Big Thinking workshops

Our ‘Big Thinking’ workshops have been been planned to provide a starting point for discussions and to give you ideas  to help you and your child have fun together, solving challenges and problems that will help engage, involve and ‘lighten- up’ the brain in order for deep- level learning to take place.

Cherry Room  

In Cherry room we were learning about how to control the remote control cars using the hand held remote controls. We were making ramps for the cars and thinking about how to control the direction of the cars to keep them on the track.

On the painting table we were trying to make various shades of paint and match them to the colour charts by adding lighter or darker colours.

On the light table we had a provocation table that had items such as taps, shower heads, keys.  We encouraged children to think about how we use these items and where we might find them at nursery or at home.

Outside

Outside we had an animal hunt for children to take part in during group time and “volcano” experiments.

The ingredients for this experiment are.

• Vinegar
• Baking soda
• Paint or food colouring
• Washing up liquid

Here is a link where you can read all about what is happening how to do this experiment at home.

Make your Own Volcano

We also tried to blow up the balloons using the balloons pumps. We then let them go predicting how far they would travel. It made everyone think about how much air was needed  in order to make the balloons travel further.

Oak Room

In Oak room Jackie Fortey, our teacher, talked to the parents about thinking skills and gave lots of tips and ideas for  helping children at home with thinking skills.

Everyone was then able to take part in more thinking activities in Oak room. There was a floating and sinking experiment in the water tray and children could predict which of the objects would sink or float. This activity could easily be repeated at home at bath time or even just using a clear bowl, bucket or cup.

We also had a ‘Rapunzel’s Tower’ challenge where children were given the task of building the tallest tower that they could build in only one minute. This was timed using the sand timer. Again this activity could be repeated at home using lots of different items and could be timed by looking at a clock or a timer on a mobile phone This really supports children with their mathematical development as they are learning about shapes and measuring and recording time.

On the graphics table we had an activity where children were using various materials to make their own creations and were encouraged to make labels for their ideas.

Group Room/ Interactive White Board

We also had a few activities taking place using our fantastic interactive whiteboard.

Activity 1 was a ‘picture build game’ where children were encouraged to think about what the animal might be and talk about what they see.

Activity 2 was the ‘Jelly bods’ game. This is a great activity for children to think and make predictions.

In the Group Room parents were given the opportunity to write a comment on their child’s Tapestry learning journal about the workshop. This is something that all Parents are welcome to do if they do not have access to a computer or internet at home. Thank you to all the parents that wrote comments. We value all comments and use these to improve our workshops that we develop for parents.

We really appreciate feedback as we are all always learning too and this helps us to improve and learn!

We had a fantastic time during our workshops and we hope you all did too!

Thank you for attending as this really shows how much you value your child’s education and it is a great way of ensuring that the learning that is taking place at nursery is continuing at home too!