Natural Objects To Spark The Imagination

The way an activity is presented to the children has a powerful impact on its potential for learning. Skilled adults provoke children's interest and curiosity through the way they set up resources. This invites children in, leading them to become engaged and motivated, with opportunities to extend their thinking.

Initially a house was made with sticks, which then sparked her own recall of the snake’s log pile house from “The Gruffalo”.

A child entered into this activity, tempted in through the adult’s arrangement of a tree with bark and leaves, and a bird using circles of wood and sticks for a beak and legs. This was rooted in the children's interest in the different birds from our recent story focus of “Chicken Licken”.

As a variety of natural objects are available for exploration, presented in baskets for the children to select freely, this enabled her to build upon and develop her own ideas in the following ways.

Leaves were used for the fox’s den, it was important to her to provide him with some of these leaves to use as a blanket.

The owl’s house was created using bark pieces placed to form a large tree with spreading branches.

Shiny stones were selected and lined up to mark out the mouse house. Then finally, pine cones were carefully arranged for the Gruffalo’s cave, complete with a piece of bark stood up as his door.

The owl’s house was created using bark pieces placed to form a large tree with spreading branches.

These natural loose parts had been used by the child to create a complete story environment. A toy mouse could then explore and visit each of the character’s homes, retelling the story in her own way.

From an inspiring starting point, ideas evolved through the child’s own story knowledge and creativity. Freedom to select and arrange these natural objects gave the control to make her own choices and decisions. The open ended nature of this activity gave her the opportunity to use objects to represent the features of a story she knows well and remain motivated through her own interests.

This activity was an effective context in which she could use her communication skills to express her ideas. Also physical and mathematical experience was gained through manipulating and arranging the objects carefully. Access to this variety of natural materials also increases understanding of the world around us.

All this learning and imagination from such simple resources, and so much fun!

The Kitchen Garden

Whether or not you're a gardener you'll have noticed in the last couple of weeks that nature is waking up and springing into action after a long, dark winter. In the nurseries the grass that has been trampled into oblivion by hundreds of mini wellies over the wet winter is beginning to recover and is already looking more green than brown.

Flower borders littered with clumps of brown, rotted leaves and dry-looking twigs are suddenly reminding us of their potential as they push up fresh green growth. Spring has sprung!

In our vegetable growing areas we are starting to plan which edible plants to grow. We're looking for plants that will inspire the children with incredible colours, smells and textures. We want to instil in them a love of fresh food in all its glory. There's nothing more guaranteed to encourage children to try new tastes and textures of fruit and vegetables than helping to grow them. 

At Snapdragons Keynsham, Tim "don't-fence-me-in" Graham, our Leader of Outdoor Learning (#LOL), has been hard at work plotting out the vegetable patch and we're excited to reap the rewards. We have focussed on growing a variety of edible plants that are packed with sensory benefits - plants that smell amazing, look great, feel interesting and taste wonderful. On top of that, we've looked for plants that attract bees and other native wildlife to encourage a diverse and sustainable environment. We invited the Keynsham grandparents to help us plant up the kitchen garden and they didn't disappoint, sharing their love of growing with their grandchildren and helping to inspire the next generation of horticulturalists.

Over the next few weeks, we'll be watching the progress of our nursery gardens and looking to use the produce in our new Nursery Kitchen video feature. So if you've been inspired to get planting, we hope to give you some ideas of how to use your home-grown food. Let's get cooking!

How much screen time?

We live in a fast-changing world and screen gadgets are a huge and ever increasing part of it. Just take a moment to think how many different screen gadgets are part of our daily routines. Phones, watches, iPads, televisions, monitors, games, the list goes on. Research tells us that screen time should be discouraged before the age of two and only a maximum of 30 minutes a day allowed for 3-5 year olds. Not long, when you add up a few minutes television whilst getting ready in the morning, letting them watch something on your phone in the car, FaceTiming granny to tell her about their day and sharing a few photos or videos on the iPad with them. Psychologists are becoming increasingly concerned about children over-using screen gadgets.

As parents, we need to question how much time we use our screens ourselves. Think about the number of times you 'just check' your phone. The average is 9 times per hour and 110 times in a day, with peak use between 5pm and 8pm. We don't like to be more than 2 metres away from our phones, physically. 

So what's wrong with using screen gadgets? 

A child needs a variety of stimuli whilst they are growing and developing and nothing can replace the physical one-to-one time of interaction with your child. Talking and finding out about their day, mimicking their first sounds when they are learning to talk, or reading a story.

If your child is not getting enough access to social interactions, the development of their ability to deal with social situations and read clues from them can be dulled, possibly for good.

The brain's frontal lobe decodes and comprehends social interactions, it helps us empathise, take in non-verbal clues, read facial expression, tone of voice and it helps us to understand relationships and their part in the world around us. During the brain's 'critical period' of development (thought to be birth to age 3) if your child is not getting enough access to social interactions, the development of their ability to deal with social situations and read clues from them can be dulled, possibly for good. Psychologists are concerned that children overusing screen gadgets become used to the instant gratification it gives the brain. The child's developing brain readily accepts the feelings of instant pleasure (dopamine). A pattern is learnt by the brain and mimicked, the child develops a habit. 

Excessive screen time has been linked to childhood obesity. Recent research tells us that children who have limited screen time, consume fewer calories and are more mobile than children who do not have limited time. 

Difficult bedtime routines? 

We know that sleep is triggered by the hormone Melatonin which is linked to natural light dimming at the end of the day, telling the body to start the process of going to sleep. Bright lights that screens give off halt the natural process and inhibit sleep. Even a brief exposure of two minutes can delay the sleep process for two hours. Fragmented sleep, or too little sleep, makes us produce more of the hormone Gherlin, the hungry hormone and less of the energy hormone Leptin. This leads directly to weight gain. Poor sleep will impact on growth, immunity, blood pressure, memory, attention, ability to work something out and insulin levels. We know when we have been asleep for more than 5 hours the brain and body have a chance to rest and restore themselves. The active neurons rest and the supporting glial cells start the 'cleaning up process' to remove the toxins that have developed over the day.    

So what can we do? 

Recommendations are:

• have screen-free time
• encourage your child to turn the gadget off and play
• have screen rules: how long they can use them for and when is the latest they can use them
• preview the games and apps
• supervise your child
• discuss what they are watching
• eliminate background television noise
• use parental controls
• develop relaxing bedtime routines: calming bath and then a bedtime story  
• make bedrooms screen free zones
• have family screen time, watch television together and have no other screens on
• remember the old saying, "everything in moderation" ! 

In Search of Spring

The seasons are steadily turning beyond our doorsteps and it’s the perfect time to go on the lookout for the emerging buds, leaves and blossoms that show us that nature is ready to wake up.

On a short wander-look with a preschool group from Grosvenor there were plenty of things to look at and discover when we took the time to look around. At the end of our walk, the group threaded their collections into mobiles that we hung in the trees to welcome the Spring in. After such a busy walk we sat amongst the Ash, Willow, Sycamore and Elder to try a cup of Birch twig tea freshly cut from a tree we passed by.

Making Birch twig tea using fresh cuttings

Collecting

Have a look out for some of these signs of Spring when you’re out and about!

Blossom

The earliest flowers that appear on the trees belong to the Prunus family of plants. This group includes Almonds, Apricots, Damsons and Blackthorn but the most well known are Plum and Cherry. The flowers will grow in different groupings depending on the variety but they all have five petals and are white or pink.

Flowers

Searching for #Spring with @snapgrosvenor. Collecting dock, goosegrass, ramsons and prunus blossom & making birch twig tea 🌲 #forestschool pic.twitter.com/eY0RtiNxxI

— Snapdragons Forest (@snap_forest) 3 March 2017

Crocuses peeking through, you can almost track the coming season depending on where the flowers are open – farther up the hill where it is warmer they were already open but this crop were still waiting for a bit more sun and a rise in the temperature.

Down the pathway there was another yellow flower that is an indicator of Spring: Celandine. At first glance this may look like a buttercup (it’s part of the same family) but it continues opening to a bright 8-9 petalled flower head and with its distinctive heart-shaped leaf it is a welcome sight to many walkers

Leaves

Around on the ground are young cleavers are shooting up with their stems covered in hooks and leaves encircling in sets of 5-7. Other old names include cleavers, goosegrass, catchweed, stickyweed, robin-run-the-hedge, sticky willy, stickyjack, and grip grass. Once children found out the sticky properties of these plants, they were off with mischief in their eyes!

Playing with Cleavers

The Dock leaves are coming on strongly with red tinged stems poking up from the ground. Some of the children knew that they could use them to help cure nettle stings, this led to a discussion as to whether they were “Dock” leaves or “Doctor” leaves!

Ramsons (my personal favourite Spring leaf) are coming up in woodland areas as well, although you may know them better as wild garlic. Their distinctive smell fills the air around this time and can also fill your dinners too! This will certainly be playing a part in our upcoming Forest School sessions.

As always – take care when you’re out looking for wild plants and always be sure of what you’re touching before you pick (or eat) what’s growing in the fields, hedgerows and woodlands. If you're not sure about what you’ve found, take a picture and have it sent to me next time you’re at your nursery, or Tweet it to me at @snap_forest.

Tim

Wonderful Welsh Cakes

To celebrate St David’s Day the children experienced how much fun it was to cook their own Welsh cakes. 

Cooking is a fantastic opportunity for hands on learning, so we make sure those hands are washed thoroughly first! We talk about how this is important to keep ourselves and others healthy.

Aprons on for more cleanliness and everyone is ready to find out about the names and uses of all the cooking equipment they will need, boosting language by increasing their vocabulary and understanding.  

As the recipe is followed step by step, they are learning to follow simple instructions and the sequence of what comes next. Early literacy is also evident in the concept that printed words carry meaning, both by looking at the recipe and on the packaging of the ingredients.

The process of making the Welsh cakes holds so many experiences that actively engage their interest and capacity for learning.

Mathematics is supported through measuring ingredients using scales and spoons, thinking about how much is needed, do we need more or less? Is it heavier or lighter? Deciding which size spoon to use, big or small?

A wide variety of different actions using a range of utensils help their physical development, such as having a go at carefully scooping, pouring, sieving and mixing. They love the experience of using their hands to rub the butter, sugar, spice, flour, raisins and egg together to form a dough, seeing the process of change. Always popular is using a big rolling pin to prepare the dough ready to press and twist the circle cutter to make the little round cakes ready to fry gently in the pan.

The sense of achievement and the turn taking involved in working together increases their self esteem and social skills. Above all, the best part is at the very end…..tasting the finished Welsh Cakes and learning how delicious they are!

Mmmm, look at toddlers' mini Welsh cakes! Can't wait for snack time! #StDavidsDay pic.twitter.com/5a52fbQCFF

— Snapdragons Atworth (@snapatworth) 1 March 2017