Sensory Learning in Nursery

In Nursery children have been exploring Autumn. This is part of a Year Long Unit of Inquiry which inquires into the Seasons and their year in Nursery. Learning engagements are planned to facilitate children in using their senses to satisfy their curiosity and become familiar with the typical changes and products we find around us in the real world and events which symbolise each separate period of their year. 

As we felt a new chill in the air, learning was taken outdoors with a re-enactment of how the grape harvest would have been carried out in the past. An experience which gave children the opportunity to use all their senses as they walked into a replica mini vineyard and took part in a mini grape harvesting and experience traditional working methods and processes from the past. They had fun working along in time with the folk music and were encouraged to work independently lifting leaves to spy bunches of grapes and to try to pick them individually off the stems to drop in the pots which they carried to the big container. Great work to develop fine motor skills! Some chose to sit down with a bunch and pick off each grape carefully to put in the pots. We looked at the different colours and smelt them, some smell like strawberry! It needed careful walking and holding of their pots to make sure not one grape fell out.

Students had fun separating the grapes from small stems, leaves and twigs before sorting for eating, for squeezing to make fresh grape juice to be tasted at snack time and finally for squashing by foot. Finally, children removed shoes and socks to step into the grapes! Stamping up and down to crush all the grapes and feel the juice squeezing out between their toes. A very tricky task to keep their balance whilst stepping on the slippery moving mass. Some were very happy having a go, great risk takers in the making. Others needed to see their friends’ enjoyment to gain the confidence to step in. It’s always important to feel safe to say no thanks!

Ms Cristina Capparucci, PYP Nursery Class Teacher