Hello Everyone!
We’ve had a very exciting week in Green Room talking about everything to do with pets!
On Wednesday, we were all very excited to be heading off to the bus stop to go to Timperley Village Aquatics, affectionally referred to locally as Timperley Zoo. The children were looking at all the numbers on the buses trying to spot the number 11, as well as discussing how big they thought the bus might be.
When we got on, the children were talking about all the things we were passing on the way to the pet shop and discussing when they usually take this route eg, going swimming, going to their friend’s house etc. When we got to the pet shop we first saw lots of birds, some guinea pigs and walked passed Baby, the parrot, to see all the fish. The children were using lots of different language to talk about what they could see including shape, size and colour.
The gentlemen that worked there were very kind and offered to bring out a python snake for us to have closer look at. The children were very brave stroking and even holding the snake, describing how it felt (soft and smooth) deconstructing misconceptions that snakes are slimy. He also brought out a bearded dragon for us to touch as well. The children were fascinated by the animals they saw and were curious to learn more about them.
As it was a beautiful day, we then went to the local park to have a play and a climb, all great for building confidence.
At Circle Time the following day, we recalled the events of our day out in our Big Book, using different time connectives to organise the events such as ‘first’, ‘then’, ‘next’ and ‘after’. The children then wanted to decorate it with the animals they had see there.
When we got back to nursery we read the story ‘The Great Pet Sale’ by Mick Inkpen and we talked about the animals we had seen at the pet shop compared to the animals in the story. We love this story as it also incorporates numbers for the prices of the animals and some phonics too.
During the week the children and staff had sent pictures to the room of their own pets. The children and staff loved talking about their own pets and how they look after them. So we organised for Kim to bring her puppy, Harley, in to meet the children (and staff!) and to talk to us about how she looks after him, tell us about his favourite toys and teaching him commands such as ‘paw’, ‘sit’ and ‘lie down’, using treats as a reward. We loved having Harley in Green Room and some children who were feeling a bit unsure about being around a dog, built up confidence to be more at ease. We also enjoyed reading the book ‘Dogs’ by Emily Gravett, talking about all the different types of dogs there are and which were our favourites. Following on from this we played a matching pairs memory game with the dogs from the story.
We have also very much enjoyed the fact that it feels very much like Spring is on the way. In Stretch-n-Grow, the children were using their whole bodies to explore Spring, pretending to be buds growing on the trees and different flowers growing in the ground.
You may also have seen pots of soil around the room, Jo has started planting with the children and seedlings are starting to shoot through which we are excited to see grow!
Have a great weekend.
The Green Room Team
Juice Nursery 