We have had a fabulous week at Kingston Vale Montessori. The Caterpillars and Butterflies have settled in and, this week, both classes focussed on colour.

The Caterpillars got creative and did a lot of painting using different colours. They also looked at shades of colours ranging from light to dark. Their art work can be admired in their classroom.

The Butterflies were busy too. Inspired by the Elmer stories, the Butterflies created a large Elmer glueing lots of coloured bits of paper onto a paper elephant. The colourful Elmer has been surrounded by grey painted elephants onto which the children have painted the numbers 1 - 10 themselves.

Both classes made colourful fruit skewers, explored the seaside in their dance and movement class, sang songs and played musical instruments in their music class and enjoyed their weekly Teddy Tennis lesson on Friday morning.

After their Teddy Tennis lesson, the Butterflies put on their wellies and ventured over to the Church Garden for their weekly nature exploration. This week, we found different coloured things in nature and matched them to the colours on the large colourful parachute we had brought with us. We found brown, yellow, green and red leaves, green grass, purple flowers and a lot of acorns! We brought our finds back with us to the classroom where we mixed primary colours red, yellow and blue to create the colours of our nature finds.

Finally, the Butterflies are visited weekly this term by puppets Bella and Maxie. Through songs and role play, the puppets are used to help the children to understand the classroom golden rules, supporting the development of social skills such as saying hello, listening, turn-taking, sharing and asking for help. More information can be found on the Butterflies board in the hall.

Have a lovely weekend, we look forward to seeing the children next week.

P.S. Some of you have asked for further information about "w-sitting", discussed in Wednesday's post. There are some interesting articles to be found online:

http://www.childsplaytherapycenter.com/w-sitting-correct/

http://theinspiredtreehouse.com/child-melting-look-w-sitting/

The importance of movement

The children had another wonderful dance and movement session this morning at Nursery. The KVM Team strongly supports the view that physical development is fundamental to every aspect of a child's life. Its importance is also recognised in the EYFS in which physical development is listed as one of the prime areas of learning.

By encouraging the children to act out stories and move to music, our experienced dance teacher, Miss Debbie, easily engages the children's sense of imagination whilst simultaneously supporting their physical development. The children stretch, and increase their core and upper body strength, whilst also developing their proprioceptive sense.

Montessori believed that, when movement was involved in learning, concentration and understanding deepened. Montessori was of the opinion that children learn primarily by using their senses, increasing their understanding of the world around them whilst developing their cognitive skills.

As a Montessori Nursery, by focusing on physical development, we aim to:

- prepare the children for writing and other activities which require both strong gross and fine motor skills
- develop the children's ability to cross the body midline, an important prerequisite skill required for the appropriate development of various motor and cognitive skills
- build confidence as the child masters greater movement, becomes more independent and enjoys greater freedom to explore, play and learn
- support the children's social development as a greater range of movement skills allows the child to play with friends and join in games
- prevent common issues like "w-sitting" and "toe-walking" which may affect a child's physical wellbeing in adulthood.

If you would like any further information about physical development in general or your child's physical development in particular, please speak to your child's key worker or to Miss Wendelien, the Nursery SENCo.

Recipe for courgette and cheese scones...

This week, the Butterflies and Caterpillars made courgette and cheese scones. Before the summer, the Butterflies had planted courgette seeds and we returned after the summer to mature plants bearing some beautiful courgettes. Before we started our cooking activity, we looked at our plants, examining how the courgette grows behind the flower. We then went inside and prepared our courgette and cheese scones. The children grated the courgette themselves, added all the ingredients and all had a turn at stirring and then kneading and cutting out a couple of scones using scone cutters. We hope you enjoyed the scones -we baked a few extra for the teachers and thought they were delicious!

ingredients

• 1 courgette, coursely grated (the children used the "I can cook" multi grater for this: http://www.lakeland.co.uk/15063/I-Can-Cook-Multi-Purpose-Grater-with-Measuring-Jug)
• 2 cups self-raising flour
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
• 1/4 cup parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 cup buttermilk

method

1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper and set aside.
2. Wrap the grated courgette in a paper towel and squeeze out all the liquid.
3. Place into a bowl with the flour, the cheddar and the parmesan cheese. Mix together well, so that all the cheese is well coated in the flour and the strands are seperated.
4. Pour the buttermilk into the bowl and use a spatula to fold the mixture together.
5. Place on a surface that is dusted with flour and lightly knead. Pat out into a 2cm thick circle.
6. Take a large scone cutter dipped into flour and cut 10 scones. Fold the dough together and pat out again to cut another round of scones.
7. Place on the tray so that each scone is touching the next and they are all joined up.
8. Brush the tops with a little buttermilk and bake for 20-25 minutes.

If you don't have any buttermilk, just use whole milk to which you add the juice of 1 lemon. Stir and leave to thicken for 10 minutes.

Week 2 at Kingston Vale Montessori Nursery, Autumn Term 2015

We've had a lovely second week at nursery. The Caterpillars talked about their holidays and painted their holiday memories. The Butterflies did self portraits, created their initials and went on a nature walk in the Church garden. They talked about their nature finds, focusing on size and shape, comparing leaves and sticks, examining using the magnifying glass. They then created their own works of art using the leaves, sticks and acorns they had found. Miss Wendelien also made apple sauce for them to take home with the apples they found in the church garden. Both the Caterpillars and the Butterflies cooked courgette and cheese scones after studying the courgettes on their courgette plant in the garden. Looking forward to next week where both classes are exploring colour.

Autumn Term 2015

We're all settling in after the summer holiday. The Butterflies are looking at the initial sound of their name and have been drawing self portraits, telling us what they were drawing as they went along!