15. Spring Term 2018 – technology

Thursday, May 10th, 2018

Technology

Our project this term was to look at everyday technology and to find out about the sort of technology our children use at home. We invited the children to bring their technological toys to show us and they obliged with wind up and friction toys, toys with buttons, levers and pull strings, all manners of toys. In Nursery we showed the children how to use a rotating whisk, a rotating apple peeler and a coffee grinder.

At snack time the children peeled apples (most of them ate the peel) and made toast. The staff drank the coffee! We used our microwave to make sponge puddings. This was great because we could see the sponge rising inside. We also made popcorn and listened to the kernels popping inside! Maggie brought in her bread maker and the nursery was filled with the delicious smell of freshly baked bread.

We used other techno gadgets to make soup and smoothies so the children could experience the efficiency and speed with with which technological devices can process food for us. In the role play corner we created an office and it was interesting to see the children typing, making ‘phone calls, using the calculator etc. We discovered that many of our children are used to using tablets at home but had never used a mouse. They quickly learnt how to use one to point, select, click and drag.

In art we looked closely at the flowers that were growing outside and the children made chalk drawings of snowdrops and used their fingers to make pictures of primroses. For Mother’s day the children decorated their hand print cards with mosaics and we found a sweet poem to go with them. The children cut and decorated salt dough Easter chicks, eggs and flowers which were entered in the Spring Horticultural Show. They added extra Spring colour to the event and received lots of positive comments.

When Arthur’s chicks hatched at home we were allowed to chick sit them in Nursery for a day. It was surprising how much noise and mess anything so tiny and cute could make! We also had some frogspawn which had hatched into tadpoles before term ended. We gave them to Benedict to look after and we are hoping to be able to observe them changing into frogs next term. We had to postpone our World Book Day celebrations for a week because of the snow and ice but this year’s book character costumes that the children wore were better than ever. It was lovely to also have some of the children’s parents in to read stories to us.

The snow that fell later in the month caused less disruption and meant that we could all get out and enjoy playing in it throwing snowballs and making snow angels. Once the snow had gone, Andrew was able to dig out and re-fill our raised beds all ready for us to plant up next term with beans, potatoes and carrots.