Spring and Fairy Tales
'I''ll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down'

Fairy tales is a cross-curricular theme that introduces the children to cultural traditions and is an excellent creative vehicle for developing skills,concepts and knowledge across all six areas of the early years' curriculum. It doesn’t take the children long to discover the magical language of fairy tales and they love joining in with repetitive dialogue – “Run, run as fast as you can you can’t catrch me I’m the Gingerbread Man!” and “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!”. They begin to be aware of the structure of stories and the main characters, which they incorporate into their role play and simple book making, where their vocabulary reflects the breadth of their experiences.Their imaginative play is bursting with ideas and extensions of traditional stories and reflects their real life experiences too.
In the construction and art areas, castles and towers are being built out of a wide range of materials and there are a high number of pigs,trolls, wolves and princesses, in paintings and drawings. Children develop their manipulative and creative skills interpreting and expressing their thoughts and feelings independently and spontaneously in child and adult-initiated activities.



Mathematical skills and language develop as the children learn about counting, measure, sequences and sizes together in problem solving activities - ’How many beds were in the house of the bears? How big are the bears and the goats? How long does Rapunzel’s hair have to be to reach down to the ground ? How tall will my magic bean grow?As confidence grows, the second term offers opportunities to further develop and consolidate key concepts, skills and knowledge in literacy and numeracy and across the curriculum. Social and emotional development accelerates for those veteran members of the Nursery. New members soon settle into the enabling environment and make friends, readily supported by peers and adults alike. Everyone enjoys circle time, tidy up time, show and tell, singing and dancing together. There are daily opportunities for team work and solo experiences where we learn to think of others and express ourselves. Spring is just around the corner, the evenings grow lighter and the magpies return to the tree outside our window to rebuild their nest. We celebrate the Spring festivals of Chinese New Year, Mardi Gras and Easter with an indoor Spring garden,carnival masks, chocolate nests, an Easter Egg hunt and a host of golden daffodils.Learning is fun!
The Three Bears