Preschool Graduation!

The preschool school leaver children have been very excited on the build up to their graduation show this week. They have done lots of practising over the last couple of weeks to learn their words and songs for the show. The count down began when it was just one week left until graduation day and the children were asking on a daily basis, “How many more sleeps until graduation?” When it was the day for graduation, there was lots of excitement within the preschool room with some of the children eager to show each other their animal costumes whilst others discussed which family members would be coming in to nursery to watch their performance. 

When it was time for the show, the children were so excited to show their families their face paint and sat beautifully in their seats with big smiles on their faces and were waving as the families filtered through in to preschool. They were eager to get going and all stood confidently when it was time for each group to do their words. Some of the children’s older siblings were sat in front of the children, joining in with the songs and encouraging them to sing their words. The children put on a great performance for their families which was easy to see with all of the smiles coming and even a few tears. The children received their own graduation certificate and starting school book at the end of the performance which they were very keen to get up on the step and hold them up to their families to see.

The families stayed on for a little bite to eat and to socialise which was lovely to see. We wish all of the children every success at their new school.

World Music Day & Harvesting from the Garden!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have celebrated world music day and have had the opportunity to engage in many musical themed activities. Some of the children were exploring the musical instruments, especially instruments from around the world, learning all about them and listening to the different sounds that they were making. The children also listened to various music styles from around the world, with some children choosing to dance along with the rhythm of the music. Whilst playing in the mud kitchen, a group of the preschool children used their imaginations whilst collecting various items such as saucepans, colanders, cake tins and frying pans to make their own music. Some chose to use sticks, whilst others chose to use spoons and spatulas. The children were taking it in turns to listen to the noises that they were each creating. 

The children have also been learning all about the importance of disposing of rubbish correctly and which items can be recycled. The children enjoyed a sorting activity in which items they thought could be recycled and were discussing how important it is whilst doing this activity to make sure all rubbish gets disposed of correctly. One of the children told their friends, “We must make sure that all of this rubbish does not go in to the sea so the sea animals are all safe”. Whilst on a walk around the nursery grounds, one of the children found a piece of rubbish on the floor and said, “Oh, somebody hasn’t put the rubbish in the bin, that’s not good!”. 

The children have also been harvesting the fruits and vegetables that have been growing over the last few months and have discovered that the raspberries, strawberries, blackcurrants, sugar snap peas and green beans are ready to be eaten. After picking, washing and preparing the fruits, the children enjoyed tasting them during snack time, with blackcurrants being a favourite. Each day the children check the vegetables and fruits to assess which ones are ready and some of the children have discovered that soon the carrots will be ready after noticing some orange slightly pop out from the soil.  

Keeping Cool & Exploring Senses!

The toddlers have been loving the sunshine recently and spending lots of time at the water tray. As the tray was continuously topped up via the hose, the children began requesting to be sprayed to help cool them down. The hose was set to sprinkler mode and showered over the children! There were squeals of “Ahh it’s cold” and “It’s so nice” and “ITS RAINING!” as they ran around under the trickles of water. Some children stood directly under the mist of water while others began running through it as they cackled. As they all settled back into playing at the water tray, a small conversation began about getting themselves wet, “it’s all on my t-shirt and my hair!”, “Yeah but it’s going to dry really quickly because it’s so sunny!”, “Yeah and then when we all dry we can go back inside with the air con”. When it was in fact time to come inside due to the heat, the toddlers all sat on the floor with their fresh cold waters and sat back for a minute with their arms out beside them, eyes closed and taking deep breaths to have a moment of calm and to feel the air con on their skin. One child laid back completely and rested his head on a cushions while others leaned back on their hands. Once the children had all cooled down and had enough to drink they began trickling off to go and play whereas one child remained seated and asked, “Can we feel the air con again?” as he closed his eyes and held his arms forwards again. 

Inside, a couple of children were at an activity where the floor was covered in paper and they were provided with a range of mark making materials as well as stickers to apply to the paper. Some children began drawing circles and swirls, while others did patches of colour and long lines close together. A couple of children began peeling the stickers off of the sheets and applying them to the paper when one sticker got stuck to a child’s leg… so they decided to add another, and another, and another, until their legs were full of stickers! A few children around them began copying, applying stickers to their arms and hands with lots of smiles and investigations into the different stickers the each of them had.

Over the last couple of weeks, the Under Twos children have been learning about their senses, exploring new things inside and outside. During inside play, the children were taking part in a sandy painting activity, where they could experience the texture of the paint and used a variety of tools explore the marks the paint made. Most of the children chose a paintbrush as their tool of choice, whilst others went hands in and were able to feel the gritty texture. One child dipped in her paintbrush and went onto spread the paint onto her hands. She rubbed her hands together whilst smiling and showing her friends and then lifted them into the air and shouted, “Purple!”. Continuing with the sandy theme, the children also had a play dough and sand tray to explore. Some children enjoyed just the play dough and would squeeze, pinch and poke it. Others sprinkled sand over the play dough, then used their hands to feel the texture of the two together. 

In the garden, the children have been spending a lot of their time at the herb patch, paying particular attention to the ginormous mint leaves! They took it in turns to pick out their own mint leaves and paraded around the garden showing everyone their find. One of the children held the leaf to their noise and then said “Look, smell!” to one of their friends. They all then began to move around the edge of the herb garden, holding and smelling the different plants to see what each of them smelled like. On the daily walks, the Under Twos appeared to remember smelling the herbs, as a couple of them ran over to some flowers and lifted them to their noses to smell. They began to show them to their friends, exploring the different smells of the different plants and flowers. Once the children settled down on the field, and the balls were thrown, they began to explore the field to see which different types of balls were around. One of them picked up a spiky ball and began to move it around in their hands, feeling the texture of it. The ball was passed around a group of the children, with a few of them letting out little “oohs”, and one child held up the ball and said “look Amie, a ball!”. 

Father's Day Tea Party!

The build up to this years Father’s Day tea party has been filled with excitement and hard work as the children prepared for the big day. There was lots of arts and crafts going on as the children made their cards and gifts, getting creative with a range of paints and pens, as well as cutting and sticking. The children also helped to bake the blueberry muffins that were presented with their Father’s Day cards and gifts. There was plenty of discussion during the process, with plenty of remarks including “Wow! That is so much flour!” and “Our Daddies are going to love their cakes!” The excitement continued to build as the finishing touches to the decorations were set out, with lots of questions asking “How long until our Daddies get here?”

It was fantastic to see such a great turnout this year, and the excitement among the children as they saw their Daddies arrive was off the charts, with lots of the children quickly directing their Daddies to the selection of food on offer. The party was filled with lots of socialising, playing and exploring, with children and fathers alike being captured by World Cup fever with a vast display of football skills on show in the garden. Thank you to all those who were able to attend for making it another great Father’s Day Tea Party, we can’t wait to welcome you all back for our next social event.

The toddlers were very excited in the lead up to the Father’s Day party with lots of creative activities to make cards, gifts and decorations. There were lots of questions before the event began, “When are the daddy’s coming?”, “Are they coming now?” “Is the party food going to be yummy?” “My daddy’s coming soon!”. As they all began arriving there were lots of smiling faces and excited giggles followed by big cuddles and hand holding as they began taking their dads on a tour of the nursery. A lot of children were seen exploring the garden, playing football and building sandcastles in the sandpit while other children led their dads to the food tables.  In the toddler room one child began showing their daddy pictures of them around the room, on their peg and their sleep time basket while other children showed off the toddler family album where they pointed out all of their friends. 

Over the last few days the Under Twos have been very much looking forward to their Daddies coming to play for the Fathers Day Tea Party! They have been working very hard, creating beautiful artwork, handprints and footprints for their Daddies. On the day of the tea party, the children were sat having a circle time when the doorbell sounded. One of the children shouted, “Daddy!!”, as she stood up and ran to the Under Twos door. As the Daddies began arriving, each of the children stood up and smiled, then greeted them with a big wave before taking hold of their hand and showing them around their room. Some children were enjoying stories, read by their Daddies in the cozy corner, whilst others sat in a circle and had a picnic together with friends. The fun didn’t stop there! In the garden, the children were able to run, jump and kick footballs with their Daddies and friends, whilst showing them their beautiful garden. Some children explored the Under Twos garden whilst others ventured off into the big garden to play with their Daddies and older friends.

Posting Letters & Finding Flowers!

Over the last few weeks, the toddlers have been looking at June’s book of the month, Dear Zoo, as well as looking at different sea creatures for ‘World Ocean Day’. During circle time one morning, the toddlers had a discussion about oceans, if they knew what an ocean is and what animals live in our oceans. When asked what lives in the ocean, there were shouts of “fish”, “octopus”, “starfish” and “SHARKS!” along with a few impressions of animals as they wiggled their arms like an octopus and placed their pointed hands on their head like a shark fin. The group then went on to learn about how we can help look after our oceans and the creatures that live there, one way is by making sure we put all of our rubbish in the bin. This then evolved into the children talking amongst each other and repeating what they had just learned, “Yeah we have to put our rubbish in the bin!”, “Yeah otherwise it will fly away and go in the stream”, “No because then it will go into the ocean with the fishes!.” 

Amongst other activities based on the story ‘Dear Zoo’, some of the toddlers wrote their own letters to the zoo, which they were then able to post in our nursery post box. Whilst writing their letters at the garden writing table, there were lots of conversations about their favourite animals, “I like an elephant”, “my favourite is the lion… RAAAWR!”. As their discussions continued, they began talking about their different experiences with animals at farms and zoos, “I saw a hippo the other weekend”, “I saw a shark in Egypt and a tiger in Japan”, “I saw a cow and pig at the farm with daddy”, “I saw cows in a meadow” and they evolved into telling their own stories, “I was in a cave with a wolf and then he was hiding from the most ginormous turtle in the world”. Once they had finished telling their stories the children all posted their letters into the post box.

Over the last couple of weeks, the under 2s have been doing lots of exploring of the Imber Court grounds whilst out on their daily walks. One day whilst the children were on a walk, they spotted some flowers, and when one child shouted “Flower!”, they all turned to look and investigate. A group of the children gathered around one of the flowers, and one of them said “Look, a purple flower!”. They then proceeded to smell the flowers and explore to see what other coloured flowers they could find.

In the garden the children have been exploring the new herbs planted in the herb garden. They wandered over to watch as the herbs were being planted and helped with watering them, using the watering cans with a bit of assistance. Once the herbs were planted and watered, the children began to lean in closer to investigate them through a combination of looking at them, feeling them, and smelling them. One of the children sniffed the mint before calling out to their friends “Look”, and beckoning them over. The children then moved around the herb garden, exploring each of the different herbs and kindly showing their friends the different smells they found. 

The children have also joined in with some activities to celebrate World Oceans Day. One of the activities the children joined in with was exploring some ocean animals in blue playdough, to see what different shapes and prints the animals made. One of the children picked up a whale and shouted “Whale!”, before attempting to create their best whale noise. A couple of the other children heard and began to copy, leading to a chorus of “Whale” and whale noises from them. The children then began to investigate what prints the animals left in the playdough, and seemed particularly intrigued by the octopus which left imprints of their suckers. They began to point at the print, saying “Wow!” or “Ooh…”, before reprinting the octopus marks across the playdough laid out round the table to show their friends.