Exotic Plants and Unusual Animals in Nursery
This week, the Dragonflies and Ladybirds have moved on in the growing and changing topic to the life cycle of plants.
We read a lovely book called ‘The Extraordinary Gardener’. It was about a boy called Joe who lived in a tower block in a city. Joe felt his world was very grey. He made him feel very unhappy as he wanted it to be more colourful. He spent time imagining a world of exotic plants and unusual animals. One day Joe decided to plant a single seed on his balcony, he waited and waited but nothing happened. The story taught the children the importance of caring for plants and flowers by explaining the things we need to do to help plants and flowers to grow. Overtime, Joe created a beautiful, colourful garden on his balcony and soon everyone in the neighbourhood wanted to get involved with Joe’s big idea!
Based on this idea, the Dragonflies and Ladybirds have planted a vegetable garden which we will observe each day to see if carrots, spring onions and radishes grow. In the classroom, the children had the opportunity to create their own gardens of colour, using paint and resources of choice. Later in the week, the children looked at the illustrations of Yuval Zommer's ' The Big Book of Blooms', where they created their own vases of flowers using paint and toilet tubes.
This week, the Butterflies stepped into the magical world of Cinderella. They tried to create a spell to make some pumpkins appear, but their spell skills still need a little bit of practice. Instead, the children planted their own seeds and we discussed how we look after the seeds to help them grow. The children have enjoyed fitting shoes onto all the soft toy animals and have even had a go at measuring their own footprints, using their knowledge of 'bigger' and 'smaller' size scales. At the end of the week, the children all made their own wands and using a cauldron, they made a giant spell soup, with some interesting creatures lurking inside!
Miss Ellis, Miss Wadman and the Nursery team
