Observing the change of season from winter to spring led to nursery children at Leamore Primary School in Walsall, West Midlands investigating growth and change in more detail.
‘Children started to comment on the weather warming up – some said how they didn’t need their coats because it was hotter – and we talked to the children about the spring changes that they saw on their walk to school, which gave it a nice link between home and school and made it more real for them,’ explains nursery teacher Claire Baker.
‘We try to give our children as much enrichment as we can because a lot of our children don’t get opportunities at home to get outside and hands-on. We’re based in a built-up area with not much greenery around and, although some children go to local parks at weekends, a lot live in high-rise flats without gardens.’
SIGNS OF SPRING
They discussed the change in weather and visited the school’s education garden to look at signs of spring. Children saw that bulbs they had planted the previous year were starting to send up shoots, trees were starting to get their leaves back and flowers were beginning to grow as the temperature got warmer.
‘We plant a lot of bulbs and seeds and the children start to understand that it is all about being patient and persevering as they start to see them growing,’ explains Claire. ‘The children will keep checking and eventually see things coming up and talk about how they had planted it last year, and now they can see it.’
Children, who attend from two-years-old, use floor books to record their experiences and log their learning, including adding photos that they have taken themselves. Recently, some children recalled growing tomatoes and strawberries last summer and eating them at snack time, including making a strawberry tart.
‘It helps them to remember what they have done, such as gardening, and they love looking back, commenting on their experiences and linking them to what they are doing now,’ says Claire. ‘The floor books move up to Reception with the children so that they can continue to look back.’
OBSERVATIONAL PAINTING
Staff decided to offer the children the opportunity to do observational painting of daffodils after a lot of children started talking about the daffodils that they saw on their way to school, and one child commented how their nanny had daffodils in her garden.
In small groups, they explored the different features of the flowers – from the long, green stem to the six yellow petals and darker yellow bell-shaped ‘crown’ in the centre. ‘We want to introduce the children to the correct words to help to extend their vocabulary,’ says Claire. ‘One child commented how the petals are pointed. The children also carefully mixed paints and discussed the colours to get them right, saying that they needed more yellow for the petals.
‘You could see a lot of detail in how they were drawing and using brush strokes to paint the petals, especially with the older children who will be going up to Reception this year. They were looking really closely at the different parts of the flower and carefully moving the brush to mimic what it looked like.’
Children and staff were all proud of the finished observational paintings.
INVESTIGATING LIFECYCLES
Children were also interested to find out more about how creatures change in spring. Claire brought a tank of frogspawn into the nursery so that the children could see their transformation for themselves. It takes around three months for the frogspawn to hatch and become a frog, so it was another chance for the children to practise patience. So far, they have witnessed them develop tails, sprout back then front legs and start to lose their tails.
‘The children look every day to see what has happened,’ says Claire. ‘None of the children have witnessed the lifecycle of a frog before. They are constantly asking questions, such as when are they going to hop? So we have to think about how we are going to find out the answers – will we look at a non-fiction book or go online? The children are learning that adults also have to find things out and that we are going on the process of finding out together.’
The children have also researched how to care for the frogs as they go through metamorphosis, such as how to keep the tank clean and building a rockery for them to go on once they form legs. When the frogs are ready, the children will release them into the education garden.
Staff plan to extend the children’s interest in lifecycles by hatching caterpillars and watching them develop into butterflies. ‘We will start by sharing the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillarwhere an egg lays on a leaf,’ says Claire. ‘Rather than me telling the children what we are doing, we prefer to go in with questioning so we will show them the pot with the eggs in and ask the children what they think it could be. We will then introduce more linked fiction and non-fiction books and build on stories and learning around the children’s thinking and ideas.’
EXTENDING LANGUAGE
Staff aim to get the children to make suggestions and discuss ideas between themselves by asking questions such as, ‘How do you know?’ and ‘Why do you think that?’ Claire explains, ‘It links with the children’s communication, and one thing we want to focus on is closing the language gap, making sure these children are free to communicate, to have their own ideas and be able to express them. We want them to have an opinion.’
What stands out for Claire from all their explorations is how the children have got increasingly confident at talking about the changing weather and what they are seeing around them.
‘A lot of our parents are also starting to notice their children’s speech and communication skills improving too,’ she says. ‘Parents have commented how they can’t believe how much their child has been talking about the flowers they walk past and about how the frogs are changing.’
Book corner
Tad by Benji Davies
Tad is the smallest tadpole in a big pond and lives there with all her tadbrothers and tadsisters. Although something else lives there too…Big Blub!
Tadpole’s Promise by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross
‘Where the willow meets the water, a tadpole met a caterpillar. They gazed into each other’s tiny eyes and fell in love. “Promise me that you will never change,” the caterpillar says.’
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Follow the very hungry caterpillar as he eats his way through the week in this children’s classic.
Errol’s Garden by Gillian Hibbs
Errol doesn’t have a proper garden and he longs for an outdoor space where he can grow things.
The Extraordinary Gardener by Sam Boughton
Joe lives in a pretty ordinary tower block, but decides to plant a seed on his balcony. Will it ever grow?
Katie and the Sunflowers by James Mayhew
Katie would love to grow her own flowers, so when she sees some seeds in Van Gogh’s Sunflowers masterpiece, she can’t resist reaching in and grabbing some.
Tree: Seasons Come, Seasons Go by Patricia Hegarty and Britta Teckentrup
Follow the lifecycle of a tree through the seasons in this simple book with beautiful artwork and rhyming text.