I trust everyone had a lovely Christmas are are well fed and rested? I think both the children and the nursery ladies were ready to come back to see their friends and start learning again!

This half term our learning thread will be all about ‘space and the planets’. We started ‘finding out’ on Monday and just cannot stop. The children have thoroughly embraced the topic and have learnt so much already. We are learning a poem to help us remember all the names of the planets and some of their characteristics. It is truly amazing how quickly the children are able to recall facts and information as well as making observations and connections; for example, if Jupiter is a gas planet or rock planet?, or, if Venus is hot or cold and why that might be?

Groups of children have been painting pictures of the planets and have created a fabulous display. In the garden we have pumped up the inflatable planets and hung them under the nursery canopy. See if you can spot them when you come to nursery and if you can name any of them.

On Monday, after finding out that Saturn had icy rings a small group of children wanted to think about how we could make ice. After much discussion we decided to place a toy astronaut into a bucket of water and put it in Jacqui’s very cold freezer. On Wednesday the children discovered the astronaut was trapped inside the solid ice. The water was no longer a liquid…how would he escape? Eventually we discovered that the ice returned back into a liquid when it melted in our warm nursery… we could then rescue the astronaut. As some of you will be aware I then challenged the children to recreate this experiment at home (with mummy and daddy’s permission of course!). I am glad to say that we have had lots of toys trapped in ice coming back to nursery! Well done everyone!

It is all so exciting, learning knows no bounds!