SHADOWS - DARK & LIGHT

We have been exploring shadows this week- our Uni student on placement with us did the planning and we made a light box , had a dark den and torches and looked at nocturnal animals.

 

The children enjoyed sieving weighing and mixing ingredients to make light and dark cup cakes - the were yummy!

 

Later in the week we took the 'underpants' streamers we made based on the book 'Aliens love Panta Claus' to the United Reformed church to decorate our Christmas tree for the late night shopping - the children thought it was hilarious ! -we even made a flying saucer and alien to go on the tree too!

The children from Towerview playschool had snack with the little ones at Broadway Playschool - then walked back through the autumn leaves.

 

There has been some great construction going on with the wooden building blocks - building then taking photos to recreate the next day. It has been really imaginative  play, the children have built car parks, roads, ,skate parks, cities with skyscrapers and tunnels, and a one legged man!

 

DIWALI & BONFIRE NIGHT - FESTIVALS OF LIGHT !

This week we learnt about the Hindu and Sikh festival of Light called Diwali  - the children made tea light holders from clay and painted them in silver and gold.

The firework cake was made using an electric whisk - much loved by alot of the boys  !  - the finished cake was decked with sparklers and we all sat around outside on crates to watch them sparkle - good fun !

The safety talk was taken very seriously - the children took notes home to their parents explain some frightening facts - like 3 sparklers are as hot as a blow torch !

We made a huge firework frieze by splodging teabags and paint onto a sheet of brown paper - we then splattered bright paints and made rockets out of roller paper and paper straws - it looked fab and the children made the firework noises as they worked.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS !

We had a lovely walk down the village where we collected conkers pine cones and some really pretty autumn leaves, some looked just like dinosaur footprints!

The children enjoyed spotting their favourite things in the shop windows but we didn't like the " big Halloween " one, a sneaky look around the toy shop made us all feel much better.

We have been painting pumpkin pictures and exploring the textures from the insides of a pumpkin.

The children planted bulbs and put winter pansies in the planters - we found worms and beetles as we dug.

have a good holiday !  -see you all the week starting 4th Nov

settling in and making friends

Both the 2-3 year olds' at Broadway Playschool and the older children at Towerview Playschool are enjoying playing with the conkers, problem solving, looking at sizes, colours, how they feel, and working out how to get the conkers down the drain pipe quicker, taking turns and waiting for the "ready steady go !!" before rolling down the conkers. Lots of smiles of satisfaction.

 

We have been making iced biscuit faces then eating them for snack, working out who is wearing which coloured clothes and going to the relevant coloured card game, and looking in the mirror to draw self portraits with oil crayons.

The games "What's in the Box" and "who s got the glasses on?" are being enjoyed at circle time and children are getting to know everyone's names.   We are also playing the empty chair game - all these improve speech and listening skills.

 

One child dressed as a pirate this week , with his pirate hat on and the parrot he then got a staff member to tape onto his on his shoulder doing a  mean pirate face- such creativity ! 
After 5 weeks we can all really see how much they are all settling in and starting to play with each other much more.  There is some fab role play emerging with boats, trains , babies and builders !!

FEED THE BIRDS !

The children have been making an art work this week - by collecting and sticking leaves on a canvas - we then piled up logs to make a tree trunk sculpture - they have since added strips of brown and black paper for the tree trunk - take a look in playschool!

We have been measuring how tall we are - beginning to get the idea of taller and shorter - who is the tallest ? who is the shortest?

The light box has proved popular - exploring  how colour changes as transparent sheets of colour are overlapped.

An experiment to see how we could make the best birdseed feeders revealed that gelatine is not a good substitute for lard !! - so back to the old methods- we will make a new batch of feeders using the Kelly kettle to heat the water to melt the lard, down at forest school.

A big thank you to all the parents who have sent in saucepans and kitchen utensils for our mud kitchen

REMINDER - all children need vests, warm jumpers and warm/waterproof  coats now and hats and gloves may be needed by the end of the week!    & especially for forest school sessions

CONKERS !

We've had a great time searching for conkers, we collected baskets full and took them back to playschool where we had a look at them and chose our favourites.  Some wonderful language emerged as we found the 'biggest', 'smallest', 'shiniest', 'prickliest' and 'smoothest' !   One child was so excited about the conkers he had collected he told everyone he met as he left playschool about them ! These, with the introduction of egg boxes and tongs, have become an interesting seasonal sorting game.

We have introduced the children to a new game, which we play in a small group - "The empty chair" game which has been lots of fun! It is also exceptional for supporting speech and language -particularly social language

 

We have a new student with us (every other week) from South Worcestershire College - she is proving to be a very good addition to the team.

 

There has been  lots of lovely mud painting and mixing in the Forest school mud kitchen.

OUR OPEN EVENING FOR PARENTS to see forest school and learn about the EYFS & communication at playschool, was attended by 20 parents, who seemed to enjoy it.

If you have any old pots, pans, whisks or old kitchen implements - we need them for the mud kitchen and the outdoor music centre.   Please bring into Towerview.

autumn leaves

What a lot of lovely colours we have had to play with - while busily sweeping up the leaves! The children have been gathering, sweeping and transporting the leaves and even mixing them with sand to make 'cakes'.

The foot printing was messy and went well - the results can be seen displayed behind the sand play outside.

The home photo folders are coming back in and it has been fun chatting about different homes and families. The staff have also made a photo folder so that the children can see we don't live at playschool all the time!