We have had lots of fun exploring, creating and learning in Nursery this week! As the autumn season continues, we have been making the most of the beautiful natural resources around us and finding exciting ways to develop our skills through play.
Autumn Creations
We collected some of the fallen autumn leaves and brought them into our creative area, where the children used their imaginations to create their very own hedgehogs and trees. It was lovely to see the children exploring the different shapes, colours and textures of the leaves while expressing their creativity and developing their ideas.
We also explored a different way to use our leaves by hole-punching them and threading them onto string. This activity was a fantastic opportunity to develop the children’s fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and concentration. These small movements help to strengthen the little muscles in their hands and fingers, supporting them as they prepare for future writing activities.
Making Our Marks – We have also been busy mark-making on large sheets of paper. The children enjoyed making their own marks, lines and patterns, exploring how different movements create different marks on the paper. Large-scale mark-making is a wonderful way to encourage early writing skills, as it allows children to use their whole arms and shoulders before gradually developing more controlled movements with their hands and fingers. These experiences help to build strength, coordination and confidence, laying important foundations for future writing.
Outdoor Maths Fun – Outside, we created an exciting maths game using colourful balls and a sticky hoop! The children took turns throwing the balls up high, aiming to get them to stick to the hoop. Once the balls had landed, we counted together to see how many had stuck.As we played, we talked about the different colours of the balls and encouraged the children to count the balls they could see. This provided a fun, hands-on way to explore early mathematical concepts, including counting, number recognition, colour recognition and counting objects accurately. The activity also supported the children’s gross motor development as they practised throwing, aiming and coordinating their movements. Taking turns, waiting patiently and cheering on their friends gave the children opportunities to develop their social skills, confidence and understanding of playing together.
Our outdoor adventures also took us on an exciting imaginary journey! The children worked together to create their very own train outside, using their creativity and imagination to transform the space into a wonderful travel adventure. One of the children took on the important role of the ticket inspector, going around to each passenger collecting tickets. The other children joined in, imagining where they were travelling to and creating their own stories about their journey. It was lovely to see their ideas develop as they played together and built on each other’s suggestions. This type of imaginative role play supports so many areas of learning. The children were developing their communication and language skills as they talked about their destinations, shared ideas and interacted with their friends. They were also practising important personal, social and emotional skills, including cooperation, turn-taking and taking on different roles.
