Diwali, Fireworks & Space!

The preschool children have been observing the changes of the trees in the garden over the past couple of weeks, noticing that a few trees in particular have lost their leaves and that the leaves have started to change colour. Henry told his friends, “It’s strange, some of these leaves have turned red, some are orange and some are still very green”. Whilst doing some observational drawings of the trees and plants in the garden, Ezmie noticed a leaf falling from the tree and quickly got her friends attention, “Quick guys, look before you miss it, the wind has blown the leaf off the tree, that’s super cool”. The children collected the leaves that had fallen on to the ground and placed them all in to a tray and were very focused on describing the similarities and differences between the leaves.

The children have been learning all about Diwali over the past week. One of the staff was informing the children all about the festival and the celebrations that take place and had brought in some clothes for the children to try on. Ada had seen that one of the staff members had put one of the outfits on and said, “You look like you are going to get married, the dress is very beautiful”. The children were then discussing special outfits that they wear on special occasions. Maya told her friends, “When it was my birthday, I had a party and I wore a very special sparkly dress!”.

The toddlers have enjoyed going up to outer space in our new ‘climbing frame’ spaceship! Alastair ran to the top and shouted “3, 2, 1, Blast Off!” which he had learnt from a song at circle time. They made rockets where they blew air into the straw and watched their rockets fly off. Rowan said “Wow, flying!” as he watched his friends rockets shoot across the room. While in space, the toddlers saw some photographs of planets and tried to make their very own by using paint, pens and sparkly sequins. Florence took her time painting her planet and was very impressed when she saw it hanging up in toddler room for everyone to see, “Look, planet up there!”. 

Outside they used paper telescopes to search for UFO’s and aliens. Isaac looked deeply into his telescope and said he saw an “elephant” in outer space. While in outer space, they came across some bonfires made of spaghetti which, due to the time difference, they had forgotten fireworks night was soon approaching. Sophie enjoyed breaking up the bonfire while Tommy and Sadie said “Fire hot!” and were trying to blow it out. 

Towards the end of the week, the children returned from outer space just in time for fireworks night. They quickly got on their aprons, found some paintbrushes and flicked paint across their paper and the whole of toddler room to create some fireworks. Rafferty said “Do it again” to his friends as he watched paint fly past his face to shrieks of laughter. The toddlers listened to a firework video and were asked what they could hear. Blake answered “Bang! Bang!” and her friends copied by shouting and clapping their hands to represent the sound. 

The under twos have been busy celebrating Diwali by making some beautiful firework pictures using cut out cardboard tubes. Esmé, Freddie and Kitty loved getting stuck in, dipping the tubes into the dishes of brightly coloured paint then stamping them onto the paper. Margot and Amélie had lots of fun hand painting and getting really messy, making different marks using their fingers and hands and sometimes their faces too!

Ada and Youcef concentrated really well when playing with the stacking toys. They took turns sharing the pieces and taking them off and putting them back on to the poles using good hand-eye coordination. Otto and Sebastian were role playing using the food and cooking utensils. They stood up at the table and were exploring the different items, mixing and banging the spoons with the pots and pans and sharing the food with each other, saying “Ta!”, babbling and laughing together.