On Wednesday, it was Nursery’s turn to explore learning beyond the classroom as they ventured off to ‘Miracle Gardens’. They had a wonderful time exploring the natural world through the amazing flower displays there, journeyed on a train around the park and even got to see some moving dinosaurs! On Nursery’s return to school, there were beaming smiles and tons of excited children buzzing about their trip, eager to tell everyone what they had done. A thank you to all parents and carers who were able to join the trip, experiencing learning with their child.
Isla Gillespie
Head of Early Years
Pre-Nursery
Pre-Nursery have been soaring high above the clouds this week as we explored the wonderful world of air aviation. Focusing on the aeroplane, the children have had fun whizzing around the class, making loop the loops just like a plane. We have learnt about the different features a plane has, such as a nose, tail and engine, while identifying that the wings help the plane fly like a bird!
When asked, ‘Where does a plane go?’ Pre-Nursery all knew it flies high up in the sky with the clouds. However, they were quick to let Miss Isla know they also start on the ground and end on the ground too. Excellent observations Pre-Nursery! We put this theory to the test as the children had fun exploring how to make paper aeroplanes fly in the indoor playground. Together we held them high and used our arms to push the plane up and out of our hands. There were shrieks of delight as the children watched the paper planes float in the air and then fall to the ground.
Next week our transport journey continues with flying up, up, up and way, as we zoom off to space in rockets.
Nursery
Traffic, crowds, shopping, and the night lights of the city caught our attention this week as Maisy took a holiday to visit a friend! Lessons learned coincided well with our wonderful Miracle Garden field trip, discussing what we might do when lost and how to stay safe on public transport.
We looked at subway maps and talked about what colour metro line we live by in Shanghai! Nursery played the "Go and Stop" game to remember traffic rules and talked about what we like to buy when we go shopping in the city.
Nursery were excited to investigate our field trip map and identify the key locations we wish to visit. It was fun to plan a short itinerary together for our visit to Miracle Garden and draw our own maps of the garden. The children drew areas of interest on their maps that we included in our trip plans: the dinosaur playground, the carpet flower exhibit, the magical train ride through the gardens and the forest flower valley walk!
What a great day out we had observing nature at its best and marvelling at the care and attention in achieving such a wonderful display of natural design.
Our Summer journey continues next week as we explore teamwork, friendship and never giving up as we follow the adventures of Lola! Lola embarks on a seaside castle build project with new friends using the amazing natural resources the beach has to offer!
Reception
This week has been particularly busy in Reception. The children have shown fantastic focus and maturity by completing their different assessments over the course of the week and we are delighted by their progress and attitudes to learning.
We relived our experience at the aquarium by making our own aquariums using different shoe boxes and cereal boxes. We discussed as a class all the different sea creatures we saw on the trip and what ones we would like to have in our aquarium!
The children also made their own aquarium non-fiction books, writing different facts about the sea creatures using wonderful descriptive words to label their animals.
Finally, we used our mathematical knowledge to answer different words problems involving addition, subtraction, doubling and halving!
