Dinosaur Roar!
As you’ll remember from last week, many children have shown an interest in dinosaurs. We’ve captured this interest successfully in our maths area; it’s been a very popular area with children enjoying exploring number and mathematics in different ways. Some children have chosen to line dinosaurs up in size order, some have grouped them according to colour and others have enjoyed counting how many they could find of each type.
In group time, we’ve been working on ‘subitising’ numbers. This is where we look at a small group of objects and can instantly recognise how many there are without the need to count them. Lots of children can already do this for dot patterns on dice as well as for a small number of objects in front of them (eg. 3 or 4). It’s an essential part of early mathematical development and will also help children begin to understand how a number is made up. For example, four dinosaurs scattered on the table could land in different ways. There could be three close together and one on its own, two groups of two dinosaurs, or four scattered separately. There are still four dinosaurs on the table, just split in different ways. Being able to recognise small groupings within a larger group, is an important skill that will help children as they begin to explore partitioning numbers as they get older.
Other dinosaur related learning involved…
- reading rhymes and stories about dinosaurs stomping, flapping and roaring down by the swamp
- exploring slimy swamp water
- investigating colour mixing and painting patterns on dinosaurs
- learning about volcanoes in our dinosaur small world area
In other non-dinosaur related areas of Nursery, children have loved our new role play area in the Sunshine room. We have created a cafe where children can order from the menu and enjoy making food to serve to the customers. This has been a hive of activity and has helped to engage some children in an area of Nursery where they might not usually play. It has been great to see some new faces venturing into the Sunshine room to explore.
Next week’s interests could involve some mythical creatures, as requested by a number of children. Watch this space!
Living and learning – I know what a drug is
All classes had interesting discussions today about drugs and medicines. Below are some of the things they said.
A doctor tells you how much medicine to take.
You should never take any one else’s medicine.
Some drugs are illegal and you can go to prison if you have them.
Alcohol and cigarette are drugs.
Gymnastics
The children are continuing to enjoy their gymnastics-based PE lessons. Today we focused on balancing and stretching.
Golden star
Well done to our most recent Golden Star.
Phase 3 Reading Meeting
Thank you to those of you who attended the reading meeting on Thursday 23 January . We hope you found the information useful in continuing to support your child on their exciting reading journey.
Reading regularly at home plays an important role in your child’s reading development. Support at home will help foster your child’s love of reading and your child’s reading development.
Computing topic – creating algorithms
We have been thoroughly enjoying our computing topic this half term. We have been learning about algorithms and codes. They need to be clear and precise – this can take a bit of work! We created games for the Blue-Bots and then had to program them with algorithms to make them travel around.
Computing
We have been looking at different search engines this week in Computing, such as Yahoo and Google. The children researched Juliane Koepcke using a range of different search engines. They evaluated each one and were able to identify how these could be improved and what they liked about them. Have a go at using a different search engine at home, such as Swisscows or Escosia. See what you think.
Science : observing changes in weather (temperature).
Our Science learning this half term is all about observing seasonal changes and changes in weather. We put a thermometer outside and the children have been keeping a keen eye on changes throughout the week. We recorded the temperature in our Science books and had some interesting discussions about why the temperature went up or down. Help your child at home by talking about the weather forecast, changes in temperature and sunrise /sunset times.
Living and Learning : I know how to make things better
There was some fantastic homework this week showing how we can make things better. In our homework review sessions,we had the chance to look at each other’s homework and talk about what we liked and why.
