Our hybrid educational approach at Alphablocks Nursery School has been recognised for its beneficial mix of pedagogical methods, which are naturally incorporated in our everyday practice and guide our children’s learning journeys. During this Spring Term we are focusing on a different approach every two-week ‘cycle’ (we call these ‘focused weeks’). Regular updates will be published in our blog.
Children at the age of two start developing a strong drive for independence and determination. They begin to want to do things for themselves. Most of the time this drive does not coincide with their actual abilities to do things in a timely or effective way. For example, children might not have the specific coordination skills required to put on their clothes by themselves. So, quite often, parents or teachers decide to step in to help them. However, this is not the most effective approach. Children need to be offered opportunities to master new skills in order to feel capable of taking on new responsibilities. They need to learn through trial and error.
Alphablocks Nursery School & Pre-Prep in Hadley Wood provides outstanding early education to children aged two to five years old. We empower children to become confident learners in a safe and stimulating environment, which adapts according to the skills that we want our children to develop.
This school year is coming to a close with an outstanding Ofsted rating, which validates the efforts of our children, parents or carers, and brilliant teachers.
Today we look back at Autumn and ask: What does Autumn mean for children?
Seasonal changes is a recurring theme which runs through many of our outdoor activities at Alphablocks Nursery School. The children began noticing changes in the weather from the middle of September and talked about it being rainy, or they noticed how the colours of the leaves transformed from deep greens to light yellows, gold, and brown. Warm colours of oranges and reds were to be found later on, during explorations in our sensory garden, our tall trees at the front, or indeed during our Forest School days out.
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.
