Fun and Learning with the Ducklings!

The last couple of weeks have been full of excitement for the children, watching the ducks hatch from their eggs and turning in to 5 fluffy ducklings. After the weekend, Arlo was so excited to get into preschool to see the ducklings. When seeing them playing in their pen, he smiled and said, “They are so big and fluffy and cute now!”. Cooper was very eager to get the paddling pool out for the ducklings and when the pool was filled with water and ready to go, he carefully placed his hand underneath the ducklings tummy to help place it in to the pool. Blair asked bravely, “Can I hold one?” She placed her hands on to her lap, securely held the duckling and used her finger to softly stroke the ducklings head. The ducklings were very content having a little splash and the children found it very amusing to watch them splash water on to each other, Freddie giggled and said, “They look like they are having a bath!”. At the end of their splash, Amelie suggested, “Maybe we should dry them with a towel so they don’t get too cold?”

Some of the children were engaged in a play dough duck creating activity. Harry particularly showed interest in using as many different coloured feathers as he could find and told his friends, “I think you will all love my duckling because it’s so colourful and bright”. Isla chose to use all of the yellow feathers and said, “Mine looks just the same as the nursery ducklings”. She went on to making four more and counted them, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, just the same number as the real ducklings!”.

Isabelle loved to role play in a hand puppet story session. She placed the puppet on to her hand and remembering parts of the Farmer Duck story, she changed her voice, started to recite lines from the story and asked her friends, “How goes the work?”. Realising that she had made her friends laugh, she went even deeper, “How goes the work?” Megan said, “Moo”, Leo barred and Esme said, “Cluck”. The children all showed off their hand puppets to each other and went off to go for an alphabet duck hunt around the garden. 

The toddlers were so excited for the arrival of the ducks. They each took turns to go and see the eggs in the incubator. Evelyn said “Look it’s an egg” Tabitha pointed and started to count “ Two, three, Four”. Sebastian was mesmerised and said “They are eating their food!”. After the ducklings hatched the toddlers got to see them up close in the water tray. Theo squealed with excitement, reaching out to touch them while Leo enjoyed watching from a little further away with a big smile. Phoebe watched the duck go under the water and said “He’s getting wet …. That’s so funny!”. Emily and Madeleine took a different view point by laying under the clear tray and watching the ducks from below, both laughing and giggling shouting “Ducks! Ducks!”. When it was time to say goodbye, the toddlers all waved and said “Bye bye ducks!”. 

This week, the under 2s had the opportunity to play with the baby ducklings that were hatched at the nursery! As soon as the paddling pool was set up and placed within the room, the ducklings were brought inside and introduced to all the babies. It was hard to miss all of the babies beaming faces as the ducklings were placed one by one into the nice cool paddling pool. Lowen shouted with excitement saying “Quack, quack, quack!” which made Calvin instantly burst with laughter and follow suit by saying “Quack quacks!”. The ducks loved splashing and going around in circles in the pool, which sparked Freya’s interest. She bravely came over and familiarised herself with her new fluffy friends, even going as far as to kindly stroke a few of the ducks later on. 

Duckling Eggs!

The pre school children have been very excited on the lead up to the arrival of the duckling eggs. Over the last couple of weeks, the children have been looking in to the set up for the eggs and what environment they need to be in to be kept warm whilst still in their eggs. When talking about their incubator set up within their cage, Isla suggested, “I think that’s like my baby when she was born. We wrapped her in a blanket to keep her warm”. Once the eggs arrived, Phoebe was excited to count how many had been delivered and informed her friends, “We have 5 baby ducklings”. Each day on arrival at nursery, the children were eager to see if the eggs had started to crack and after a group time of the children using duck hand puppet props to help tell the story of Farmer Duck, Isabelle asked, “Can we go and check them again?” On Thursday afternoon, 4 of the ducklings made an appearance from their eggs and the children were very excited to see them. Sebastian reminded his friends, “Remember guys, they are very tired now so we have to be quiet so they can rest until they are ready to play”. Joseph agreed, “That’s right and then they can have a swim in their paddling pool”.

The toddlers have absolutely loved the arrival of the duck eggs and have been so excited to see the ducklings! When the eggs had first arrived lots of toddlers were asking to see them and they all got to have a look at the eggs in the incubator and the set up of the ducklings cage. Sebastian gasped and with an open mouthed look of amazement said, “Look all the eggs, one…two…three…four…five eggs”. While hearing about how the ducklings will hatch out and get to explore their little environment once they go all fluffy, the children heard a little ‘cheep’ causing both of them to gasp. Sienna squinted her eyes and leaned in close, trying to see if she could hear it again while Sebastian then whispered “Hear the ducks?”. Sienna then jumped back into the conversation previously, “There’s a duck…. In the eggs and going to come out…. and sleep in there” Sebastian looked to where Sienna was pointing at the small heater and took a deep breath and let out a pretend snore!

This week, the under 2s have been super excited about the arrival of our duckling eggs. Before the eggs arrived, the children were lucky enough to spot some Moorhen chicks with their Mummy, swimming along the water during one of our daily walks. Lyra pointed as she gasped, saying, “Oooo wow” and began to clap her hands. Once back at nursery, the children visited the duck eggs a few at a time. After explaining to the children that inside the eggs are ducklings, Lowen’s eyes lit up. He looked towards the eggs and said, “Quack quack” with a huge smile on his face as he looked at his friend Calvin. Calvin then began to copy the quacking sound which made them both giggle. Every day the children have a look to see how the ducklings are doing and if they have hatched yet. 

Planting Vegetables & Egg Hunts!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been closely observing the changes to the garden and the nursery grounds now that spring has arrived. Whilst observing the bug house in the garden nature area, Margot had noticed that another tree had grown its flower buds. Calling Ellie over to have a look, she gently held the bud in her hand and said to Ellie, “This one is so pretty, I love flowers”. They went on to take a closer look at all of the trees around the garden, gathering friends along the way to see which other trees had started to bloom. Ollie saw a butterfly on one of the leaves and asked Tilly, “Do you think the butterfly has come back to see us?”. Quickly noticing Tilly was a little confused, he reminded her, “The butterflies that we had in pre school!”. Tilly smiled and said, “Oh yeah, it is pre school butterfly”. Some of the other children enjoyed getting creative at an observational drawing of daffodils activity. Whilst coming to the end of her drawing, Isla let out a little smile whilst looking at the picture she had created. She was showing it to Ethan explaining, “This is the bit where there is a beautiful flower and this is the bit that grows”.

The children have also been busy helping to start the vegetable growing process in the vegetable patches. Francis couldn’t wait to get his hands in to the mud, choosing to use his fingers to make space for the seeds, whilst Isabelle carefully used a small spade to make holes to plant her seeds in. After planting a few seeds, the watering fun started and the children helped to fill up some watering cans and went on to ensure all of the soil had been watered. 

As it’s the lead up to Easter, the children had a great time helping each other on a number and letter egg hunt around the garden. Before the hunt, the children were identifying the letter that was at the beginning of or within their names and when on the hunt, were challenged to find these letters. Cooper very quickly found the C egg hidden in the sand pit and Harry found the H egg within the nature area. After the children had collected their letter eggs, they worked as a team, to do a number egg hunt, praising and clapping each other each time they found a new egg.

Spring Nature Walks & Exploring Colours!

The toddlers went for such a lovely nature walk around the Imber court grounds one afternoon. After packing their explorer bags with paper, clipboards, crayons, paintbrushes and water colour paints, the children set off, hand in hand excited to see what awaited them. The first thing that caught their eye was the big willow tree! They were very interested in the long dangly branches and both reached out to grab them with both hands, giggling as the wind blew them away slightly and they had to chase after them a little. Emily was more interested in the tree trunk and wrapped her arms around it in a big cuddle with a little ‘Ahhh’. This then led on to the children doing some bark rubbing by holding their piece of paper against the tree and rubbing a crayon across it. Evelyn laughed and said “It’s all bumpy” as she moved her hand up and down over the ridges. After this, the toddlers made their way to the field, meandering along the path and taking in the sights along the way, Jenson shouted “Ah, aeroplane!” while pointing to the sky to direct his friends on where to look. This then echoed a chorus of ‘wow’s, ‘aeroplane’s and smiles. For the next stop the toddlers decided on a bench to sit on and retrieved their paint brushes and helped to gather some soil to paint with. Skandar pulled out a big piece of card to paint on and began banging his soil covered brush all over it, causing little bits to fly all around with him, causing lots of laughs.  Madeline was more interested in the watercolour painting and very intently painted her paper with lots of colours, pausing every few seconds to say either “Wow” or “look” while moving her hand in circles to show off her whole painting. As the children were sat on the grass painting a few birds flew over and Evelyn commented “It’s a parrot”! 

Over the last couple of weeks, the under 2’s have loved getting out and enjoying the weather as it is starting to get warmer and sunnier! The children have taken the opportunity to spend as much time as possible out in the garden and also out on walks and on the field. Whilst out on the fields, the children have loved playing with a range of balls that were brought along, and Lowen happily shouted “Ball!” as he saw them getting pulled out of the buggies. Calvin ran straight towards his favourite orange ball, scooped it up and took it towards the goal. He looked around to make sure his friends were watching, before throwing the ball into the goal. Lydia watched on and clapped her hands to congratulate Calvin for scoring such a great goal! 

Whilst inside and in the garden, the children have been taking part in lots of bright and colourful activities involving rice scooping and pouring and tissue paper play. Zakariya fully engaged himself in the tissue paper activity by opening up each piece of scrunched paper and shouting it’s colour. “Blue! Pink! Orange!”, he announced in excitement. This made his friends giggle and so Zakariya got louder and louder, until Isabella and Freya began copying the words Zakariya was using. Together they identified the colours blue, orange and pink and all gave it their best shot at saying the words. 

Learning the Life Cycle of Butterflies!

The preschool children have been observing the life cycle of a caterpillar to a butterfly over the last two weeks and have shown a large amount of interest. The children have been learning about the four stages of the process, starting off as an egg, turning in to the larva (caterpillar), forming a cocoon and then eventually a butterfly. When the caterpillars first arrived, the children helped to separate the food in to individual pots where the caterpillars would be placed in to for them to be able to start the cocoon process. Tilly had seen the caterpillars in the box when they arrived and curiously asked, “But why are they caterpillars and not eggs?”. Phoebe explained to Tilly that, “The eggs have hatched already and now they are caterpillars!”. The children observed patiently over the next few days, waiting for the caterpillars to start cocooning. They also took part in many activities including making their own stories of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’, making 3D butterflies using various materials including paper mache, paper plates and shredded paper and enjoyed using their bodies to move in many ways to pretend to be a caterpillar and butterfly. 

Otto noticed when he came in to nursery on Monday morning that all of the caterpillars had cocooned, he called Joseph over to start and then one by one called a few more friends over, “Be careful not to shake the net, the cocoons might fall down!”. The children silently stared at the net of cocoons, almost in amazement. Joseph asked, “Why are they smaller than the caterpillars?” Otto suggested, “Maybe they have squeezed their legs together to be cosy?”, to which Basti reassured him, “Yes, that’s right”. A few more days went by before the first butterfly emerged and whilst Arlo was putting some art work away in his tray below the butterflies, he very excitedly called out, “Everyone, a butterfly has come out!”, and within a few hours lots more butterflies had hatched from their cocoons which was the focus of the next group time. Margot was very kind to chop some of her orange at snack time, putting it aside and asked, “Can I put it in the net for the butterflies to eat?”

When it was time to release the butterflies, Gabriel was so excited to be able to hold the butterfly on his hand, letting out a little giggle, he said to Sadie, “That tickled my hand”. Emmy gently held her hand out and also giggled when the butterfly walked across the back of her hand. Marlow and Isla clapped and waved as the butterflies flew off and when seeing one had landed on a flower in the garden, a small group of the children crouched down, holding out their hands and Ethan let out a big smile when the butterfly crawled back on to his hand.