Nursery Blog

The nursery children have returned really well after a week away, we are so impressed with them all, Well done!

During this week the nursery children have been exploring Autumn. The children were encouraged to collect a variety of autumn treasures during their half term holiday. This little task encouraged them to get out and about with a grown up. Even the nursery adults were encouraged to collect autumn treasures to share.

We had a large collection to explore and categorise into leaves, sticks, pine/fir cones, conkers and acorns. The children loved talking about what they had found and where. We used this opportunity to develop our senses, encouraging our 3 and 4 year olds to respond to questions such as; ‘How did it feel?’, ‘What did it look like?’, ‘What did it smell like?’. A few of the responses we had were “It feels hard”, “They are dirty”, “That is a really long and big stick” “eww, it smells like an old tree”.

We shared the story ‘We're Going on a Leaf Hunt’ by Steve Metzger’, we then encouraged the children to get ready for our very own leaf hunt. We enjoyed wearing our new rain suits and wellies. We explored the wet leaves, puddles and mud. Look at us in our new rain suits! We look ready for a wet and muddy walk.

Our two year olds joined in the fun, they have had great fun looking at pumpkins and at harvested sunflowers. The 2 year old loved getting messy and using their hands to feel inside the pumpkin and pull out the seeds. These activities also encourage the children to explore their world through their senses this week. We explored using our hands, eyes, ears, and nose.

It would be great if you could encourage the children to continue to explore their senses while at home or out and about by exploring their world. A few good ideas: Listen to what you can hear while out walking, encourage them to touch a range of things and explain how it feels, encourage them to identify things they see using sentences such as; I can see a tall tree or The tree has orange leaves.