The Investigation Hub at Sidney Grove

Week beginning – 29th June 2026

It’s been a super busy week with the excitement of butterflies, school visits and stay and plays!

Characteristics of Effective Learning

The children have been accessing some transient art opportunities this week. Transient art is temporary artwork made from loose, natural, or everyday materials such as leaves, stones, shells, or blocks. It benefits early years children by encouraging creativity, imagination, problem-solving, and fine motor skills while allowing them to explore and create without worrying about making mistakes, as the artwork can be changed or taken apart at any time.

“shall we make a tower like this forever?”

”Tada! I love diamonds!”

One child used the beads to make a triangle which then became a cat! With adult encouragement he added the features of the cat- corks for eyes and blocks for whiskers! The children then used the beads and cups to make musical shakers. The children have revisited the transient art over the week, adding more detail to their creations each time.

Parents as Partners

It was lovely to welcome families to our stay and play sessions on Thursday. Activities were chosen around children’s interests, some of our recent core text work and around the theme of belonging. The children were so excited to share their learning with you!

Outdoors Learning

In the allotment this week the children helped to pick some of our strawberries which were ripe and ready to eat! Elaine explained that she had covered the strawberries with netting as the birds might have liked to eat them up before we could! The children practised identifying the ripe strawberries and picking them carefully. They were then washed and eaten as part of our afternoon snack- delicious!

On Wednesday it was time to release the butterflies into the wide world! We asked the children where they thought they would fly away to and they offered some interesting responses… ‘to a meadow’ ‘to the soft play!’ ‘to the trees!’ ‘up so high…to an aeroplane!’ A few of the butterflies were not ready to fly off so the children helped us to quickly create a garden which would meet their needs. They knew to add flowers, leaves and even water! When adding the water we added some stones so that the butterflies and bees would not become trapped while they drink.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend! The Investigation Hub Team