Reading, Cooking & Exploring!

The toddlers have been looking at February’s book of the month, Owl Babies, where they not only read the story lots of times, but explored the story sack which contains different related props. A couple of the children carefully stroked the larger owl, while two other children huddled together with the three baby owls and spoke to them gently with a higher pitched tone, “Ahh… the little babies!” and carefully ran their fingers over their beaks and eyes. As we read the story together, some of the children showed lots of empathy through their ‘aww’ sounds when the babies were looking for the mummy owl, before let our a cheer when they were reunited at the end! The children then had the chance to try and act out the story as the props were added to a nature woodland scene. The owls were flown from a nest made of sticks and leaves to a tree stump, where the owls sat perched as some of the children began feeding them food from the home corner.

Whilst on a walk around the Imber Court grounds, the toddlers made their way to one of the fields where they ran as fast as their legs could carry them, circling the large area and twirling with their arms open wide. As they did this, a large flock of birds flew over, causing all of the children to pause and watch as they flew overhead. This then lead onto some of the children pretending to fly like a bird, flapping their arms by their sides as they moved around the grass. They then moved onto pretending to be owls like in the owl story and they began hooting and shouting “Twit-twoo!” as they ran. The toddlers ended their walk with a pit stop to splash in some puddles, give a quick hello to the ducks and horses and stop off for a snack on the picnic blanket and returning to nursery to tell their friends of their journey.

Over the last couple of weeks the Under Two’s have been showing a lot of interest in the home corner whether it be cooking, cleaning or playing with the dolls. One morning during free play, one of the children picked up the whole box of toy food and transported it over to the home corner kitchen. After placing it down, a few others took an interest and approached. They began taking out the food, one piece at a time and placed it onto the side. Another child reached under into the cupboard and took out some pots and pans. As the children looked around, a child said, “Cook, cook” as they pointed at the pans. They began placing food items into various pots and pans and continued chatting together saying, “Oh hot, blow, blow!”, as they stirred and cooked the delicious food together. The children were even able to begin learning some new words like, ‘stir’, ‘yummy’ and ‘mix’. 

Outside in the garden, there has been a lot of exploration with new things such as the rolling wall. The children began by interacting with the wall how they usually would, which is rolling small colourful balls from top to bottom. As a small group of them did this, another child walked around the garden as if looking for something. He looked high and low and eventually came across a pine cone, picking up a few as he found them. He then walked back over to the rolling wall and set a pine cone rolling down from the top. As the pine cone rolled down, it wobbled about and half way down jumped over the edge. Everyone let out a little scream and a giggle as it made them jump and that was the new game from then on. Some children even continued to explore and find other objects that would roll down the wall differently to the balls.

Building Castles & Experimenting with Colours!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have shown lots of interest in role play and small world play. Outside in the garden, a group of children worked very hard as a team to build a car garage, a bridge and a car slope with the large wooden blocks. Some of the children were comparing the sizes of the cars that they were playing with and working out which ones would fit in to which sized hole, which they called the car parking spaces. Other children were discussing having to cross the bridge to get to the car slope, whilst others used the chalkboard behind to draw the road for the cars to drive along, ensuring that there was roundabouts for the cars too. Afterwards, the children moved on to build a castle, making sure there was space for a door and some seats to sit down on. 

The children engaged in a water play activity, washing, drying, dressing and caring for the baby dolls, showing a lot of care and attention and being gentle when drying and dressing the dolls. One of the children suggested washing the babies hair which made some of the other children laugh and remind them, “The babies don’t have real hair!”. 

The preschool children were involved in a colour mixing experiment, using various tools and colours to mix together to make different colours and adding white for different shades of each colour. Some children selected to use the dabbers to individually print the paints on their paper whilst others used glue spatulas to move paints from one pot to another, mixing them together, fully engaged as they discovered that the colours started to change!

Puddle Splashing, Car Races & Animal Art!

The toddlers have been participating in lots of group games recently, one of which involved sitting in a large circle and passing a hat around from one child to the next whilst singing a song. As the song started, the children watched with interest as the hat was placed on a child’s head, then passed onto the next. As the hat made its way around the circle the children began to smile and giggle with anticipation of it being their turn. Once the song had finished and everyone had a turn, the toddlers began to clap and ask for more songs, with lots of suggestions of ‘row your boat’. Many versions of the song were sang, one of which sung about going over a puddle and giving your friends a cuddle. The toddlers quickly jumped up from their seats and began cuddling their friends and staff, giving multiple cuddles to each other with lots of smiles and giggles.

The toddlers went for a very rainy walk one morning, putting on their waterproofs, wellies and smiles as they set off on foot around the Imber Court grounds. The rain was already trickling as they started the walk, which got a few excited squeals from the children as one of them exclaimed “I want to find a puddle!”. Once they made it to the field and saw the large puddles amongst the grass, they were off - running full steam ahead to start splashing! As some of the children began wading through the shallow water creating small waves a couple others jumped, making large splashes. Back at nursery a group of children were going on a tour around the garden with their cars, trailing them along the different ledges and up and down the balance beams. When they made it to the hill and placed the cars at the top there were comments of, “Oh no!”, along with laughs and squeals as the cars went speeding down to the bottom. This turned into a race with the children lining up their cars at the top of the hill and letting them roll all the way down!

Over the last couple of weeks, the under twos have done a great job joining in with a range of activities and doing lots of exploring! The children were very enthusiastic when playing with the nature play dough, and did a great job investigating what marks the various materials would make. One child picked up a pine cone before pressing its edge against the play dough, everyone else admired the marks it left when they removed it. After a little bit of guidance, a group of the children proceeded to roll the pine cones across the play dough leaving a trail, pressing the top of it against the dough to leave a larger mark. The children then began to pick up other materials, such as lolly sticks and twigs, pressing them into the play dough so they were standing up. After a teacher expressed the play dough looked like hedgehogs, some children were able to copy the word and repeated, “Hedgehog, hedgehog, hedgehog!”.

Out in the garden, the children have showed a lot of interest in the toy cars. Some of the children chose to use the footbridge as a road and roll the cars down the slope. As they rolled the cars along the bridge, some of the children shouted out “Vroom vroom”, giggling together as they did so. Whilst out on daily walks, the children have explored the grounds and nature, including splashing around in lots of puddles with their wellies on! A couple of the children were keen to find the biggest puddles they could and explored enthusiastically, running over as soon as they saw some water. They would jump up and down creating huge splashes and watch in fascination as the puddle rippled around them letting out little giggles and laughs each time. 

Creating with Nature & Muddy Cooking!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been engaging in lots of wet play activities in the rainy weather. The children loved collecting the rain water using many containers including cake tins, jugs, muffin cases and saucepans. The children were using the rain water they had collected as one of their ingredients whilst role playing in the mud kitchen to make various food items, with mud pie being a clear favourite! Whilst some of the children got to work, being imaginative to make food for their friends and teachers, some of the other children got stuck in to sitting on the ground, collecting as much water as they possibly could from the puddles that had formed and filling up the containers for their friends to use whilst cooking. Some of the other children were engaged in a water tray activity, using the spades to transfer the water from the bottom of the water tray, back up to the top, watching almost in amazement as the water was flowing down the levels of the water tray. The children also enjoyed floating paper boats in puddles and the water tray, discussing between themselves when they thought that the boat was able to float and when they thought it would sink. 

The preschool children have continued to be creative and enjoyed some lovely walks around the nursery grounds, collecting various natural objects such as leaves, sticks and pine cones. The children used these items to create some nature pictures to help finish the nature winter display board in the preschool room. Some of the children also showed a lot of excitement whilst playing at the arctic animals crazy foam set up, digging deep and counting how many animals they could find - whilst others chose to use some play dough to design their own 3D versions of sea and arctic animals and showing each other with pride what they had created!

Music, Cooking & Rainy Play!

With the first music and movement session of the new year underway, with the wonderful Ellie who visits, the toddlers were so visibly excited and sat in a big circle as the welcome song was started and they began wagging their fingers for the sign for music. The children stomped their feet in time to the music, waved hello to Boo Boo the puppet and of course joined in with lots of singing. When it was time for the parachute games, a couple of children chose to remain holding the parachute where they were lifting it up high and then down low, while most of the toddlers chose to lay underneath for the rendition of sleeping bunnies, before quickly get to their feet, jumping up and down with joy and squeals of happiness. Afterwards, it was time to play some musical instruments with some children choosing tambourines, others selecting maracas and a few choosing castanets to click to the music. They waved their arms, played their instruments and stomped their feet along to the song ‘Music Man’, and for the finale waved goodbye with their sparkly stars on their hands as the session came to an end. 

Outside in the garden and Imber Court grounds, they have been loving the weather and getting to run around as it rained, splashing in any puddles they could find, even if it was just big enough for the tip of their welly boot to go in. A group of children ran around in a circle with their arms out catching the rain when all of a sudden a very loud aeroplane flew overhead causing them all to stop and look up with shouts of, “Look! Aeroplane!” and whilst they all tipped their heads back to look at the sky the rain tickled their faces. One child let out a giggle and said, “Ah I got rain on my eye” while another said, “My hair getting rain on now”. Over by the decking a couple of the toddlers had gathered cups and pots from the sand pit and mud kitchen to collect rain water which they happily tipped out when it was full to start over again.

Over the last couple of weeks in the Under 2s room, the children have been engaging in lots of different activities involving exploratory play. After a nice morning walk, the children came back to a bakery set up where they could explore flour, baking tools and pretend food items like eggs, bread and croissants. A few children approached the table and picked up utensils, some choosing pots and pans, whilst others decided to investigate the food, studying what it could be. Throughout the activity the children used their hands to feel the flour and move it around the table, with some even using one finger to make marks in the flour creating swirls, lines and wiggles. They interacted with each other throughout by showing their friends what creations they had made which included lots of smiles, giggles and even some new vocabulary like ‘bake’ and ‘hot’. 

As we’ve had a lot of rain, the children have spent their outdoor adventures looking for puddles to splash in. In the Under 2’s garden, a few children had found a builders tray full of rain water and were intrigued with what to do next. One of the children cautiously stepped into the tray and smiled as the water rippled around them. This one step became a big jump, a huge splash and a great laugh! Other children began to join in with the fun, jumping up and down and creating giant splashes around them. The Under 2’s have also enjoyed spending more time in the big garden, in particular, climbing up and down the big hill. The children made their way up the hill and got to the top, turning around and smiling, seemingly pleased with their hard work! Together we would then count down from three and the children chose to run, crawl or slide down the hill to reach the bottom. The huge climb would then begin again with the children making their way to the very top and three, two, one …. Go!