We Play with One Hammer, One Hammer, One Hammer!
Our woodwork area is well-used!
Hammers and nails, drills and screws… so many tools to know how to use!
Amber has been supporting children to be great learners… to ‘have a go’, to learn new things, to challenge themselves.
It takes absorption and perseverance to hammer in a nail doesn’t it… and great resilience to when to bounce back from the disappointment when the nail doesn’t hold or the screw doesn’t tighten!
All great skills to being a great learner.
Our St. Paul’s Promise is “I know I am a great learner” and helps children rise to challenges, take risks in their learning, to try and persevere, to become experts.
Pattern Painting
Mathematics is all about the search for patterns and relationships.
Children who expect mathematics to “make sense” look for patterns.
And pattern is everywhere isn’t it!
We have been recognizing repetition and relationships.
Pattern in sounds, music and song.
Pattern in nature, in water, in art, design, clothing.
Pattern in number and shape.
Pattern that grows, repeats, is symmetrical.
We have playfully made and modelled patterns that repeat with colour – in blocks, in cotton reels, with crayons.
We have painted and printed patterns too – exploring the shapes, colours, design – and how they repeat and repeat and repeat!
Pattern really is everywhere isn’t it!
Shadow Play
We are creative thinkers!
We are designers and makers!
We are mathematicians!
The magnetic shapes have supported children so well …
… to fit shapes together and take them apart
… to stack, enclose and arrange
… to play with and describe the properties of shapes
… to explore size and distance, movement and rotation, symmetry and pattern.
So much Maths!
And the light box has helped us see how all those shapes fit together to make new constructions and even more shapes…. Shapes within shapes!
And now the light box has supported children to recognise, describe and talk about shapes as they are projected onto the wall.
We have drawn around the shadow-shapes and used them to create pictures on the wall.
We are creative thinkers!
We are designers and makers!
We are mathematicians!
The Cello Sings To Us!
Thank you Drew for inviting Nursery 1 to be so very playful with music and sound!
The children were so enthralled to use their voice alongside your cello.
Loooooooonnnnnngggg notes!
Delighted, excited notes!
Curious and questioning notes!
Sombre and sad feelings evoked!
Singing partners to your playing.
Thank you for helping children connect so playfully to their many worlds.
Mapping Our World
Our St. Paul’s Promise is “I can connect with the wider world”
And there is a ‘saying’ that the curriculum is “inside the child and outside the window”…
It’s so important for the children make links and connections between home, school, their many communities… to develop their sense of place, their sense of belonging, their sense of participation and community.
Local walks to the park, to the shop, to look at all the amazing graffiti art and mural art around St. Paul’s has supported the children to connect with their space and place, to talk about what is familiar and significant, new and novel.
Back at Nursery, we the children ‘map’ the world using their senses and talk, using models of clay or blocks or Duplo, using their drawings.
Small Spaces
We want children to be skilful, confident and independent in being in a group.
Our St. Paul’s Promise says “I can belong and contribute to a group”.
Children have been using the wide open Explore Time to initiate and invite each other to collaborate together in building ‘table tents’ and small, intimate enclosures.
They have been using fabrics to create cosy corners, darker spaces, with torches to tell stories and ignite their imaginations.
Their learning is full of collaboration and connection.
Their learning is full of initiative and invitation.
Their learning is full of playful imagination.
Their learning is full of flexible cooperation.
Children are learning to “belong and contribute to a group”.
