This week was Acorns Nest Box Week! Based on a UK event, it was an excellent opportunity for the children to learn about birds, how they make nests and lay eggs (in connection to the topic changes in animals), different types of birds and where they live and the importance of trees and forests.

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Our special guests this week were bird watchers Mimi and Cosmin (http://www.hortieco.ro). They prepared a presentation for Shiny Stars with lots of photos, bird song which the children heard and they saw examples of real nests. Rainbows and Early Explorers also enjoyed creative workshops and took home their work to put in the garden, on the balcony etc.

Baby Acorns said the rhyme ‘2 little dicky birds’ and learned ’I’m a little birdy’; they played the game Little Birdy Change your Nest and in circle time they pretended that they were birds sitting in a nest. In creative activities they drew egg shapes in paint, they decorated their own bird template using coloured feathers, glitter and crepe paper and worked together on making a large nest from a cardboard box.

early education

Shiny Stars talked about different types of birds and played the games ’duck, duck, goose’ and ’who is missing from the nest?’. The children learnt how birds eat worms and other small insects as they played with soil and pretended to be worms and they acted out a story as they pretended to be chicks hatching from eggs. Then, they learnt what are the most suitable environments for penguins, turkeys, chicken, owls and other birds, matching them to the right place such as arctic, forest or farm. In creative they made nests, a chick and egg craft and they decorated a bird with coloured feathers, shiny paper and glitter as they discussed the features of birds (head, beak, legs, tail etc).

early education

Rainbows discussed why birds need nests, where they build them, why some birds need to be protected and how we can do this. They used the Angry Birds characters to learn about what makes the children feel angry, how their body feels inside when this happens and how in these moments they can go to a calming down place (like a nest) until they feel better. In Jolly Phonics they learnt about the letter b while in maths they learnt to take away 2. In creative they made a bird seed collage and a bird made by using shapes cut from newspapes, an earth mural and edible nests.

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Early Explorers learnt about life cycles, how animals change as they grow, why they have feathers or fur and they cut out and sequence pictures to show the life cycle of a bird. In Jolly phonics they practiced reading and writing words that use the sound ‘ch’ while in maths they learnt how to count in twos and recognise the pattern in odd and even numbers. In creative they painted nesting boxes, made a bird in a nest collage, made windmills and their own nest using natural materials such as leaves, grass, sticks etc.

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