As part of our on-going expedition of “What do stories Tell us about Autumn?” Nursery have continued to learn about autumn life and animals, as well as celebrations that happen in late autumn. This week through our story “It Was a Cold, Dark Night” by Tim Hopgood, Nursery have explored how Hedgehog’s hibernate through the winter. Ned, the Hedgehog in our story was looking for somewhere to live and hibernate. Check out our story via this link…

Nursery were encouraged to explore and investigate how safe the place Ned finds to live, really is? We were thinking about the traditions and celebrations that happen around Bonfire Night. Many people or organisations build bonfires in open spaces, which Hedgehogs might think are a good place to hide and hibernate under the bonfire wood piles. It is our job as a community to check for the Hedgehogs before lighting fires to save the creatures who are just trying to stay warm and cosy.

This led to further thinking about what bonfire night is. Nursery learned all about Guy Fawkes and that that we celebrate the 5th of November to remember the foiling of the Gunpowder plot. Words the children used to explain this were “naughty Guy tried to blow up houses”, “Guy was going to explode” and “Guy got caught by police, put him jail”. To bring the historical figure to life the children made Guy sock puppets. We stuffed socks with straw, glued on goggly eyes, drew on his moustache, face and hat. They did a great job!

As part of our Wise Wednesday Crew Nursery investigated ways in which we can keep ourselves safe during bonfire night by watching a short video of Blippi and exploring a feely bag of protective clothing. They learnt the catch phrase “Fireworks are great, stand back and give them space”.

As part of our Thoughtful Thursday Crew the children passed around and investigated an unused Sparkler. They described it as “Pointy”, “Rough”, “smooth”, “hard” and “bendy”. The teachers then modelled how to safely hold and dispose of a lit sparkler outdoors. There were quite a few of Nursery children who had never seen a sparkler before. It was an exciting experience for them.

Next we all tried a traditional bonfire night food “Parkin”. The children used these words to describe how the parkin tasted…. “Too salty”, “Too Sour”, “Sticky”, “Chocolatey”, “Like Gingerbread men” . Everyone tried it, which was great as it is always nice to try new things.

The children’s homework was to take home a Sparkler to enjoy and experience with their parents and to send in a photo along with any words the children had used to describe their what they saw, heard or felt. Here are the results…..

Words used to describe their experience were; “golden”, “yellow”, “cool”, “sparkling”, “sparkly”, “bright”, “like fire”, “like stars”, “fizzy”, “pshhh!”(when it extinguished in the bucket), “white”, “dangerous”, “burny” and glittery”. Awesome learning Nursery and everyone was very Fire safety conscious too – Well Done!