Week Commencing 21st September 2026

The Investigation Hub at Sidney Grove

Physical Development:

The children have continued to develop their fine-motor skills this week and have particularly enjoyed taking their weaving outdoors!

After noticing the beautiful spider webs outside, the children became interested in creating their own. Using wool, they carefully wove between the woollen “spider webs”, developing their hand-eye coordination, concentration and control.

The children also enjoyed wrapping wool around sticks, carefully winding and twisting the wool to create their own designs. Some children took their creations one step further and transformed their sticks into fishing rods! This led to lots of imaginative play, as the children began role-playing fishing trips and sharing ideas about what they might catch. It was wonderful to see how a simple activity developed into such imaginative and purposeful play.

We have also been developing our gross-motor skills by becoming “mountain goats”! After talking about mountain goats and how they move around rocky mountain landscapes, the children created their own game using hoops.

The children experimented with different ways of moving through and around the hoops — jumping, hopping and side-stepping — while pretending to be mountain goats carefully balancing along the edges of a mountain. As the game developed, the children introduced their own rules and ideas. Some mountain goats became “frozen in the snow” and needed to be rescued by a friend! We loved seeing the children use their imaginations, negotiate with one another and develop the game together.

Creative and Critical Thinking

During our mountain goat adventure, one of the hoops accidentally broke. Not to worry, though — this gave us a fantastic opportunity to put our problem-solving skills into action!

Together, we discussed how we might fix the hoop and thought carefully about which tools would be best for the job. We experimented with different ideas: the hammer wasn’t quite right, and neither was the screwdriver. After some careful consideration, we decided that the pliers were the tool for the job. With a little teamwork, the hoop was fixed in no time and our mountain goat game could continue!

We have also really enjoyed listening to and joining in with repeated refrains in a wide variety of stories this week. We love sharing some of our story sacks and retelling our favourite stories using the resources inside, such as puppets and props.

Communication and Language:

The children have particularly enjoyed joining in with familiar words and phrases, anticipating what might happen next and bringing the stories to life through their own actions and voices. These experiences are helping to develop the children’s communication and language skills, while also encouraging a real love of stories and books.

Parents as Partners

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our “Meet the Key Worker” sessions. It was lovely to chat with so many of you and share the learning that takes place within our wonderful Investigation Hub at Bensham Grove.

We really value the opportunity to talk with you about your child’s experiences, interests and learning. Working together with families helps us to build a strong understanding of each child and ensures that their experiences at home and nursery can complement one another.

Thank you for your continued support and for being such an important part of our nursery community.