Description: Teaching the children about rhyming words using wooden picture and word discs. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: This week’s activity was about rhyming words. We cut and painted several wooden discs. On one side were pictures and on the other side, the words representing the pictures. The words were rhyming w

Description: The children were asked to join in with Spoty Hat's fun game this week which was learning about geometric shapes. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: Spoty Hat wrote a letter to the children about where he had been during the holidays and how much he missed the nursery and the children. He prepared a game for t

Description: As the weather starts to get colder, we made a fire this week and taught the children how to cook a lovely warming vegetable soup. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: This very popular activity allowed us to talk about making a fire in a safe way, what rules to follow when preparing the fire and what equipment

Description: This week we discussed nature in winter - what plants, flowers, animals, bugs and birds we can find during this magical season. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: As winter arrives, we observed the changes in nature during the winter season. We used a “nature in winter” sheet which had different pictures on it

Description: Make a Christmas decoration. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: As Christmas is fast approaching, we wanted to get in the spirit by making a Christmas decoration. The children were encouraged to make one for themselves and then hang it wherever they wanted to e.g. a Christmas tree, door handle, by their bed e

Description: Help Spoty Hat and The Queen by finding her lost golden crown. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: The week’s activity involved the children finding the Queen’s crown which was stolen last week. The Queen sent the children a map with clues on to help find the shapes that had been hidden around the site. We star

Description: Her Majesty The Queen writes a letter to Spoty Hat. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: A letter that we read to the children from The Queen: "Dear Spoty Hat, This is the Queen of the United Kingdom writing to you, Queen Elizabeth II. It recently came to my attention that your friends, the children of The Woodl

Description: This week Spoty Hat received a gift from his friends in India as they celebrated Diwali. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: The activity helped to introduce different celebrations and festivities to the children. In this case, Diwali, as was celebrated recently. It also encouraged the children to learn about d

Description: Spoty Hat needed another friend to help him protect the woodland and it's various creatures so he asked Owl to help out this week... Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: Spoty Hat needed another woodland friend to help him out so he asked the children to make Owl to help him this week. To start the children need

Description: Spoty Hat needed a friend to help him protect the forests and all the woodland creatures... Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: Spoty Hat needed the children's help this week to make their own dragonfly to help protect the trees, plants, flowers, birds, bugs and other woodland creatures. We started by asking th

Description: Spoty Hat the woodland elf pays an exciting visit to The Woodland Nursery! Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: This week we had a very important visitor come to our nursery and he wrote the children a letter... "My name is Spoty Hat and I'm a woodland elf. I've travelled in the forests all around the world and

Description: Make a woodland abacus using discs cut from wood sourced from around the site. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: For this weeks activity we started by asking the children to help find a suitable thick, straight stick that we could cut into discs for our counting frame or abacus. The children found several long sticks,

Description: Think of a design, cut it out of a potato and make a pattern. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: For this weeks activity we decided to make potato stamps. We started by asking the children to think of a simple design for their stamps. They then cut a medium potato in half with a sharp knife, making sure they had their

Description: Make a pellet drum and guiro style instruments. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: Pellet/Rattle Drum. We found lots of conkers that had dropped around the site and wanted to put them to good use. One idea we had was to try and make a pellet drum (also called a rattle drum) using them. We started by asking the

Description: The children had to find hidden blocks, match the numbers and then make a word with the letters painted on the reverse side. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: We started the weeks activity by preparing some wooden blocks beforehand. We painted them in bright primary colours with the numbers 1 - 7 painted on o

Description: Make our own Forest School version of a natural perfume. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: For this weeks activity we wanted the children to experiment with different smells and textures by making their own 'perfume'. We started by putting some lavender into a container and adding water. We asked the children

Description: Build a wooden nest box or birdhouse. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: This week we decided to undertake a slightly more advanced group activity and challenged the children to make a wooden birdhouse. We thought it would be very interesting to see what kind of birds it attracted, when finished. We started by

Description: The children were given the opportunity to make up their own stories using various images painted onto stones Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Literacy Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: We started this activity by painting various images onto large round stones using non-toxic acrylic paint e.g. bird, flower, ice cream, airplane, forest, girl, boy, etc. The "story stones" were then

Description: Make a bubble wand and blow some spectacular bubbles. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: For our first week back after the half term, we decided to make something really fun: bubble wands! We started by asking the children what shape the letters "Y" and "I" were and challenged them to find similar shaped sticks from aroun

Description: Use natural materials to make a clay mosaic of favourite things. Links to EYFS: Personal, Social and Emotional Development Communication and Language Physical Development Literacy Mathematics Understanding of the World Expressive Arts and Design Activity: The activity for this week started with the children taking some modeling clay, rolling it into a ball and then flattening it into a rough disc shape either using their hands or with an object such as a stick fo