The Investigation Hub at Sidney Grove

It has been lovely to see how well the children are continuing to settle into their new routines and build friendships and relationships. We are particularly pleased to see so many children arriving at nursery happy, confident and ready to explore and learn.

Play and exploring

The children have been incredibly busy making their mark this week! From tiny squiggles to giant outdoor patterns, the children have shown a real interest in mark-making – an important early step towards developing writing, drawing and mathematical skills.

Indoors, we focused on smaller-scale mark-making and precision. Using pens, pencils and crayons, the children have been developing their fine-motor control and hand strength. We are beginning to see some children give meaning to their marks, with children proudly creating shapes to represent their names and drawing pictures of people who are special to them.

The children have particularly enjoyed further developing their fine-motor skills through threading, weaving and wrapping wool to decorate our rocking horse, which was kindly donated by one of our families. They have loved singing and changing the words of Wind the Bobbin Up to “Wind the Pony Up!” We all agreed that our newly decorated rocking horse looked fabulous!

Our investigation then took us to learning more about horses. Did you know that a pony isn’t simply a baby horse? A pony is actually a type of small horse! We loved listening to the children’s ideas and discussions as they explored this new learning.

“It’s like spider webs.”

“I go round and round and round.”

Outdoor learning

Outside, we took our mark-making to a much larger scale, providing opportunities for the children to develop their gross-motor skills. Large movements using the arms and shoulders are important for developing the strength and control children will eventually need for writing.

The children enjoyed making huge sweeps and lines on our large chalkboards, drawing paths and shapes in the sand with their fingers, and using paintbrushes and water to create marks on the ground and walls.

We also explored painting on concertina cardboard, which encouraged lots of discussion and imaginative thinking.

“It is like mountains. It’s a triangle like mountains.”

“It looks like the doors on the bus.”

We have also enjoyed using our parachute, playing games and singing songs together. These experiences have provided wonderful opportunities for the children to develop their physical skills, cooperation and communication while having lots of fun!

Parents as Partners

We have developed a fantastic stage area within our provision using donations of old records. The children have really enjoyed exploring these and making connections with their own experiences.

“I have some at home – it’s songs.”

“They look like the Hungry Caterpillar.”

We are always looking for interesting resources and donations to enhance our provision and support the children’s investigations. At the moment, we would particularly welcome donations of wool. Thank you to all of our families who have already supported us by donating items – it makes such a difference to the experiences we can provide.

We also love receiving observations and photographs from home. Sharing these with the children in nursery gives them a wonderful opportunity to talk about people who are special to them, share recent experiences and make connections between home and nursery. Please continue to share these with us through the Famly App whenever you can.

Coming Up Next Week

Tuesday 22nd and Thursday 24th September 4.OO – 4.30pm.

Meet the Key Worker

Next week, we look forward to welcoming parents and carers to Meet the Key Worker. This will be a lovely opportunity to find out more about your child’s key person and how we work together to support your child’s learning, development and wellbeing.

We look forward to seeing you.

Many thanks

Nursery Team.