Weekly Experiences
The younger children at Gants Hill have been playing with the sensory bottles. Sensory play is an important part of early childhood development, and providing opportunities for children to actively use their senses as they explore their world through ‘sensory play’ is crucial to brain development. From birth to early childhood, children use their five senses to explore and try to make sense of the world around them.
Sensory Bottles GH
The children in Rainbowfish room, South Woodford have been enjoying using their senses to make marks using natural yogurt and food colouring as their paint. The children were able to use their hands to feel the yogurt and explore how it looked when spread across the paper (and yes, there was the odd taster, just to make sure all senses were utilised). These types of sensory activities are great way to engage children of a young age to engage in mark making, developing their fine motor skills, whilst also allowing them to visually witness and experience that their movements make marks.
Yogurt Painting SW
The children at Gants Hill the children have been finding magical letters. This activity has helped the older children with their recognition of letter and given the younger children an introduction to letters and their names and sounds. Letter identification is a careful balance of both clear introduction and instruction of specific letters and frequent exposure to those letters in multiple forms, both isolated and within text.
Magical Letters GH
The children in Stingrays room South Woodford have engaged in a mud and flour swamp activity. The children found that the farm animals had been stuck in a swamp and it was up to them to help the animals out of the sticky mud and flour mixture. The children enjoyed moving the animals through the swamp and exploring how the swamp felt. This activity is a great way to encourage children to begin to use speech as a way of communicating, and practitioners are on hand to develop this further.
The children commented:
"Sticky" - Rafe
"Yucky" – Wren
Swamp activity SW
The children at Gants Hill the children have been playing with water. Water play is both enjoyable and educational. It helps children develop eye-hand coordination, maths and science concepts. It also enhances social skills and encourages cooperation. Water Play gives many opportunities to develop fine and gross motor skills across age ranges. Children will increase their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination through actions like pouring, squirting, scrubbing, stirring and squeezing.
Water Play GH
The children in Sharks room South Woodford have been creating faces using rice cakes, hummus, peppers and cherry tomatoes. The children created faces which were displaying various emotions of their child, thus prompting the conversation of feelings. This is vital for children as it encourages them to communicate their feelings, which in turn promotes wellbeing. The children also had the benefit of being able to eat their creation afterwards!
During the activity, the children commented:
"Can I have more peppers" - Ehsun
"Its a smiley face" - Julia
“Pepper is green" - Arjun
"I made it for my mummy" – Isobel
Rice Cake faces SW
Rice Cake faces SW
The children at Gants Hill the children have been measuring the plants in our herb garden. This activity has extended the children’s learning about growth and decay which is incorporated in the understanding the world area of learning within the EYFS. The children previously planted a range of new herbs in the garden and they have decided to measure how big they have got. The older children have extended mathematically and recorded the different heights of the plants.
Measuring Plants GH
The children in Starfish room South Woodford have been using template clock faces to develop their recognition of number. Once they have recorded on the clock face the number of their choice, this mathematic activity was extended further, by the children then being asked to select the correct number of blocks to represent the number they have recorded. This activity is extending two aspects of mathematics, and the practitioners supported the group and were able to offer guidance where required.
The children commented:
"I have put 2 bricks because its number 2" - Laith
"There are 5 bricks thats what the hand is pointing to" - Mae
"Im putting on blocks" - Jessica
"I chose number 12" - Daisy
"I like number 3 best" - Isla t
Clock Face SW
Activity of the week:
The winner is Meera (SW). Meera has planned a lovely sensory activity to help a child achieve an Understand the World: The World next step. This activity involves creating small organza bags filled with various materials which will encourage the children to use the senses of not only touch and sight, but also smell. This activity encourages the children to engage as this age group responds well to sensory stimulus. The extension asks that the children who competently explore the sensory bags using touch and smell, can also start using language to describe the smells, thus extending the learning and development of those participating.
Top 5 Children’s Quotes of the week:
- "When you cross the road, you mustn’t run and you must hold mummy’s hand" - Zach
- "Boo, boo" – Zakariya
- "I love chocolate for breakfast" – Samina
- “You smell nice” – Zayd
- "I went to the beach at Israel" - Eitan
Quote of the Week:
“The first five years have so much to do with how the next 80 turn out” – Bill Gates
Thank you for taking a glimpse into our Fareacres Learning Community
Until next time...
