Getting to know you

Observational painting.

As part of our theme we have spent lots of time on looking closely at the features of our faces and what makes us all different and unique. The children did some wonderful paintings and line drawings of themselves. Using a mirror, encouraged the children to observe details of their faces very closely. The pictures were all so individual and really seemed to capture each child's personality.


The author Shirley Hughes has written lots of stories that feature families and events that everyone can relate to. 'Alfie' is a wonderful little boy who is in many of the books. We have read several of these, for example, 'Alfie's Birthday Surprise' and 'Alfie's feet'. One of our favourites is, 'Alfie gets in first'. In this story he manages to lock everybody out of the house by mistake.....!

On the stairwell leading up to Upper Nursery the children have illustrated a poem by Shirley Huges called 'Colours',
Here is a verse all about the colour yellow,

'Syrup dripping from a spoon,

Buttercups,

Harvest moon,

Sun like honey on the floor,

Warm as the steps by our back door....'



Buttercups...
The season of Autumn has finally arrived with leaves really changing colour now. Many children have brought in some wonderful objects for us to observe and discuss. Of course this has meant we had a wonderful collection of horse chestnuts. These 'conkers' were a wonderful resource and we found that we could use them for many different activities. As well as using them to count and match to numerals, we used them to create shapes. Below you can see us using weighing scales and we discovered how to balance the two sides!

Some children tried to use the conkers to form their names as well as for shpes. We discovered that you can print with them too. Perpaps you could think of some more ideas for things to do with conkers.
Weighing