Newsletters
Topic: Spring
To achieve the Early Years Foundation Stage it is paramount that parents are involved at all stages of their child’s development at the setting. It is a two-way dialogue to promote children’s well-being. Please help us to establish this relationship by contributing and getting involved as much as possible with our topics and activities.
Activities and learning objectives
The activities in this topic provide opportunities for recognising the changes that take place during the spring. Children will be able to learn about springtime animals and they will be introduced to the concept of life cycles. During the topic the children will have opportunities for planting seeds and observing them as they grow.
Week 1 (W/C 22/02/10) New Life
The Very Hungry Caterpillar – A discussion on favourite foods after reading the popular story about the caterpillar.
Making caterpillars from play dough – Modelling caterpillars and comparing sizes
Obstacle course for a caterpillar –Experimenting with different ways of moving around an obstacle course, pretending to be a caterpillar.
Waking up – Acting out a simple story.
Melting ice cubes – Experiments with ice cubes, hot and cold.
Nature Walk – On a group walk the children will be looking out for signs of spring and discussing findings.
Daffodils – Making a daffodil picture.
Caterpillars - Making a picture of a caterpillar, writing and sequencing numbers 1 to 5.
A caterpillar’s lunch - Threading paper plates.
Blossoming trees - Mixing paints and painting blossom trees.
Week 2 (W/C 01/03/10) Seed Week
Pretending to be a seed growing – Role play.
Five little peas – Joining in with number rhymes and songs.
Volumes with rice or lentils – Experimenting with heavier and lighter, more and less.
Shakers – Making shakers and exploring the sound that they make.
Throwing and catching beanbags – Throwing and catching games.
Hide and Seek seeds – Finding hidden seeds in compost; sorting into groups and counting.
Names on seeds – Recognising names and looking for words beginning with the sound ‘s’.
Rice and lentil pictures – Using imagination to create pictures from rice and lentils.
Planting cress – ...and watching it grow
Fruit print– Examining fruit using our senses, making prints with the fruit using paints
Week 3 (W/C 08/03/10) Frogs
Role-play frogs – Role-play, pretending to be a frog growing from frogspawn.
Five little speckled frogs – Children will learn the song and actions for five little speckled frogs.
Observing and growing tadpoles – Looking carefully at tadpoles and learning a little about them.
Frog jumps – Experimenting with different ways of moving.
Frogspawn – Examining and painting frogspawn.
Lilypads – Making play dough lily pads. Learning about texture.
Floating and sinking – Experimenting with objects to find things that sink and things that float on water.
Bubble Painting – Creating patterns by blowing with a straw into paint.
Beanbag frogs – Simple adding and counting while playing an aiming game with beanbags.
Week 4 (W/C 15/03/10) Spring Showers
Wet words – After reading ‘Splosh’ by Mick Inkpen, children will be looking for words to do with the rain.
Walking in the rain – Acting out a story about a walk in the rain.
Water rhymes – Singing rhymes about the weather.
Rainbow – Painting a picture of a rainbow.
Raindrops – Playing in water and experimenting with containers.
Runny pictures – Experimenting with paint and water.
Raindrop sounds – Exploring the sounds of musical instruments.
Disappearing names – Experimenting with evaporation.
Clothes for the rain - Discussing wet weather clothing and looking for pictures in catalogues.
Week 5 (W/C 22/03/10) Lambs and wool
Little Bo Peep, hide and seek – Counting to ten and playing hide and seek.
Little Bo Peep, rhyming – Finding words that rhyme.
Comb painting – Working creatively with paint.
Old Macdonald – Singing the popular song and making animal noises.
Sheep pictures – Pictures of sheep with cotton wool.
Animal sets – Making groups of animals and counting.
Follow the wool – Following a trail of wool around the room.
Wool letters – Making pictures and initial letters using wool.
Woolly jumpers – Examining and talking about woolly jumpers.
Please do no hesitate to contact me: gorete@poohsnurseryschool.co.uk with any questions, offers of help etc.