Thursday 10 September 2015

8 days in, what skills have we learned?

An uncommon sight on the first day!
So after a lovely summer break I am back at school with 26 new children in the class. They have been at school for 8 days and are well settled into their two groups of 14 and 12, they have made some new friends, learned lots of new skills and are starting to trust us, the nursery staff more and more each day.
From the 3rd day we have kept the same routine - outdoor play, indoor play, story and home  - over the two hour period they are in nursery. As the days pass we have added more 'tasks' into the routine, like snack, tidy-up, signing in and out of class and choosing library books. Tomorrow we go on our first visit to Bear Woods and the children have been counting the sleeps to this momentous occasion all week. Many of the class have older brothers and sisters who have already told them all about nursery and Bear Woods, this has made our jobs easier!
These 26 children are playing really well together, already deploying the sand timers to ensure fair play and constantly amaze us at how much they can cope with in this new environment. We, as adults, who return to this job year after year, can forget how it is all new to the children and that they need time to learn the routine and get to grips with all the new language and rules. On the second day we had had the painting easel out, I was gently reminding a child that they needed to get their name to put on their picture, when they looked at me and holding out their apron, said 'But I have the name on' - which showed me that I had been giving too many instructions without checking that they actually understood the vocabulary I was using.
This is where the names are for all the artwork.
Today I was so impressed when all of the 25 children in school today were able to take their library book bag and walk through the classroom from the playground to hang it up on their coat peg - this is quite a feat and one that hasn't been done on the first day it's been introduced for a long time!
All the book bags hanging up on the correct pegs!


2 comments:

  1. Yay...here's to a new year. I LOVE your classroom.
    Sand timer...great idea!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Salma, thanks for the kind comment. 9 years on I still love the building too!

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