please check this out on YouTube) Austin produced this butterfly below as his final draft. Our children really responded to the video clip and were amazed at how much Austinâs Butterfly had improved. This gave them a good understanding of how to critique their own work, by just changing one or two things.
Here are some of our drafts for comparison, the children worked very hard to ensure their area of improvement was achieved and we are immensely proud of them. Check this beautiful work out!!
Today Nursery Crewâs were each read a different story, The Magic Porridge Pot and The Wizard of Oz. The focus was to practise listening very carefully to understand and recall who the main characters are, what problems they encounter and how they solved the problems.
Crew Winkley and Crew Mortimer swapped crew leaders at the end of each story to question the childrenâs understanding and for each crew to explain to us what had happened in the alternate story. The children listened very well and were able to recall events and characters in detail! Well Done Nursery next week we will swap stories and practise again. Beautiful communication and listening skills – great work!
Yesterday the whole of EYFS had the most amazing expert visitors come into school to share and show us what a rock pool is and what species of creatures can be found inside them. The children were thrilled to get up close and personal with Shore Crabs, Spider Crabs, Hermit Crabs, Purple Sunshine Starfish, Regular Starfish, Sea anemones, Sea Urchinâs, Mussels and Barnacles. They learnt many interest facts about the creatures from Mike and James from Aqua Explorers provided by Aqualease.
The children were very receptive to the creatures and many pushed themselves out of their comfort zone to explore and experience the creatures either by touching them or holding them. Nursery asked some interesting questions to the visitors and also shared their existing knowledge that they have learnt so far with the expert visitors.
It was an amazing learning experience to really engage and enthral our children, as most will have never experienced these creatures in real life before and it has helped the children to have a better knowledge, understanding and compassion for the creatures we are learning about in our current expedition âWhat happens where the sea meets the shore?â Such beautiful work!
Today Nursery took part in a sea habitat gallery walk as they explore all of the different environments that sea creatures can be found in, live in and thrive amongst.
The children learned about the most familiar places such as the sea and an aquarium, whilst also discovering what a sea sanctuary hospital and a rock pool are. We watched and exciting video about what a rock pool might house, in preparation for an awesome, surprise experience later this week! Finally Nursery listened to the story âBillyâs Bucketâ by Kes Gray, which tells of a little boy who would like a bucket for his birthday. However inside the bucket is another world – a rock pool world! We spoke about what we would like to see inside our buckets, if we had one like Billyâs. Some of the suggestions were; âsharkâ, âwhaleâ, âa mermaidâ, âTwo little dogsâ, âa unicornâ, âa stingrayâ, âa starfishâ, âan octopusâ, âa crabâ and much more! What great imaginations, just like Billyâs!
Last week Nursery began the week by being literally immersed in plastic pollution. They came into Nursery to litter scattered all over their beautiful environment, (inspired by our primary text âHarry Saves the Oceanâ by NGK) which they had helped to decorate during the hook week of our latest expedition â What happens where the sea meets the shore?â
The children sat for register and Crew amongst the rubbish, as planned for them to understand how the sea creatures must feel in our oceans. A few of the children commented during their crew session (whilst being asked about their feelings) about; âFeeling sad because of all of the trashâ, âItâs like a bombâs hit!â, âAll of this plastic makes me feel sadâ and âI feel angry, because of all of this rubbish- Whoâs made this mess?â
We talked about how we could help to make this better and the children suggested âPut it in the binâ and âRecycle itâ. So we did⌠the children helped to recycle the pretend rubbish into various recycling boxes.
Later in the week the children explored freeing see creatures that had been caught in plastic and trapped in ice. The elation the children felt after they had freed the creatures was a joy to see, as they were so empowered to help. They enjoyed the activity immensely.
Nursery ended the week on a high by pretending to be sea creatures during a physical activity session with Coach Ellie who kindly came to visit us. The children had to move in a variety of ways like sea creatures and work collaboratively in teams to win games and collect âfoodâ for their group. They all had lots of fun and there was lots of laughter.
Beautiful work! Well Done Nursery – We certainly understand what the problem is in our oceans.
Today the children in EYFS had a wonderful time going to the Junior School hall to listen to children in Years 3 and 4 sing Dear World. This song was written by Key Stage Two children in their previous expedition that explored the importance of looking after our planet.
In their current expedition the children in EYFS are learning all about sea conservation and the need to recycle plastic waste so it was a perfect opportunity to listen again to Dear World and the poignant message it has. Thank you to the Junior School for a fantastic performance, the legacy of your beautiful work lives on!
As our hook week has rolled out, Nursery have had lots of fun exploring and immersing themselves in all things lurking beneath the surface of the sea, underpinned by our hook text, âCommotion in the Oceanâ By Giles Andreas. The children have searched around Nursery for clues of what they may find in the sea? They have learned about how these sea creatures survive and their anatomical features such as; gills, scales, fins and flippers.
The children then created fabulous sea creatures of their own using various craft materials, mediums and techniques. These include jiggling Jellyfish, Octopuses and shimmering Fishes – just look at our beautiful work!
Finally the children have worked hard on beginning to understand and explore our guiding question for our new exciting summer expedition âWhat happens when the sea meets the shore?â
As part of our Thoughtful Thursday Crew the children used their own experiences to draw pictures of what they recall visually about the seaside and talked about, What does the sand feel like? How does it look on the beach? Their ideas were collected in crews to form spider diagrams.
We then practically explored how the sand and water make the shore by creating sensory sea bottles using sand and blue coloured water. The children were thrilled to experiment and see how the sand and water mixed and then settled separately, creating their own beach in a bottle. It was a fabulous experience for all.
At the beginning of the week Nursery read âWeâre going on an Egg Huntâ by Laura Hughes. The story explores fun themes of bunnies finding Easter eggs and encountering various springtime animals along the way. Nursery then began to explore the real meaning of celebrating Easter, learning about the crucifixion of Jesus and that Easter Sunday is not just the day that we all enjoy chocolate eggs, but is traditionally known as the day that Jesus rose from death and appeared to his friends and mother. The children grappled with the child friendly version of the story and explored themes of Jesus having âmagic spiritual powersâ. We played pass the parcel to consolidate the childrenâs understanding of the story and to see what they could remember using biblical props such as coins, fish, bread and a cross as the prizes inside the bag.
Both Nursery groups did very well at remembering and responding to the story, showing great empathy and compassion towards Jesus. Well Done, beautiful work!
