What a beautiful, warm and sunny spring day we had today! We made the most of the glorious weather by taking our learning outside and embracing lots of exciting water play and sensory activities.
Our morning started with our daily phonics session, where the children showed great enthusiasm in practising their sounds—building those all-important early reading skills. Once we finished, we eagerly headed outside to enjoy the sunshine. The children were thrilled to explore our outdoor space with water play at the heart of the fun!
In our outdoor kitchen, they used plenty of water to create imaginative recipes, splashing and stirring with delight—developing their communication and language as they chatted about their 'ingredients.' At the water table, they experimented with mixing coloured chalk into their ‘potions,’ observing how the colours changed and blended together, a great opportunity to develop their understanding of the world. Our space station even underwent a transformation and was renamed the ‘Rain House’ as the children decided it needed a watery makeover, showing their creativity and problem-solving skills!
A highlight of the morning was the water play equipment that Mr O'Neon set up. This fantastic structure, which allows water to flow through various sections like a cascading waterfall, provided endless entertainment. The children excitedly filled the top section, then opened the dam to release the water and watch it rush down to the bottom. As they played, we explored mathematical concepts like capacity and volume, encouraging the use of new vocabulary to describe what they observed—building those early maths skills in such a fun and practical way! Since our COOL time overlapped with playtime for other classes, we also had some extra friends join in the fun, promoting social interactions and turn-taking.
After a very soggy but happy morning, we worked together to tidy up before enjoying our snack, drink and a lovely story outside on the playground—a perfect way to relax, refuel and build a love for stories and storytelling.
The sunshine continued into the afternoon and after our Maths session, we ventured back outdoors for more exploration. This time, our trough tray was set up with an exciting collection of yellow-themed objects in honour of our space topic focus this week—the Sun! The tray was filled with yellow beads, straws, Numicon, pom-poms and even custard! The children loved mixing everything together, creating wonderful, messy concoctions—developing their fine motor skills as they scooped, poured and stirred. Some even decided to have a little taste of the custard, giggling as they did so!
It was a fantastic day of outdoor learning, creativity and laughter. The children truly embraced the sunshine, strengthening their confidence, independence and curiosity. We can’t wait for more warm days ahead to continue our exciting explorations!
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