Miss Bond's family group had a great time outside today. They decided to build a structure using the crates and the planks. They worked together as a group, making it better and better. By the end of the session they had a bridge, a tunnel and a slide. It was big enough for them all to play on at once. As well as learning how to work together and share, they learnt how to cooperate and negotiate and how to build and construct, altering and adapting their work as they went along.
We are always looking for ways to help the children learn in fun ways, so they are engaged and interested. We have been trying to think of ways to encourage the children, especially the boys to write and more importantly to want to write.
We looked at our provision and saw that most boys loved to play in our fabulous outdoor area and that although there are mark making opportunities outside such as writing bags, chalk and blackboards and a large whiteboard, the boys very rarely choose to write, so we knew we needed to make writing a 'want to do' job rather than something that is a chore.
We decided to turn our outdoor playhouse in to a writing den. We set the fabulous Mrs Haywood off to work. With cargo nets hanging from the ceiling and fake grass for the floor the house has been transformed in to an exciting writing den that should appeal to boys.
It has been decorated with a variety of carefully chosen examples of texts that should encourage the children to read and mark make, from simple logos they will recognise from their everyday experience to newsprint and Star Wars posters.
There are a variety of pens, pencils and things to write on. These include badges, labels, clipboards, signing in sheets and post it notes. There are plenty of props to encourage talk and to use as a starting point for writing such as binoculars and a camping stove.
It is so exciting we can't wait to see the results! We will keep you posted with how the den develops!
On Thursday Ms Whimster came from St Giles Nursery to see how well we had settled in and to see how grown up we are at big school. It was lovely to see her and we enjoyed showing her around our lovely new learning centre. Ms Whimster gave the children their special books from Nursery. It was lovely to be able to take them home so that we could show our grown ups our learning.
Foundation were busy little bees on 'Making a Difference' day.
With the help of Asda on Nettleham Fields we made and decorated cakes to sell to raise money for the MS Therapy centre on Outer Circle.
We also made a difference to our school by clearing leaves. We learnt how we could put them in the compost bin to make even more of a difference in the future.
