This week has been the a battle of trays with three completely different trays for all children to enjoy!! Worthing’s tray was based around the story ‘The Whale and the Snail’, the children enjoyed learning all about different sea creatures that live in the ocean as well as learning about how different textures feel as well as learning about their colours. Highdown’s tray encouraged the children to learn about flowers as flowers were their interest this week, the children from Highdown enjoyed bringing in different flowers that they had picked before coming into nursery. They had learnt all about the different colours and all the different names of the flowers. And finally Winklebury’s tray based around the story ‘Dinosaurs starting school’ as starting school has been a big interest and topic for the children who are off to big school in Septmeber so Winklebury’s tray encouraged the children to explore different sensory aspects of the story while talking about how they are feeling about starting school in September. But which tray will be the winners this week??

Worthing ~ ‘The whale and the snail’ story

INTENT ~ This activity is to help the children explore with their imagination and understand the whale and the snail story. They would learn about what different sea creatures live in the ocean with the small world figures. They would learn about what the different textures feel like with the tissue paper. The would learn about what the creatures look like and what colours they are. They would understand the story through the activity by reading them the story.

IMPLEMENTATION ~ This snail and the whale activity was made by putting dark blue tissue paper for the background for tray. Then ripped up light blue tissue paper to make waves for the sea. Also I printed off pictures of the whale and the snail characters from the story. Then I used small world, boats and different sized sea creatures for the ocean. I also put the whale and then snail book inside the tray so the children could understand what the activity is about.

IMPACT ~ The children really enjoyed this snail and the whale activity. They pushed the boats across the ocean with the tissue paper. They picked up the different sea creatures and learnt about what colours they were and name them. They enjoyed listening to the story and picking up the different characters from the story and moving them around the tray. They really enjoyed looking at the pictures in the story, the also enjoyed finding the big fishes and little sea creatures.  

Highdown – Flowers tray

INTENT ~ The idea around the tray was based around the national day Denmark. I wanted the children to learn about Denmark and I also wanted to include their interest of flowers and the outside environment. As the children enjoyed spending time outside picking flowers and arriving at nursery with flowers I wanted them to learn more about flowers and talking about all the different names of the flowers.

IMPLEMENTATION ~ Before the tray was set up some of the children went on a walk to see how many different flowers we could see and pick up. On the walk the children were naming all the colours they could see and also naming the popular known flowers as daisy’s and bluebells. In the tray I added all the flowers that the children had collected and arranged them in a bunch as you would get from the shops. Around the tray I added pictures of flowers they would know as well as flowers they wouldn’t be so keen on. I then splattered some paint over the tray to represent the petals of the fallen flowers.

IMPACT ~ The children stood around the tray and straight away pointed out “look flowers!” Lots of questions were asked by the adults and children, such as “Where can you find flowers?”, “What flowers can you see?”, “What do they smell like?” and “What is your favourite flower?” As the children were holding the flowers they stroked the petals and named the colours that they could see well as saying “smells yummy”. Using the pictures I asked if they knew any of the flowers. Some of the children identified the letters and had a really good guess at what it was meant to say whilst others looked at colours and said “rainbow one”. The main thing the children learned about was that the popular flower in Denmark is marguerite daisy.

Winklebury ~ ‘Dinosaurs starting school‘ story

INTENT ~ Over the last few weeks since the children got their school places we have been discussing going to school. We have been doing school leavers group time and in that group we have introduced a story which has dinosaurs and it talks about going to school. The children have really related to this well as 1. It has dinosaurs and all children love dinosaurs and 2. Their discussing their feelings about school with their friends. Children have listened well and have started asking lots of questions and asking to read the story both with a grown up and by themselves.

IMPLEMENTATION ~ When the children saw the tray they automatically said it’s our dinosaur story and could not wait to play in it. The grown up at first read the story and then talked about it afterwards before they played. Then once the story had been read the children were allowed to explore the tray. The tray was designed around the story and the children followed the tray as it was a story board. There were arrows to help guide them to the way they needed to play with it. In the tray it had sand, dinosaurs, spaghetti and play dough (meatballs), dinosaurs and the children’s names. 

IMPACT ~ The children loved this tray, they recognised it straight away. The children explored the whole tray, understood the way of the tray when playing and enjoyed all the different textures. They were reciting the story when they were playing and including their other peers to play that weren’t in the tray. Hearing the children speak to each other was so lovely. 

THE WINNERS THIS WEEK ARE……………………………… HIGHDOWN