May-June 24
w/c 17 June 2024
Tie Ceremony 2024
It was lovely to welcome families to our Tie Ceremony and celebrate the children who will be moving onto school.
We have loved having you at Busby Nursery and are so proud of you. We wish all our wonderful leavers the very best for their future - enjoy your next exciting adventure!
The Purple Group
The Green Group
The Red Group
Busby Bakers:
The children have been collaborating to bake and ice vanilla sponge cakes for the Nursery Tie Ceremony, including a dairy free version. They worked hard together and took turns at cracking eggs, whisking, measuring ingredients, mixing the batter, spreading on jam, and then mixing and spreading on butter cream icing.
What a team!
A big thank you to Beau's Mum for the cake toppers!
w/c 10 June 2024
A Magical Time!
The children just loved their visit from the Magician!
They laughed so much!
After the Magician's Visit, some children were asking to make magic wands. So in Sewing Class they learned how to stitch together two felt shapes, then stuff them, decorate them and attach to a stick.
During this process, they selected their own preferred materials, including sequins, ribbons and beads, and showed great focus and fine motor skills as they threaded needles, cut materials and sewed edges.
Threading
Selecting
Sewing
Cutting
Concentration...
Stuffing
All Around the World
The children were talking about where they are going on holiday. This led to turning their role play area into a Travel Agents, and drawing flags. They were also offered the treat of a Tasting Session featuring different foods from around the world, including pizza, pasta, sushi, noodles, croissant and haggis. Their tastebuds were well and truly tickled!
A Wild Time!
The children had such fun exploring the Meadow area in the fresh air, enjoying the benefits of nature. They were also busy developing their gross motor skills, including core strength, balance, co-ordination, climbing, jumping, rolling and running/wheeling on gradients.
Outdoor "risky play" is great for developing children's:
* physical skills,
* self confidence
* emotional resilience
* sense of wellbeing
* ability to assess and manage risk.
Operating the pulley system
Running wild among the buttercups
Studying the buttercups
"We found a bee. Look, it's getting nectar for honey."
Building core strength
Practising jumping
Fun imaginative play using nature's ingredients
"We're baking a cake in the oven. It will take fifteen minutes."
Rolling downhill
Transporting uphill
Testing forces and gravity
Exploring Ancient Egypt through small world play, props and books.
"This is the Pharaoh and this is a mummy."
"How they made the mummies was they wrapped them in bandages, then put them in a box, then put them inside a pyramid."
"They rode on camels."
"I've been to Egypt when I was two.... The pyramids are THIS big!"
"The river is called the Nile. How long is it?"
Making an Egyptian village together...
...complete with tomb.
Small Block Building
"I've made a house."
Meanwhile other architects are busy working on a large scale house, using blocks as hammers to build it.
Some stained glass windows are added.
A swimming pool is added to the house extensions.
Time for a swim!
Jumping in the pool!
w/c 2 June 2024
Sports Day 2024
Welcome to our Sports Day! We had great fun taking part and demonstrating our brilliant skills to our families. We are all winners!
Junk Modelling Fun
'I was making a bag'
'my jetpack!'
We have been busy practising for our Sports Day this Wednesday, using muscles, co-ordination, balance and core strength.
Social Subjects & Small World:
After making bows and arrows and building castles in the sandpit recently, some of the children were learning a little more about Knights and Castles in medieval times through props, models and books.
"The armour would protect you."
"They had bows and arrows."
Some of them were then keen to make their own shield/coat of arms, which led to some great cutting and exploration of symmetry and pattern.
Snail Studies: We found a snail living near the Bug Hotel outside and the children were fascinated to observe it as it poked its head and antennae out of its shell and slid along a wet surface.
"It will like to eat this leaf."
w/c 27 May 2024
Building New Resources:
Some children helped to create a new play surface for our Small World area by learning how to attach artificial grass onto a wooden pallet using hammer and nails.
Exploring Music at the Keyboard
Team Spirit in the Block Area
Sensory Fun & Exploration
with water, shaving foam and dough
Highlights from the Hairdressers:
For a while, some of the children have been asking to turn their Role Play area into a Hairdressers. SImple props such as cardboard scissors, shampoo bottles, mirrors, wigs, posters and towels instantly had their imaginations flowing and social interactions flourishing! There were customers queuing up in our Unisex Salon, and knowledgable "staff" giving hair washes, cuts and advice, consulting on styles and taking phone bookings.
Wonderful to see such strong imaginations at work!
w/c 20 May 2024
Woodwork
The children have been exploring wood and experimenting with it at the Woodwork Table. Some of them chose to create ambitious designs, choosing what materials they thought would work best. Others were keen to try out some of the techniques of woodwork, such as clamping the wood in the vice, sawing it and hammering in nails, as they learned how to use real tools safely. Along the way they also developed their fine and gross motor skills, hand-to-eye coordination and their creative and problem-solving skills.
"The wood split. It's too thin. We need a harder bit like this."
"That nail is too long. It will stick through the other side."
"I want to use these buttons for eyes."
"The arms and legs can move!"
Exploring the origins and different states and forms of wood
A person, a unicorn, a heart and other designs
Setting the vice to hold the wood tight.
"I want to make a person. These can be for arms."
Sanding the wood
Choosing materials and designing.
"This will be for hair."
Sawing practice:
learning how to push and pull the saw with two hands.
Measuring
"His name is Bluey."
"I'm doing a heart."
Independent working
"We need to measure the four legs to make them all the same."
"It's an aeroplane."
"I'm making a cat. This is the eyes."
Sanding
Operating the vice
"We did it!"
w/c 12 May 2024
Cookery & Food Preparation:
The children had the opportunity to make a healthy pizza for snack and were learning where the ingredients come from. They were also developing their manual dexterity as they chopped fresh vegetables, spread tomato puree, grated cheese and sprinkled it.
Chopping
Grating
Spreading
Sprinkling
Science:
The children checked on their crystal growing experiment and found that very small crystals have started to form on the string. Exciting! We will keep monitoring their growth...
Outdoor Art:
Great concentration, excitement and colour experimentation as the children tried outdoor painting on a large canvas.
Upcycling Project:
Some of the children helped to restore an old broken ceramic planter. They mixed up plaster of paris, spread it around the pot, and decorated it with shells, buttons and tiles. Once dry they painted and varnished it, and planted some fuschias in it.
"My Dad uses plaster like this on the walls at home."
"It's going like custard."
Green Fingers
Our plants have grown so big and the pots are now too small for them. We are finding out as our plants grow and get bigger, the roots grow too and they need repotted to bigger pots to help them continue to grow.
Our budding gardeners are taking great care of their plants and making sure they have enough sunlight and water.
'it's so big!'
Now it's time to water the plants
'water will make it grow'
Flower Fun
Continuing the children's interest in flowers, the children used different materials to create various styles of flower artwork and be creative with. We tried a potato masher and a fish slice, and new painting tools to create various shapes. We had great fun experimenting, and used pastels and wax crayons.
Pastel and Wax Crayon Art - Tulip Still Life
w/c 6 May 2024
Beautiful Blossoms
The children were interested in some blossom that was brought in and how they had seen lots of blossom on the pavements. We created our own artwork using materials of our choosing (pastels was the favourite) and spoke about the many different shades of pink we had.
'This is for my mum, she loves
cherry blossom trees'
Marvellous
Mark Making
It's so much fun using shaving foam for writing and drawing! We experimented using our fingers and paint brushes and found we could easily manipulate the shaving foam as it's so soft.
The children made lots of wonderful shapes and letters - a fun, relaxing sensory play activity, plus the nursery smelled lovely afterwards!
'I can make a V'
'look a circle'
Playful Playdough
Playdough is firm favourite in the nursery and is great for creativity, strengthening muscle strength and fine motor skills.
