Staff at Rainbow Nursery develop awareness of the changing seasons with their vibrant displays. The display area in the entrance is an ideal place to provide stimulating visual and interactive opportunities for parents and children to explore seasonal changes together.
Every year at this time we focus on the anticipation of warmer, longer days and the evidence of new life around us. We ensure access to a wide selection of growing activities, walks into the locality and spring-related natural materials to look at, listen to, touch, feel and smell. We also have spring displays throughout the nursery, ranging from colourful mobiles in baby and toddler rooms to children's own displays reflecting their spring explorations in our pre-school room.
Planned learning intentions
To form good relationships with adults and peers
To use talk to clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events
To talk about, recognise and recreate simple patterns
To look closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change
To handle tools, objects, construction and malleable materials safely and with increasing control
To explore colour, texture, shape, form and space in two and three dimensions
Resources
Display boards Hessian; flower border roll; netting and fabric in spring colours; posters and pictures showing new life associated with spring, such as bulbs, flowers, lambs, chicks, birds, nests; photographs of children planting seeds and enjoying spring walks; yellow and green paint and crayons; children's artwork
Interactive tables Green fabric and artificial grass, small boxes, pots of growing bulbs; small garden tools; watering cans; garden gloves; vases of flowers; other resources provided by parents and children, such as soft toy hens and chicks
Mobiles Large branches, small chicks, model butterflies, large fabric flowers; yellow crepe paper flowers
Floor levels Large pots in neutral colours; artificial and real blossom; larger garden tools
Step by step
- We began by going for a walk, taking photographs and talking about the changes we could see in the natural world. Children noticed swelling buds, flower shoots and birds looking for nesting materials. On return we looked at our photos, pictures and books associated with spring.
- Staff members created the hall display, backing the board with hessian and attaching a flower border. The spring pictures were mounted and captions written.
- They prepared the interactive table beneath the display, taping boxes to the surface and draping them in artificial grass and green fabric to create a surface for books, soft toys, pots of plants and gardening tools.
- We created a mobile above, using a large branch and 'spring' items such as butterflies, chicks and flowers. A tall pot of blossom was arranged on the floor alongside.
- We brought children out to talk about what they could see and suggested they shared the display with their families.
- Parents viewed the display with their children and began to provide interesting additions. Outdoor play and walks motivated children to search for more things.
- Following a discussion about the content of our entrance display with the pre-school children, staff invited them to create their own display in our Rainbow Room.
- The children made two displays with staff support, one focusing on their growing activities and the other about their experiences of spring. They had fun making flowers from handprints and taking photographs of their seed planting, which were mounted and arranged on the display with captions and quotes from the children, for example, 'I'm happy cos there's lots of flowers'.
- Staff in the Sunbeam Room created a large mobile for the younger children to enjoy, consisting of a large branch festooned with yellow crepe paper flowers. They also added butterflies, rabbits and chicks, and played with yellow spring coloured dough.
- The children were highly motivated by their displays. Exciting language relating to seasonal changes, senses and colour emerged and was noted in individual profiles.
Sheila Gardiner is the director of Rainbow Nursery, Middleston Moor, Co Durham. She spoke to Jean Evans
