Science week at preschool

This week has been science week and it has been wonderful to ignite our learning and explore how a seeds grows and observe the seasonal changes around us. To support our learning we read the texts 'Jasper's Beanstalk' by Nick Butterworth ' A Bean's Life Cycle' by Mary R. Dunn and ' A seed in Need' by Sam Godwin.

To develop our personal, social and emotional development during circle time children took it in turns to hold a variety of bean and sunflower seeds and talk about what they think the seed will grow into and what the seeds will need to grow. Many of us imagined the seeds would grow into a gigantic beanstalk. We have also been keen to plant more seeds independently and take responsibility for looking after them. We have also been discussing the feelings of the giant within the story Jack and the Beanstalk and discussing how we might feel if Jack took some of our belongings. Many of the children said they would feel sad, we then talked about different feelings cross, angry, frustrated, annoyed, shocked, worried to develop our understanding of feelings.

To enhance our communication and language skills we have been introduced to new language life cycle, shoot, sprout, root, air, nutrients, seedling, stem, bean pod, flowering, pollen and nectar. We shared our texts 'Jasper's Beanstalk' ' A Seed in Need' and ' A Bean Life Cycle' to bring the words to life. The children have also been encouraged to ask and answer questions about looking after and growing plants.

This week we have celebrated many birthdays and we have enjoyed cake and sweet treats for our snacks along with our fruit. To support our physical development we discussed what were healthy and unhealthy food choices at our snack table and talked about eating certain foods in moderation. We have also added a different variety of dressing up clothes to our preschool environment. the children are trying their best to dress independently and work together to turn clothes the correct way round. I have been impressed with all the independence shown. To support our gross motor skills and develop our hand/eye coordination we have used a bat to hit a ball, thrown, caught and kicked a variety of sized balls and have enjoyed riding the scooters being careful to avoid obstacles. To develop our fine motor skills and strengthen the muscles in our hands we played ' The Jelly Bean Game' we used tweezers to transport jelly beans from one bowl to another. The children showed such perseverance with this task as it was quite a tricky skill to develop!

The 'Jelly Bean Game' also supported our mathematics learning this week. We have used a variety of timers and timed to see how many jelly beans we can pick up and put into our bowl using tweezers in a set amount of time. We then estimated and observed to see if we could work out who had the most and least jelly beans in their bowl. The children were encouraged to put their answer into a sentence "The red bowl has the most jelly beans cos there is lots" " I can see 3 jelly beans in the blue bowl". We have also been testing out our answers and counted the total amount of beans in each bowl.

Within our literacy we have been listening carefully to our texts and answering and asking a variety of questions. We have also continued to read a variety of 'Jack and the Beanstalk' stories discussing the similarities and differences between them. It has been wonderful to observe language from these stories being used within the children's play.

To develop our understanding of the world we became scientists and have been experimenting to find out how a seed grows and how a plant drinks water. We read our texts to support our learning. We found out that seeds do not like the cold, they need warmth from the sun and water to help them grow. The first changes to a seed are unseen as the roots begin to form down into the soil and then the seed shoots and changes to a seedling.

To support our expressive arts and design development we have continued to use props to act out the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. I have been amazed at the children's confidence as they have acted out the different characters and the intonation and expressions used for the characters..... Hollywood here we come! We have also created blossom pictures, we stuck down pieces of brown paper to create our own tree or branch then we used our finger to print blossom.

Thank you for coming dressed in your sports wear/red today to raise money for Sports Relief. We have enjoyed a sporty day in the preschool garden.

Have a wonderful weekend preschool,
Tara