Discovering where our food comes from. Wk. beg. 22nd March

This week we have found a new website which you may like to visit with your children; www.school.asda.com/teachers/farmtofork. We have had great fun scaring the crow away from the vegetables we have planted and deciding where to go to - the dairy, the veg-plot, the fields, the hen house to learn where our food comes from.

Healthy Body, Happy Me Week 15th - 19th March

Last week we enjoyed activities to celebrate 'Healthy Body, Happy Me Week'.

We tried lots of exotic fruits including dragon fruit and Sharon fruit, then made them into a yummy smoothie.

• We have done a survey of our favourite fruits, which we are going to plot onto a graph to form the centre-point of a new display.

We became real artists with our 'still life' fruit drawings and paintings.
We talked about what is needed to stay healthy and planted seeds which are already growing

Healthy body, happy me! Week - 15th - 19th March

Next week (15th - 19th March) we will be taking part in the Healthy body, happy me! week being promoted by NDNA (National Day Nurseries Association).

We will be talking about heathy eating throughout the week and will be tasting some exotic fruit for special snacks as an alternative to sweet biscuits (which we occasionally have as a treat!)

We are going to be having different cereals at breakfast time, such as muesli and bran flakes and encouraging the children to have a piece of fruit with their breakfast, the first of their 5 aday.

We will be planting our NDNA sunflower seeds and putting up the special Noddy measuring chart to monitor their growth.

We will be doing music and movement sessions and hope to be outdoors as much as possible and will be talking about exercise.

We would like to involve parents and ask if you can make your child's packed lunch even more healthy than usual and continue the message of healthy body, happy me at home.

Visiting the lambs

On Thursday last week (4th March), the older children walked across the fields to see the lambs in the orchard in Conderton.

They followed the footpath signs as they went. When they got there, they stayed outside the orchard
so that they didn't frighten the lambs or their mothers.

As they sat and enjoyed the sunshine, all bundled up in their waterproofs, they also saw a buzzard circling overhead.
 

Chinese New Year Celebrations

We learned about and celebrated Chinese New Year for just over a week

On Wed 10th Feb we were invited, with Kemerton Pre-school to Overbury School’s reception class where we joined in with craft activities and had an early experience of the classroom

Our own activities the following week allowed us, to explore another country’s culture (knowledge and understanding of the world).
Looking at our own animal personalities gave a sense of self and we also thought about other members of our families, considering the years of their births and inviting parents to explore the display with their children (personal, social and emotional dev. and problem solving, reasoning and numeracy).


We looked at the story behind Willow patterned plates (communication, language and literacy) and created our own (creative dev.).

By making tiger masks (2010 is the year of the tiger) we discovered what happened when we mixed yellow and red paint, then took care to cut them out honing fine motor skills (physical dev.)

Our new work of art!!

You will probably have noticed the fabulous 'totem pole' at the front entrance to the nursery.

We think it makes a spectacular impact and hope you agree.

If you would like to discover more about it please check out the following website.http://www.gileskent.co.uk/

Please make sure that your children admire it from a safe distance as we would like it to welcome generations of 'new grasshoppers' in the future!

Bird feeding & Chinese New Year

Last week (8th – 12th Feb) we started to prepare our bird feeding area.

The children really enjoyed making fat balls on pine cones, some went home, some we hung near our seed and nut feeders.

So far we haven’t had many feathered visitors, but we have enjoyed hearing about the children’s successes at home.

We hope to test the school children’s carpentry skills next week , making a bird table !



This week we have continued our celebrations of Chinese New Year after our session last Wednesday at school.

You may know your Chinese animal personality, but do you know what it says about you? We have a display up in the main room, come and find out! KUNG HEI FAT CHOY!

British Farmhouse Breakfast Week

Celebrating British Farmhouse Breakfast week 24th - 31st Jan enabled us to work on at least 3 areas of learning:

• Spreading toppings on toast helped to hone fine motor skills (physical development)
• Talking about where the bread, butter and honey come from explored knowledge and understanding of the world
• Snacks is always a sociable occasion, allowing development of personal, social and emotional skills

Snow at Overbury Grasshoppers

We had heavy snow in Overbury last week; apologies for any inconvenience caused as a result of our closure on Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday. We were all pleased to be back on Thursday and had a lovely time building snowmen.

Choosing our Christmas Tree!

Last Friday we were treated to a tractor ride up onto Bredon Hill to choose our Christmas tree. Derek collected us in the Overbury Farms tractor and trailer, and delivered us up the hill to Martyn the forester - who was waiting to fell which ever one we chose. We came back to Overbury Grasshoppers with a 7 foot tall, beautiful bushy green tree to decorate!