Animal Habitats & Hatching Chicks

Animal Habitats

Snowy Owls Scarning have had a lovely time learning all about animals and the habitats they live in!

The children in Snowy Owls are very inquisitive and have a strong interest in all different types of animal – particularly zoo animals so today we have created our very own zoo to investigate!

The children engaged in lovely role play alongside their fellow peers exploring the different sensory textures and resources!

Engaging in this activity also sparked lots of lovely conversations too – “It’s a tiger” ”I went to the zoo” “I went to London on the train, me and Mummy went to the zoo!” “He’s eating the grass” “there is two monkeys”
Well done Snowy Owls!

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Hatching Chicks

This week at Little Owls Scarning we have had an exciting time with two new little arrivals, in the form of our chicks hatching.

The children have been really excited meeting the chicks, and have been really careful having a cuddle with them. The children have all been suggesting names for the last couple of days and the adults have chosen three names from the children’s choices (Rosie, Shelley, Charlie) and the children used their right to vote having a polling station and been given stones to put into a ballot box with the name choices on, this links to our British values of having the right to make choices and have a vote. Once the children had finished making their name selections, we counted the stones for each name as a group to see which had the most votes, and the children were able to say which name had the most stones “Rosie has the most” and “Charlie has the most”. Doing this encouraged the children to learn about more and less, and being able to make comparisons.
In the end the Yellow chick was named Rosie and the darker chick was named Charlie.

This activity created lots of conversations between the children and their familiar adults.

“My baby is called Charlie”
“The chicks are soft and fluffy”
“I would like to choose …..”
“This one or this one?”

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Enhancing the children’s environment

Laura and Charlotte have been busy enhancing a few key areas of our children’s environment. Our children expressed they would like some hot wheels cars and new trains and with this in mind we have begun to make some changes that will ensure our children can maintain high levels of concentration within a rich environment
It’s really important that we allow our children the opportunity to make choices, we now have the shelving unit in Barn Owls with lots of baskets of small world resources. This is important as it boosts the self esteem of the child who is making the decisions, it allows the child to feel that they are in control and they like this feeling of responsibilty as it makes them feel valued and this, in turn, improves their self confidence and makes them inclined to become more independant – a vital life skill that children use more and more as they get older. Children and practitioner build up a strong positive relationship because the child knows their choices and opinions are valued. Allowing children to make choices re-enforces positive behaviour as the children feel more in control of their environment.
We now have a new easel as part of continuous provision, our children love to make marks this can be in the form of paining, chalking or drawing