We are continuing with our long-term project of ‘Bringing Stories to Life’: children are capable of experiencing stories immersively, giving them an opportunity to experiment and see things from different perspectives.
We have worked on The Enormous Turnip story in the first half of this Spring term. The children enjoyed exploring various different vegetables on our nature table and acting out their unique versions of the story. Our key learning aims in choosing this story were to teach co-operation and working as a team, as well as introducing the mathematical language for size.
Children used the animals from the story to help retell it as they repeated the words ‘pull, heave, tug and yank’ the turnip from the ground. One of the children said ‘a tractor will work’. Another child thought this was a good idea but also suggested they might need a dinosaur’s help to pull it out of the ground. The children were also able to demonstrate problem-solving skills about what methods could be used to remove the turnip from the ground.
During this half term we also have been reading the story of Zog and the Flying Doctors. The children got to use a dragon, a mermaid, a lion and a unicorn in their small-world play and
learnt about the importance of helping others as well as that of self-confidence. One of our children, Coco, said:
I can be princess pearl and make the mermaid better by putting some cream on.
Child F. said:
I will be Gadabout and will cut the unicorn’s horn.
We made a big fuss around World Book Day on Thursday 2nd March and during the week we dressed up as favourite characters from various books.
The Little Read Hen story gave us many wonderful opportunities to enjoy the sensory display and act out versions of the story. Our main learning aims were to teach the children about co-operation, sharing, taking turns and working as a team. We have learnt about the cycle of life by exploring seeds and how we plant them on the soil and then look after them by giving them water, nutrients and plenty of sunlight.
As part of this story project, we also made bread, which the children have enjoying making and tasting. We enjoyed reading the Little Red Hen in different languages. We also looked at story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears and made our role play into the Three Bears’ House. We learned about sizes big, medium and small. We made and tasted porridge that was plane, sweet and salty and we got to practice using descriptive words and talk about properties. One of the boys said
I like my porridge plain, like Daddy Bear!
Alphablocks Nursery School & Pre-Prep in Hadley Wood, London, provides outstanding early education to children between 2 and 5 years old. We empower children to become confident learners in a well-planned environment, tailoring the learning journey of each child to its individual strengths and interests, and through a unique combination of different teaching methodologies. We serve the local communities of Enfield, Cockfosters, Oakwood, Potters Bar, High Barnet, Southgate, and surrounding areas.