We have had some cute, fluffy special guests at Brookhill and children had the memorable opportunities to have a close look at their life cycle, from the eggs to the first swimming attempts...
As you can see, they all were mesmerised by this experience!

Welcome back after the last half-term of the school-year! 

We had a very special guest in the garden: a bumblebee! One of us spotted it walking on the grass. It was a precious opportunity to have a close look at it. We started thinking out all the things we could do to help the bee that couldn't fly anymore. For example, we tried to offer it a flower, because we know that bees like flower.

At some point, a big number of children joined in to observe and take care of the poor bee. We offered it some water with sugar...

... and we even built a special house for it, using leaves that we collected. This could be the beginning of the exploration of many other questions, such as 'How can we be kind to others?', 'How do bees make honey? or 'How do we keep ourselves safe and avoid to be stung?', or topics such as 'mini-beasts', endangered species or shapes (for example, the hexagons that forms honeycombs).

Some of the children started looking for other insects in the garden. As you can see, this is a very good period of the year for 'bug hunts' and snails can be easily found around.

But our scientific minds are never resting. Here, some of us have spontaneously started to build a sort of canal and experiment with water flowing downhill.

This was just the beginning, since we have so many resources to use in our nursery to test our ideas and theories,

However, the garden doesn't provide only opportunities for scientific learning, but also for practicing our Maths knowledge, for example by using measuring tapes to measure and compare in length objects such as logs, planks, tyres and anything that attracts our attention.

Numbers are everywhere around us, and we can use them for a wide range of purposes, for example measuring how tall we are getting.

And now for some exciting physical challenges! Look how we are getting better and better at balancing on tires and jumping from one to another...

... or how we are engaging in a 'ball and spoon race', displaying amazing balance.

Some of us are really into forest school-like activities, but who said that we have to necessarily go to the woods to build a tipi or to 'light' a fire?

And the several small houses and dens in the garden are also a great place for playing together nicely and reinforce our special friendships...

Another topic that really inspire our imagination and spark our creativity is architecture: look at this special vertical building we created in the garden using all our big wooden blocks...

... but buildings and small words can be created inside as well. Look at these amazing creations: don't they resemble urban or natural landscapes?

That's all for this week, we are looking forward to seeing you here again next week for further updates, have a nice weekend!

This week we had so much fun with a very fun water-play activity in the garden! We used a special pump to make 'rain', we have added bubbles and paint and pouring water to make 'waterfalls'!

More fun is coming after the half-term, so enjoy your holiday and stay tuned for more updates!

We had three exciting Sponsorship Scoot days at Brookhill Nursery, one for each of our three classes! All the children had the chance to engage in a 10-lap 'fast and furious' (and friendly) scooter race around our garden. It is was great fun for all of us, and at the same time it was a precious opportunity to support our setting. Thank you very much to all our parents who helped our school by collecting money, your contribution is crucial for us to keep on with our enthusiastic, caring and high-quality provision!

Welcome back! This week the home-corner has been temporarily transformed into a 'restaurant' for some amazing role-play. We had real food to play with, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes and beetroots, but also more pretend-food such as 'fish', 'mushrooms' and 'onion rings'. We also had the chance to play with a 'till' and exchange 'money'. Some children were taking orders, while others role-played being waiters and waitresses, chefs or customers, it was great fun!

We also had the chance to prepare our own fruit-skewers at snack-time. Apples, bananas and strawberries: coloured, healthy and really yummy!

The Loose Parts area was very busy as well...

It all started with a child carefully choosing where to place the loose parts and soon many other joined in,  until a huge home for giraffes was completed... We even added a zip-line for the animals, it was really great and we were very proud of our achievement!

As always, we were very busy making art at the writing area too!

We also have two new dens in the garden now. A very big one, with tunnels to crawl through, a little bit like Alice chasing the White Rabbit...

... and a smaller one with as much 'secret' entrances.

It is spring time and it is easier to spot small creatures in the garden. This time, we found some snails and we had a close look to them, even allowing them to crawl on our arms! Some adults are scared of them, but we definitively are not!

We also danced to traditional music from Sri Lanka, wearing coloured special clothes and playing instruments and the same time.

Here, a small group of girls is building "small houses" using sticks they found in the gardening area. Look how patient they can be!

We love painting in the art area in Star Room, but when the weather is nice we like painting outside too!

The Small-World area in the garden can be popular too, look how many children were playing with doll-houses and castles!

Meanwhile, other children were busy at the Mud Kitchen, preparing magic potions... Unicorn horns, bat wings, dragon scales... And now I will turn you into... a frog!

Riding the bicycles in fun, but we have learned that if other children are already riding them, we should patiently waiting for our turn using a hourglass.

It's nearly Easter and, of course, it is time for the traditional egg-hunt! The adults prepared a set of pictures of eggs all around the nursery, numbered from 0 to 20. They also helped us prepare a board with a numbered check-list, so we could go around, find the eggs with the different numbers and tick the correspondent numbers on our list. What a fun way to learn Maths!

That's all for the moment, have a great Easter break and see you immediately after that for more updates about our exciting adventures at Brook Hill!

Hello, everyone! It's been another week of great fun and adventures at Brook Hill! And another week of amazing art, look at some examples of our brilliant pictures.

A group of girls decided to take the artistic inspiration outside, using coloured chalks to draw patterns on the floor, immediately followed by a group of boys, who turned this activity into drawing 'treasure maps' (you can easily spot the X for the place where you can find treasures...).

That was the spark for an actual treasure hunt in the garden, using other treasure maps we drew (one of our friends is tracing an X on the ground using a stick).

This is just an example of our engineering and building skills. Please, notice how we were trying to build the tallest tower ever, when we realised that it had to be reinforced on its sides to stand up straight.

As always, the garden is a lovely place for reading stories...

... playing music together...

... or exploring the amazing world of Mother Nature, for example having a close look to wiggly worms, caterpillars, centipedes and other small creatures.

No need to say that we were very busy inside too, for example practising Phase 2 Phonics and writing...

... creating 'spiders' art craft...

... playing with real pasta and trying to cut carrots and butternut squash in the renewed home-corner...

... although someone had the inventive idea to use the pasta for further brilliant art...

As always, the art area in Star Room was very busy...

... while a group of friends were taking care of the new plants in Sun Room.

We are healthy children, supporting a healthy life-style, and for this reason we love making yummy apple and banana milkshakes for our snack...

We have also started regular yoga session, it is fun and very relaxing. Namaste!

Ok, that's all for this week, see you soon for more updates!

We have been exploring the amazing world of Australian animals over the week. It was an opportunity to talk about habitats such as deserts or rain forests and also to practise drawing animals such as koalas, kangaroos, crocodiles, dingoes, wombats, etc. It started in the writing area, but as you can see, our enthusiasm about this topic was so contagious that we took it outside too!

Since the last few days have been quite windy, at some point we decided to turn some of our pictures into kites,,,

This is just an example of how to do it: a paper sheet, a marker to decorate it, string and some tape to make sure the string is firmly attached to the sheet. It is very easy and, of course, it is great fun!

A windy day is also very good for testing paper aeroplanes, especially if you make them take off from a higher position! Ready... steady... go!

Spring is here, so it is time for more gardening activities. Here, we are planting a cactus that a child brought in.

This cactus is very child-friendly, it has really thin and soft spikes, so we can touch it without being harmed. Some children also took inspiration from this experience to spray plants with water.

It was Beep Beep Day! We talked about road safety and being aware of the road and what to look out for when using the road. For this purpose, we helped adults setting up a zebra crossing and a set of different road signs, such as stops or speed limits.

Here, you can observe a curious experience: some children started experimenting with sellotape and string to enclose an area delimited by some poles. This is a very creative (and completely spontaneous!) way to start learning about perimeters... It could be done at home too, we enjoyed it a lot!

As usual, the garden is also a place where amazing building happens. Look how many children cooperated to create trains, trucks, submarines, etc.

Sometimes it nice to chill out a bit for a tea time at the mud-kitchen...

... or to wait for our turn on the swing (notice how one of us is holding an hourglass to make sure the turns are completely fair!)...

We can be really imaginative, creating masks with different materials....

... or very active! We like jumping...

... climbing...

... playing basketball...

... playing tennis...

... and dancing or playing 'ring-a-ring o'roses' all together!

Of course, we were very busy inside too! For example, with this special 'slime'ans toy-snakes...

... or building all together.

Here, a group of boys are sitting on the carpet drawing dinosaurs and sharing their ideas and preferences about them. It went on for a very long time, they were so passionate about it!

See you next week for another update and enjoy your weekend!

World Book Day is over, but who said that we have to celebrate reading and writing books just one day a year? So, we are still creating our own story-books with the help of our teachers...

It is an amazing opportunity to practise our creativity, our writing skills and our ability to share ideas and cooperate!

Then, we had the chance to retell our stories to our classmates and to our mummies and daddies too!

It was also a busy week in the garden, practising our physical skills with a challenging obstacle course. It was hard at times, but we are brave and resilient children!

Do you spot any resemblance? Well, we think we are better climbers!

And now, a big jump!

We also built our own obstacle course, placing some planks on the big tyres without any help from adults!

We really love dens, they are magical places where a lot of adventures happen...

Here, we are practising drawing our self-portraits using mirrors...

... and here we are building using small coloured blocks in different shapes... It is fun and we can also learn about 3D shapes at the same time...

... and it can be an occasion to build friendships and collaborate too!

Let's have a short break with an indoor picnic...

... and then we are ready for more learning! For example, counting and matching numbers using the extra-large Numicon tiles...

... testing Physics...

... measuring...

... or making our own clocks (please, note the numbers on it!).

See you again next week for more updates and have a lovely weekend!