Hampden Way: November 2020

We have had a busy November, filled with awe, wonder and lots of learning. Thank you for bringing in your family photos. These have been displayed on the wall, alongside your child’s drawing for all to see and also been made into family books for the children to access and share with their friends. We have been talking about families during ‘together time’ and listening to each other. The children are continuing to draw lots of pictures of their families, we have shared books about families and even made some of our family members out of clay, with one dad being given a marvellous set of whiskers!

We have looked at all the places around the world that our families come from and the flags that represent those countries with the children designing and making their own flags. This month we have also looked at the festivals some of our families celebrate. We celebrated Diwali by making Rangoli patterns with rice, petals and paint, we made clay diyas and sang our Diwali candle song. We also learnt about the story of Rama and Sita. We talked about things we are thankful for on ‘Thanksgiving’ and made an American flag.

It was world nursery rhyme week this month and we learnt a new song about ‘Bonfire night’ whilst also doing lots of counting and acting out ‘5 little speckled frogs.’ There has also been lots of other role play, continuing with our research about families, with the children retelling the story of ‘Goldilocks and the 3 bears’ and we are now reading and acting out the story ‘Whatever Next?’ with lots of other space themed resources.

There has been lots of scientific exploration and experimentation, mixing and combining different things together such as powder paint, sand, flour, washing up liquid and mud, looking at the changes and using lots of mathematical and descriptive language.

This month we also introduced ‘Wild Wednesday.’ This has involved all the children being outside together for an hour on Wednesday, opening the gate to the front garden and giving children the freedom to explore the whole outdoor space at Hampden Way. It has been wonderful to see everybody outside together, using the mud kitchen, rope swing, climbing over the ‘jungle’ and enjoying snack together around the fire circle.

We have had many campfires, with the children being extremely sensible and respectful of the fire circle rules. We have cooked popcorn, bananas and even made chocolate cake inside oranges!

Just a quick reminder to please ensure your child has a warm, waterproof coat with them every day at nursery as the weather is very changeable and also shoes that they can manage themselves – no laces please. It has been lovely to see so many children becoming independent in putting their coats on and we are beginning to practice doing up zips, we would love you to help support us with developing these independent skills. Also, please ensure all coats, hats, scarves are named.

We hope you enjoy looking through these photos with your children.