This year we have been lucky enough to have access to Cherry Green Trees where we have been providing a Forest school experiences for some of our children.

What is Forest school?
 

• Forest School is a Scandinavian approach to learning that facilitates hands on learning opportunities, through regular interactions within a natural or woodland environment, over a period of time.
• Sessions are learner led and follow children’s ideas, curiosities and areas of interest. This fosters positive self-esteem, builds confidence and independence and promotes intrinsic motivation.
• Children are enabled to asses and manage taking supported risks through appropriate challenge and the use of real tools. Developing reasoning and problem-solving skills, supporting social and communication skills, responsibility and resilience.
• A sense of belonging is promoted, through positive relationships and closer connection with the natural world.   
• Forest school takes place all year round, with the children going out in all weathers, exploring and learning from the seasons and environmental changes.
• At the end of each session children are invited to review their time and share their experience with each other. This process of reflection supports understanding and transference of new knowledge and skills and promotes emotional intelligence and communication skills.
• Sessions are planned and run by qualified level 3 Forest School Leaders who are first aid trained.

The children who are returning in September will still have a chance to experience the woodland environment at Cherry Green Trees but we have decided to have two taster sessions in some local woods for everyone to attend and enjoy. These will be for children to attend with their Parents/Carers and will take place in Oakhill Park woods, East Barnet, on Tuesday 17th July 2018 starting at approximately  9am and 1pm.
 
The sessions will last for approximately two hours each and we will try to offer a glimpse of some of the experiences that can be offered at Forest School and maybe we can try to answer any questions you may have about the Forest School ethos and how or why it can benefit children.
 
Everyone is welcome  but so we can ensure we have enough resources please could you sign up on one of the forms around the nursery. If you have any questions please feel free to ask your key worker or Julian (star room).
 
We look forward to seeing you in the woods!

What a wonderful hot week we have had this week! We got our new paddling pool and had a great time splashing and cool down. We found cool spots in the garden to act out story ideas, enjoyed a variety of water play, made a big tent to cool down in and experimented with ice in sun room, we enjoyed feeling the different textures ice and water form and finding ways to break the ice down.

During the mornings when it was cooler, we enjoyed the sun in the garden. We experimented with different ways to climb onto our slide and ways so find our way back down. 

We are very excited for our leavers trips to Paradise wildlife park coming up and for those of us who are staying at nursery we have our ducklings arriving on Monday the 9th! We look forward to sharing these wonderful experiences with the children. 

We have had a busy week finishing off dressed in purple and a cake sale to raise awareness for Dravet Syndrome
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https://www.epilepsy.com/learn/types-epilepsy-syndromes/dravet-syndrome


The children have been enjoying mark making this week, we've had large drawings in the garden, name badges and story telling through pictures
We've had a wonderful puppet show throughout the week in the garden, where the children have enjoyed sharing their ideas and stories with their peers. 

We have been watching the progress of the supermarket being built right across the road from nursery. On Friday afternoon we went for a closer look. We could see the builders hard at work and could feel the shaking from their equipment on the fence. 

We had a wonderful purple Friday! The children enjoyed creating purple butterflys, playing with purple water and jelly and of course the delicious cakes in our cake sale. Thank you all so much for your kind donations, the money we raised goes towards the Dravet syndrome UK charity, ​Dravet Syndrome is a rare genetic form of epilepsy and generally begins in infancy. 

The children enjoyed creating some wonderful large scale paintings in the garden. They used various different colours, discussing how to mix them together and the new colours they would make.
We've also been jetting off to space in our space rocket! We have been talking about what we might find in space, how we get there and who might be brave enough to be an astronaut one day. 
In the mud kitchen we've been making some wonderful cakes, soups and recipes.We have worked together with our friends to collect our ingredients and mixed it all together, creating some marvellous food. It didn't even matter when it began to rain as simply "its our new ingredient!"
And finally we had some fabulous shows, creating our own microphones and showcasing our talents. 

Welcome back to the last halfterm of the school year, we can't believe how quickly this academic year and has gone and we are looking forward to celebrating all the achievments this year has brought as well as continuing all our adventures, exploring and learning at nursery. 

We let the butterfly out in the garden this week and began to collect more snails and worms to observe in moon room. The children enjoyed discussing animals and their environments and how we can best look after them.

In star room we made some lovely cakes. We all helped to mix, stir, count and decorate our cakes, making sure we shared with all our friends. 

We have been enjoying mix and experimenting at nursery this week. We started off discussing the playdough and together we made a new batch. The children then explored stretching dough and we talked about what it looked like, the children were excited to see that it looked like bread dough. The children were very excited to make our own bread and to cook it on the campfire in the garden. 

We had lots of fun making popcorn in our parachute

We were very excited to have a visit from an icecream van! We could hear the music from inside nursery and went out in small groups to collect our ice creams! 

This week we had the exciting addition of monkey bars in our garden! The children have been able to practise, demonstrate and share their skills. Some of the children are able to zip across in no time and have been able to help teach their peers this skill. The use of monkey bars enables the children to strength their core and their arms.

In moon room we have been discussing the Royal Wedding and have created our versions of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. The children enjoyed discussing all the resources we would need and working together, carefully creating our own Royal wedding. The children shared their own experiences of weddings and their knowledge of the Royal family with their peers.  

The children found something very exciting in Star room this week, our very own Brookhill Vets.
We have been exploring different ways to take care of the animals and have been kind and nurturing, making sure we stay nice and quiet when the animals need to rest and being busy and helpful when the animals need an urgent operation. 
We have discussed all the animals in our lives, from those we might see at nursery or at home to those we can visit at the zoo or farm or can watch on the TV. We love hearing about all the important creatures in the children's' lives.  

We've had another busy and exciting week at Brookhill, completing our sponsored scoots. After a succesful first day we had a bit of rain but the children have all now completed 10 laps of the nursery garden! What a wonderful achievement. The children were able to demonstrate their skills, using their core strenght to balance and using their arms and legs to keep themselves moving. We had lots of fun and the children enjoyed cheering on their friends and scooting, riding and running around the garden. 

Thank you all so much for your kind donations and we look forward to all the exciting events we have coming up this term. 

We've been exploring keeping active whilst at nursery in our garden, we practised our running, jumping and lots of acrobatic moves. We all had a lot of fun and have been using our new skills everyday in the garden. We try and get our hearts pumping fast and have enjoy feeling the senstation!
Some of our friends went to Forest school and have been telling us all about their adventures in the woods. We have been enjoying incorporating our new ideas and adventures into our play at nursery.