Toys was the topic for this first month of 2017 in Acorns Nursery, a theme close to the children’s hearts. Children brought in the nursery the new toys they received for Christmas, to show and share with others.
Baby Acorns sang Miss Polly had a Dolly and Teddy Bear Turn Around, they learnt the signs for these toys, experienced soft fabrics, practiced tossing a teddy into a basket and played with the parachute together as they co-ordinated in order to “throw” the toys up in the air and catch them. In messy and creative play, they painted freely using rolling pins wrapped in bubble wrap, decorated teddy bears with white and brown paint which they mixed together, used play dough to make teddies ears, nose. They also played with coloured boiled spaghetti and decorated a doll template.
Shiny Stars began the new term by introducing all the children to each other, helping the new ones to settle in and practising each others names by passing a soft ball to each other in circle time. They learned the difference between different types of toys and what they are made from by sorting toys into ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ categories. Shiny Stars also played with different sized toy bears inside a big box which they pretended was their cave. In creative activities, Shiny Stars began with free painting, then they washed dolls and plastic bears in warm soapy water as they talked about sizes and parts of the body.
Rainbows have begun the term by discussing the many different types of toys and games that we have in the nursery, where they are kept and how the children should look after them. After reading the book The Best Loved Bear the children talked about what was their favourite toy, why they liked it, and what kind of toy it was or if it had a name. They completed a worksheet about a toy box and in Jolly Phoincs they practiced all the letter sounds they had learnt, also practising the first letter of each person’s name with a song. In maths, Rainbows practiced comparing and ordering sizes: big, middle sized and small by cutting out and sticking bears in the right order and in the role play corner they practiced ‘paying’ for toys by counting pennies to match a price. In creative activities, they painted a picture of what they did at the weekend, made a bear shaped collage by sticking magazine strips inside a template, they drawn around and cut out patterned letters.
Early Explorers talked about the idea of the new year being like an adventure and about something that they would like to be better at doing: painting, reading, being kind etc). Each child wrote a sentence with their resolution on it and displayed it. They looked at pictures of different types of toys and discussed the name of the toy, how it was used, what it was made from and learned to recognise if it was ‘old’ (from when mummy or daddy were children) or ‘new’; They also read an information book about how toys have changed over the past 50 years and discussed why things change. In maths, they made number lines from 10-20 and then to 30, sequencing the numbers correctly and finding out about the value of digits (the first number being the number of ‘tens’). In creative, painted balloons for their new year resolutions, drawn their favourite toy, and created a colourful penguin art project
