Speedwell Nursery School has had a wonderfully rich and varied term, packed with creativity, discovery and some brilliant visiting artists and practitioners.
The children have been making their very own potions using herbs grown in the garden, fruit tea bags, lemons and limes, exploring smells and textures as they go. Alongside the sensory fun, they have been practising using safety knives and scissors to cut the ingredients, building fine motor skills in a way that feels genuinely exciting and purposeful. Shape exploration has also been a major focus, with children learning about the properties of 2D and 3D shapes and investigating how they fit together. Indoors, magnetic tiles and flat shapes have kept hands and minds busy, whilst outside the children have been building on a really large scale, using pictures of famous buildings from around the world for inspiration.
In Owl Class, Mike from Travelling Light theatre company has been visiting each week to work on non-verbal storytelling, helping the children create characters and settings from found objects and use signs, gestures and sounds to tell visual stories. This has been a magical project that brought creativity and communication to life in wonderful ways. Music with Ellie has also been a highlight every Thursday, with the children exploring rhythm and repeating patterns, having a go at instruments and enjoying singing and dancing. Parent sessions around music are being planned for next term.
Finally, the children have been spotting the signs of spring in the garden, finding new leaves and flowers, and turning over logs and stones to discover the worms, woodlice and slugs living underneath. The curiosity and enthusiasm has been wonderful to see, as the children engaged with the natural world around them.