Wesak, Toadstools & Gardening!

One of the themes the toddlers explored recently was around the Buddhist celebration, Wesak, where they got involved with activities that focus on helping to clean, being kind as well as making their own tea light holder. The tree of kindness was an activity where the children were able to thread leaves onto the branches of a tree whilst speaking about different ways they can be kind. Leo picked up the biggest leaf, “Woah, look got a BIG one” and carefully threaded it onto one of the branches, commenting, “Can give a cuddles” when asked how to show kindness. Emily wrapped her arms around herself, giving herself a cuddle while saying, “Aahh cuddle!”.

Outside, the children have been able to explore the new enchanted area in a corner of the garden. Cara gasped as she saw the new toadstool seats and ran straight over, “Look, mushroom!”. Henry and Clara ran over too and scooted themselves onto the new seats, all looking at each other with big smiles when suddenly Clara shouted out, “HAMMER HAMMER HAMMER!”, bursting into song which the others quickly joined in with. They continued on with a rendition of ‘Twinkle star’ and ‘Baa baa black sheep’. Skandar approached the area just as there was a gust of wind, making all of the wind chimes clang together and make a magical tinkling sound. He looked straight up into the trees with a look of amazement, just as Sienna made her way over and said, “There’s music in the trees!”. Jenson laughed at this and began swaying his hips and moving his arms in a circular motion, dancing to the sounds of the wind chimes. 

Over the last couple of weeks, the under 2s have been indulging themselves in lots of malleable play, which has included squeezing play dough and exploring the texture of sandy paint and colourful foam. As the foam activity was being prepared, Lyra approached the table, curious as to what she saw and pointed towards the foam mixture. Lyra helped pour the colourful mixtures into each tray, ready for the children to play with and clapped herself after each pour. Calvin and Lowen were next to approach the activity and both chose to play with the yellow coloured foam. Showing lots of excitement and eagerness, Lowen put both of his hands directly into the foam causing a huge splash to fly out and land on the table. This made Calvin laugh and together, they began splashing the foam as they giggle and shouted, “Bang, bang!”. 

Outside in the garden, the children have been helping plant and water the herb garden. Lyra and Will were very keen to help out and rolled up their sleeves, ready for business. Lydia placed her hands into the soil and lifted them up, realising there was soil stuck to them. She held them up and turned around to show her friends; “Yuck!”, she said, as she wiped her hands together, brushing off the soil. After planting a few plants together, they had the job of making sure they were all watered. They used both hands to hold the watering can and slowly tipped it up, pouring the water all over the new herbs they had planted. A few more of the children had a turn with the watering can and were very pleased with their achievements. 

Creating Animals & Habitats!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been focusing on their new book of the month ‘Dear Zoo’! They have had the opportunity to join in with various activities including creating habitats for various species of animals, searching for insects in the sand and foam and have also been practicing their writing skills by copying the familiar words that they see throughout the book. Freddie used the play dough to design a tree for the snake, whilst Tilly created a den for a tiger using some grass and objects from the nature tray. She finished with a grass topping and suggested to India, “Look, your Zebra can sleep on there too!”. She then started to laugh as India placed the Zebra on the top and jumped as Tilly called out, “Boo!” as if the snake had made the Zebra jump. Ollie and Otto used their imaginations to write their own letters to the Zoo. Harry asked for a puppy and Otto a whale. Emmy and Sadie enjoyed an animal painted foot printing activity, comparing the sizes and features of the feet. Sadie showed Emmy, “Look Emmy, these ones are huge”, pointing at the elephants prints.

Outside in the garden, the children have been observing the nature area and using the magnifying glasses to look closer at any insects they have been able to find. Joseph and Joshua were looking intently in to the bug house and were so excited to find a few small bugs had made their home in there. They very quickly gained the attention of their finds, Joshua saying, “Shhh or you might scare them all away”. The children stayed there for a few moments, quietly observing the area. After a few moments, Ollie did a gentle sigh and asked his friends, “Isn’t it so nice and quiet? I can hear some birds too”. 

Writing Letters & Searching for Animals!

The toddlers have been having a great time focussing on the book of the month, ‘Dear Zoo’, over the last week, where they have been able to explore some of their favourite animals! To make sure the children were familiar with the story. they have been to reading it at circle times, and many of them knew it by heart! Clara called out each animal she could see, before the flap was even lifted, “Elephant… giraffe….camel!” and Sebastian shouted out one of the repeated lines, “I sent him back!”. When it came to doing some activities, Evelyn enjoyed using a mixture of match sticks, lolly sticks and cardboard to make a crate for the animals, “This is for the monkey and the snake!”. Meanwhile, Phoebe used her hands to make a handprint elephant, she painted her hand with the brush, letting out a few giggles along the way before splatting it onto her paper. She picked up two eyes and stuck them on her elephant, before saying, “I making an elephant…Can I have two more eyes?”.

In the garden the children were able to write letters to the zoo, like in the story, and post them in the nursery letter box. Jenson picked a green pencils and began making circles across his paper, “Lion….Rawr!”, while Leo asked the zoo for his favourite thing, “A tractor!” which he quickly followed up with a request for “A camel!”. Halle made lots of lines across her paper whilst babbling and making some animal sounds.

Over the last couple of weeks the under 2s have loved getting outside and making the most of the lovely weather, especially running and playing on the fields on their daily walks! Whilst sat on the field having their snack, something caught Lowen’s attention; he pointed towards the river where he saw some ducks making their way over. He excitedly shouted out, “Duck” as he realised what he was seeing, and indicated to his friends to look over and see them. After Calvin had spotted them, he began making ‘quack’ sounds, while Wilfred let out a quiet ‘Ooo!’. Once the children had finished their snack, they chose to run around the field, excitingly chasing each other back and forth, with Isabella letting out a happy squeal as they did so. 

Whilst inside the room, the children have been playing with a mix of different textures and materials. One texture they all particularly seemed to enjoy was paint, during a finger painting activity! Freya ran over to the table as she saw the paint getting laid out, clapping her hands in anticipation and watching intently. Giulia wandered over as she saw her friends painting, and warily dipped her finger onto the sponge. She appeared unsure what to do next, and Zakariya kindly showed her what to do, showing her how to place her hands onto the paper to transfer the paint onto it, leading to big smiles from both of them and beautiful pictures being created! 

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.