The children in Nursery were very excited to write some secret messages to each other using the special pens.  Their message was invisible until they shone a special torch on them. They enjoyed making marks, drawing pictures and writing letters, numbers and names. They loved showing their messages to their friends and teachers.

The children watched how to play some games on the computer that required mouse skills. They were all very excited to have a try themselves. They each had a turn on the different games; catching bees, opening flowers, decorating a Christmas tree and Christmas symmetry. The children were extremely good at moving the mouse to where they wanted it to go and also the tricky skill of dragging and dropping. The children concentrated extremely well on this, they kept on persevering even when it seemed hard. They all had lots of fun learning new skills, well done everyone!

03/12/18

Today the children have been continuing their neuroscience/ metacognition work. From previous sessions the children already know that neural pathways enable us to do things better.Through practice and perseverance and hard work these pathways become stronger. Today’s session continued with this theme. The children were required to work in groups and sort tasks into those that would help to build neural pathways and those tasks that would not. As you can see, the children did a great job. Research indicates that learning about learning (metacognition) can have a significantly positive effect on academic performance.

The children in Nursery enjoyed their “Pop up Castle” workshop.  They learned all about Auckland castle and got to have a go at dressing up as a bishop.  They all designed and made their own mitre.  The following day all the children worked together to make a castle outside using soft play.  They had great fun playing in their castle.

The children have loved learning about Bonfire night.  They experimented with powder paints outside, mixing and creating wonderful colours.  They produced some excellent art work and also decorated their own firework biscuit.

The children from Nursery have been interested in castles so we have been learning all about them.  The children have been using some wonderful vocabulary to describe different types of castles.  They have loved playing with a toy castle, making up stories and acting these out.  They have also been making some fantastic castles in the construction area.

The children had a fantastic week doing lots of Halloween activities.  They enjoyed dressing up and playing in the Halloween kitchen.  They had fun dancing at the Halloween party and they were amazed at our Halloween potions!

The children enjoyed our story of the week, “Pumpkin Soup”.  They explored pumpkins, scooping them out, counting seeds and describing their texture.  The children helped to make pumpkin soup, just like in the story.  They measured out ingredients and helped with the cutting of the vegetables.  Everyone really enjoyed eating the soup.

Some of the children in Nursery have shown a lot of interest in pipes and love rolling things down. We decided to use this to carry out an experiment to test which autumn items would roll the furthest. The children helped to set up the track, selecting the pipe and choosing which level to put it. We then discussed what would make some things roll further than others and the children chose an item based on this. They marked out where theirs had travelled by making marks and writing their name on a post it. They discussed which had travelled the furthest and why. The children then chose another item to roll based on what they had learned. The children were extremely engaged in this activity demonstrating excellent prediction and discussion skills and making links in their learning.