Butterflies
Welcome to Butterfly class! We have mainly 3 and 4 year olds in this class, but we also have some older 2 year olds as well. Our classroom is quite different to the other two rooms as we have a conservatory attached which gives us views of our woodland garden. The conservatory houses our art studio and it gives children the space and resources to create all different styles of artwork. In Butterfly class we also have a cookery area, equipped with child sized equipment and outfits which was set up using a National Lottery grant.
As with all the classrooms, we have divided up the areas using shelving, so children have direct and easy access to the resources available to support their independent play. We tend to have many resources that stay the same, so that children can return to their activities over a period of days, and revisit their favourite activities. However, we also add resources that may be of interest to the children, such as fairy-tale outfits in the home corner.
All children have their own coat peg and pigeon holes. Upon arrival in the morning or afternoon, we encourage children to find their peg and put all their belongings away. The pigeon holes can be checked by parents at the beginning or end of a session, for letters or leaflets.March 2023
Our core story for Butterfly class this half term has been ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy which is about a character called Baby Bear who goes to the moon. The children have been listening to this story, talking about the pictures and the characters so they are becoming really familiar with it. We have a tuff tray with the characters and small world props so the children can use them to retell the story. Also we have had a space ship outside in the main garden so the children can pretend to fly to the moon and this has been very popular with all the children.
The children have created a display of their art work to do with the story in the classroom as they have painted Baby Bear and printed moons, stars and planets on black paper.
We have learnt about the ‘Shrove Tuesday’ or ‘Pancake Day’. We watched Amanda make a batter mix and cook us all fresh pancakes that we enjoyed for snack. The children had a go at making pancakes using the play dough and then flipping them in the mini frying pans.
The children have dressed up as their favourite book characters and we have read lots of great story books as part of ‘World Book Day’. Ellie Sandall came to visit and she read us one of her stories ‘Balancing Bernie’ and the children enjoyed doing some balancing activities with her as a follow up from her story.
During ‘Science Week’ we did some different experiments including Dancing Raisins where we put raisins into lemonade, we played with gloop, made little rockets, froze water and then melted the ice with salt. We have revisited hand washing with the children and talked about germs we cannot see.
We have been learning about the celebration of Easter as we have read books about Easter and eggs. The children have been playing with plastic eggs and coloured rice in a tuff tray. We have been drawing patterns on paper egg shapes and using chalks outside to create different sized eggs. We made an egg decoration by winding different coloured pieces of wool around a cardboard shaped egg. The children enjoyed a surprise visit from the Easter Bunny as he left them all a chocolate egg to find around the Woodland Garden.
The children also enjoyed a visit from Bertie the dog who belongs to Katy and they enjoy giving him lots of strokes.
Woodland Julie has been busy supporting us and the children with playing in the Woodland garden on Thursdays this term. We have played in the mud, planted some vegetables our raised bed, made a rocket using the long sticks, hunted for mini beasts and worms in the mud to name a few activities.
Our core story for next half is ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ which is a traditional tale.
Thank you for your continued support and have a lovely break.
Our core story for Butterfly class this half term has been ‘The Enormous Turnip’ which is a traditional tale. The children have been listening to this story, talking about the pictures and the characters so they are becoming really familiar with it. We have a tuff tray with the characters and small world props so the children can use them to retell the story.
The children have been exploring the characters in the story through different art and craft activities including drawing, painting, play dough and printing.
We have learnt about the celebration of Chinese New Year. We have explored objects, artefacts and books including clothing and chop sticks for the children to use. The children enjoyed watching several short programmes on CBeebies about how a family celebrates Chinese New Year as well as watching a dragon/lion dance. We created a dragon with the children so we could do our own dragon dance around the garden. We had coloured dried rice and noodles in tuff trays to play with and a noodle bar outside in the garden. The children enjoyed trying a vegetable spring roll, plum sauce, prawn crackers and rice for snack. We listened to some Chinese music while they ate their snack and some of us had a dance too!
The children have been making telescopes and binoculars during bird watching week to help them spot different types of birds in the main and woodland gardens. We have made pine cone bird feeders and some chocolate nests. Staff set up a bird hide in the classroom with bird spotting sheets and we had a tuff tray with bird seed for the children to explore.
We have also been learning about technology and how to keep ourselves safe when using it. The children have told us they like watching programmes like ‘Bluey’ and playing games on a mobile telephone or tablet.
The children have been enjoying playing outside in all weathers and especially in the frost/ice lately so thank you for sending in spare clothes, coats, hats, gloves, scarves and wellies. We have been making simple ice sculptures, marking in ice and sliding down the hill in the sledges.
Woodland Julie has been busy supporting us and the children with playing in the Woodland garden on Thursdays this term. We have had green tea after boiling the hot water using the Kelly Kettle, spotting birds using binoculars, playing with ice, making bird seed mud pies, using spades to dig for worms and hunting for mini beasts.
Our core story for next half term is ‘Whatever Next!’ by Jill Murphy.
Thank you for your continued support.
Our core story for Butterfly class this half term is ‘It was a Cold Dark Night’ by Tim Hopgood. The children have been listening to this story, talking about the pictures and the characters so they are becoming really familiar with it. We have a tuff tray with the characters and small world props so the children can use them to retell the journey of Ned the hedgehog as he looks for a home.
The children have been exploring the characters in the story through different art and craft activities including drawing, painting, clay, play dough, winding wool and pegging pegs onto cardboard hedgehogs.
We have learnt about Diwali - the festival of Light as the children made Rangoli patterns using rice and chalk as well as trying some food for snack like rice, shukaar paarah, mango chutney and naan bread. We watched how a family celebrated Diwali on CBeebies and learnt a song about a Diva lamp burning bright. We watched some fireworks on our Interactive White Board and made some different firework pictures from paint to learn about Bonfire Night. We sang a couple of songs about fireworks including ‘On Bonfire Night’. Then we made red and purple poppies to add to our nursery Remembrance wall and tried really hard to keep quiet for two minutes on Friday 11th November at 11 o’clock. The children went on a Pudsey Ramble for Children in Need and looked around nursery for the characters – Pudsey and Blush. We made bear biscuits and a bear face for snack from a half of a pancake, banana slices for ears and raisins for its eyes and nose.
The children have been enjoying playing outside in all weathers and especially in the rain lately so thank you for sending in spare clothes, coats and wellies. Jumping and playing in puddles has been particularly enjoyable for all of them!
Woodland Julie has been busy supporting us and the children with playing in the Woodland garden as we have cooked soup and heated water over a fire to make hot chocolate. We have learnt how to keep safe around a fire, used hammers to crush chalk to make paint, hammered nails into pieces of wood, collected sticks, played in the mud kitchen, dug for worms and used the wheelbarrows to name just a few exciting activities the children have experienced.
Our Butterfly class sing-a-long is Tuesday 13th December at 9.30am or 2.15pm. Our Christmas party is on Tuesday 20th December so remember to dress up.
Thank you for your continued support.
Our core story for the next few weeks is ‘Owl Babies’ by Martin Waddell. We will be reading the story and looking at the pictures to help us to start learning about owls. We will be finding out facts about owls using some non-fiction books and the internet. We are drawing, printing and painting owls. We have been finding feathers in the Woodland garden and looking at different birds using the binoculars.
We are learning about the season of Autumn through finding lots of fallen leaves, seeds, pine cones and conkers in both gardens. We have been doing some conker rolling using conkers in paint, printing using apples, counting conkers and looking for spiders in their webs. We will be collecting lots of sticks so we can use them to paint with, decorate them and wrap wool around them.
We have been singing and playing different instruments. We have been singing familiar songs and rhymes as well as learning some new ones! The children love singing!
Please could the children bring some wellie boots and a warm waterproof coat as the weather is getting colder and wetter as the term is progressing. Our woodland day for this term will be a Wednesday and this starts week commencing 10th October.