All News | Helen Gibson Nursery

St Valentines with the Giraffes

18th February 2022J Riley

Week 14th – 18th February

We have had a St Valentines theme this week in nursery. Children in the Giraffe group have been listening to, and sharing stories that promote love, kindness, friendship, and looking after each other. We have played with the parachute at group time to promote working together as a team, sharing ideas and suggestions as to how we could move the parachute in different ways, The sand in the tuft spot has provided the children to use their knowledge and imagination, and explore concepts such as filling, emptying, pouring , watching the sand flow from colanders and funnels onto hands, and talking about how this feels

Magnets with the penguins

13th February 2022J Riley

This week the Penguin Group have been experimenting with magnets, to investigate which nursery objects were magnetic! This activity caused much excitement as the children talked about the different forces they could feel. Following on from this the children showed lots of creativity as they used the magnetic shapes to build cars; dinosaurs; robots; trains; houses; elevators and diving boards!

Chinese New Year

7th February 2022J Parker

What an exciting time we all had in Panda Group this week celebrating Chinese New Year, the Year of the Tiger.

We explored a wide range of Chinese artifacts, we took part in a dragon dance and learned about the Chinese calendar. Following on from this the children were interested to see where China is located in relation to England. We looked at the world globe and seen there is a long distance between the two countries and that it would take a long time to travel there. From this discussion, the children learnt that in order to travel between countries a passport would be required and they even took turns to look at a real passport.

We learnt how to say Happy New Year in Chinese ‘’Kong Hay Fat Choy’’ and we tried some Chinese food too.

We all liked the Prawn Crackers and it was fascinating observing the changes in Chinese noodles. Firstly, we explored the dry noodles using our sense of touch and then we observed the changes, as a result of hot water. Next, using fine motor skills, we attempted to eat the cooked noodles using chopsticks and they all appeared to have fun with them.

Kong Hay Fat Choy!

This term in the lodge….

28th January 2022J Riley

This term in the lodge we have been very busy. We have welcomed some new friends and been developing relationships and sharing experiences. There has been lots of construction, using different resources and a big interest in mark making. This led us to water painting and block painting. The children have been exploring different ways of making marks in the environment, inside and outside.

Updated risk assessment

18th January 2022J Riley

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Penguin Group

20th October 2021J Parker

What a busy time we have had this half term in the Penguin Group!

We have been learning all about Autumn and Harvest and talking about all of the things you can find in East Boldon Village. We made handprints using Autumn colours and found signs of Autumn when we worked in Forest School. Some of us even made chocolate soup as we did lots of filling and emptying! We also chopped vegetables to make real soup which some of us ate once it was cooked! At small group time, we made our very own map of East Boldon Village! We have also enjoyed some of our favourite story books which included the Rainbow Fish which is all about sharing and caring!

Mystery Tins

19th October 2021J Parker

The children found two tins in the cupboard in our home corner and spent a long time discussing what they thought could be inside. Some guessed soup, spaghetti hoops and even apricots. We had a long talk about how we could find out and decided we needed to open the tin. We looked in the kitchen and found a range of tools to try. George tried the scissors but it would not open the lid. We then tried the tweezers but again it would not open. Eventually we tried the tin opener and we got a surprise at what we found inside…..

….CARROTS!

We talked about whether it would be safe to eat them and we all decided we did not know how old the carrots were so thought it would be best not to. Instead we decided to explore them along with a tin of hot dogs we also found.

We enjoyed chopping them so much that the next day we thought it would be a great idea to chop more vegetables.

We put the vegetables in a big pan and made delicious soup.

Yum yum

It’s all in a Picture

18th October 2021J Parker

“The car has broken down. It had a flat tyre. It has to go to the garage to fix it!”

The detail that has gone into this picture is evident along with the thought process that has been needed to build the story. By sitting beside children and commenting on what we can see and what children are doing it gives them the confidence to be creative without us putting pressure on them. It gives them to freedom to put thoughts down on paper and build imaginative stories.