Kits News - 6th December 2024
It has been another fun-filled and busy week at 345 Balham Nursery School. The children have embraced the Christmas Festive season and have been busy exploring their environment. The Role Play area has ben set up as a Festive Home Corner, where everyone has been working together and enjoying cooking up a wonderful Christmas lunch. The children enjoyed using Loose Parts for pretend food and various pots, pans and utensils.
The Kits have been developing their Fine Motor Skills by strengthening their hand muscles through many activities, such as munching very hungry tennis balls, where the children needed to squeeze the balls together to grasp a pom pom as they were very hungry. Playdough was very popular, and the Kits used knives and forks to make a pretend festive lunch. The children practised cutting the dough using both a knife and a fork. They also squeezed, squashed and rolled the playdough to strengthen their hand muscles. The Kits even counted how many pieces of dough they had cut. Threading was another popular activity where the children used cut-out faces with pipe cleaners attached to the head for the pretend hair. The Kits practised threading beads through the pipe cleaners, and naming the different colours. They also developed their hand-eye coordination throughout the activity.
The Kits loved playing with the Festive Fire Station in the Small World area this week. The Fire Fighters had decorated the station with tinsel, but that did not get in the way of rescuing people from fires and other emergencies. The Kits used lots of imagination skills to take the fire engines on rescuing adventures. The Kits also explored the Diggers and vehicles with natural objects. They helped Bob the Builder move the fallen trees and fix the road using vehicles. We named all of them and discussed what they do.
The Small World Zoo looked very exciting, with tinsel decorated all around. The Kits named all the animals, talked about the different sizes and colours, and described them. The Kits were keen to explore Noah’s Ark with animals, and they used their imagination to save the animals from a flood and storm. The children worked on their shape knowledge on the Maths table by matching the 2D shapes pre-drawn on a Christmas Tree. They practised naming the 2D shapes and looked at properties, too. The Kits explored the Stacking Shapes, where they practised naming the 2D shapes. They matched quantity to numbers by threading beads and explored wooden blocks to create various things, such as tall buildings, houses, and boats. The Kits also counted how many blocks they used and named the different colours.
The children loved writing a wish list for Father Christmas and wrote lots of Christmas Cards to Mummy and Daddy on our Mark Making table. Elsewhere they explored the Light Up Board and its different functions and used various light-up board pens to create marks. In the Messy tray, the children have been busy washing dishes using soapy water and cloths as we prepare for Christmas. They fished for letters using a fishing rod and practised sounding out some letters using the AnimaPhonics-associated actions and looked for hidden dinosaurs in shredded paper. We named them together and described how they looked and felt, such as spikey, smooth, rough, sharp, tall neck, long/short legs and many more.
For our Write Dance session this week, we have been continuing to make circular arm movements to the music ‘Pat a Cake’. All the Kits enjoyed moving to the music using circular movements.
During our Outdoor Learning Environment, the Kits practised a variety of skills, such as playing tennis using rackets and balls. They worked on their throwing skills by using bean bags and aiming at the hoops. The Kits also jumped on spots, practising to lift both their feet up in the air together and using the small stool to jump off safely. They transferred sand into pots of several sizes using spoons, working on their hand-eye coordination and spooning skills.
Our 345 Café was very popular with the Kits as they all joined in to have a Festive Lunch with their friends, taking turns in the Mud Kitchen to prepare some yummy foods. They used various natural herbs, soil, and utensils with pots and pans and strawberry pie was on the menu as a special. The children loved building snow domes using foam and soft blocks in the tuff tray. They explored the texture and used their imagination to build several other creations too.
We can’t believe that it is almost the end of the Autumn term. The Kits have been rehearsing for the Christmas Nativity Play, where they have been practising singing and using props. They have also been busy preparing special gifts and cards to take home next week. What a surprise!
We look forward to the last week of our Autumn term.