Kits News - 7th February 2025

This week's Topic Book was Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin. The book is about the buttons of Pete the Cat's favourite shirt that keeps popping off, but Pete the Cat never loses his cool. No matter what surprises come his way, his motto is "It's all good."

We took inspiration from the story and the Kits have been busy making Pete the Cat using wooden spoons, various materials, paint, and glue for their Art project.

Our Role-Play was set up as a Doctor's Surgery, where the Kits learnt to name the one-handed tools and how to use them on the dolls and teddy bears, who were our patients.

The children practised strengthening their hand muscles and worked on hand-eye coordination through many activities, such as Peg Boards, Pegs and playdough, where the children added eyes, moutha, and noses and rolled small balls to create Pete the Cat's buttons on his shirt. The Kits used laces and buttons to thread, and they even counted how many they had threaded. The children made imprints using playdough, cotton reels, and buttons.

In the Small World area, the Kits explored Animals and Jenga Blocks, and enjoyed making enclosures for the animals to keep them warm. They used wooden blocks to create landmarks and played with the fire engines, firefighters, and houses with people. The Kits used their imagination to rescue the people from the fire. Elsewhere in the classroom the children have been busy playing with the wooden emotion people, wooden rainbow and natural materials. The Kits discussed different emotions, what makes us sad and happy, and how Pete the Cat felt when he lost the buttons from his shirt.

The Kits have been busy on the Mark-Making table, where the children explored the AnimaPhonics Cards and objects that began with that letter sound. They also practised tracing over letters and sounding them out. The Kits created various stamps and made marks using cars attached to coloured pens. The children loved lying down on the floor under the table, where they could draw with their friends using a variety of coloured pencils.

The children explored Kinetic Sand, scoops, and pots in the Messy tray. They made sand castles and discussed weight whilst filling the pot with sand and emptying it out again. The children loved looking for resin numbers in Gloop, which they practised to name and feel the texture of Gloop in their hands. Coloured water was also popular, and the children used pipettes and pots to transfer water and mix the colours to see what would happen. The children practised using tweezers to find the hidden insects inside the shredded paper. They named the different insects, and we described them too.

Our Maths table was popular with the Kits throughout the week, who practised counting wooden gem blocks and learnt to recognise numbers. They also played with 3D Puzzles and stacked shapes, practising counting and naming 2D shapes. The Kits explored threading beads to the matching number.

In our Outdoor Learning Environment, the Kits have loved practising their tennis skills using a racket and ball. They were all keen to participate in our obstacle course, practising jumping on spots and jumping off a small step by landing on two feet. The Kits practised kicking a ball into the goal and throwing the ball into the net. The children explored Sand, Bob the Builder, and other vehicles, where they helped fix roads and buildings by transferring sand and smoothing them. The farm, animals, and farmers were popular in the sand, where the Kits used their imagination to help the farmers feed the animals and clean the farm. The children were keen to explore our 345 Cafe, using various plates, pots, and utensils to create yummy foods, such as Lamb stew, salad, coffee, tea, cakes, etc. The Kits loved practising building the Montessori Broad Stairs with their friends. The children played various musical instruments and sang nursery rhymes and songs. They also shared and took turns playing with their friends with the Ride-Ons.

During Write Dance, the Kits continued to practise whole arm movements by using foam on tables and moving their whole hands and arms upwards and downwards to the music 'Beat the Drum'.

For our Maths Focus lesson, the children practised counting buttons and then matching numbers to quantity. During our cooking lesson, the children made biscuits with buttons, and they practised naming all the different ingredients, felt, smelt, and measured them before mixing them to form a dough. The children also used cutters to make their biscuits.

The children have had great fun during our Community Walks. On our first walk, we looked for numbers in our environment, and later in the week, we went on a 'circle' shape hunt and found many. We even counted 1-20!

The Kits have all had another fun-filled week at 345 Balham Nursery School.

We look forward to another fantastic week!