Aeroplanes, Animals & New Flavours!

The older children have been learning all about the human body recently and the functions of some of our organs, in particular our hearts, lungs and brains. At group time, Ada confidently stood up in front of her friends and told them, “I know something about our brains, it sends a message to our body so that our body can move”. Parker laughed and said, “My mum sends messages too”. Oscar then told everyone, “Our lungs help us to breathe and they go up and down when you breathe in and out”. Whilst discussing our hearts, Edie said, “Our love hearts help us to love people” and Ellie smiled and added, “But our hearts also push the blood around our bodies”.

The home corner has been made in to an airport and the children have absolutely loved engaging in aeroplane role play. They made their own aeroplanes using the chairs and Max told his friends, “I am the pilot, we are going to Africa”. The children made their own passports to take on the aeroplane with them. When creating his own passport Henry said “I’m drawing my face in my passport so I can see my picture”. The children enjoyed lining the chairs up in rows and using their tickets and passports to board the plane and looked at the world map to choose where they would like to fly to. Paige pointed to a country and said “I would like to go here”, Ellie replied by saying “I would like to fly to New York.”

The children also have been enjoying talking about different types of animals, such as animals from the jungle, the safari, the farm and our pets at home. They have been learning where types of animals originate from and what their habitats are like. They have been comparing similarities in some of their patterns and also which animals have the same name babies. Oliver was able to tell his friends that, “An elephant has a calf and also that’s the same as a cow; a cow has a calf”. Mateo went on to say, “And a lion has a cub and a bear has a cub”. The children went on to making their own 3D animals using the play-dough.

The last two weeks the toddlers have explored the flavours and textures of different coloured foods each week. They started with red foods where they had the opportunity to try red onion, pomegranate, pepper, beetroot, rhubarb and cherries. Charlotte was very brave and tried the red onion first; she took a huge bite and then quickly spat it out... not sure she liked that one! Immy loved the pomegranate calling it a “Sweetie” and she gobbled it up before any of her friends could attempt to steal it.  Next up was orange foods. The toddlers were able to try balsamic vinegar on bread, grapefruit, peach, sweet potato, mango and butternut squash. Although Rhys didn’t eat much, he did pretend to eat everything on his plate saying “Nom nom nom”.  Charlie tried everything and even licked his plate clean... delicious! 

Outside the toddlers have loved spending time in the glorious sunshine.. They had fun playing in the water tray, splashing water as high as they could! Alastair enjoyed splashing so much he went through five pairs of clothes in one morning! They have also been stretching their legs playing running races. Isabelle and Isla shouted “READY, STEADY, GO!” and they all ran as fast as they could, darting side to side to avoid the others running in the opposite direction! 

The children in the under twos room loved taste testing different vegetables. They tried beetroot, mange tout, baby corn, peppers and broccoli and we talked about healthy eating. Luna and Sadie enjoyed the beetroot and looking at the pink colour it left on their hands, Zack and Billie also got stuck in but Emily was a little more cautious of trying them. 

Outside they went for one of their regular walks to see the ducks and ducklings, to feed them bread and watch them come out of the water, closer to the buggies. They also saw the horses in the fields and Blake and Isaac were very excited saying “Horsey!” as they watched the horses gallop across their enclosure. In the garden Zack was exploring the tunnel, crawling through and laughing as he came out the other side. Chloe, Olivia, Tomas and Ada spent a lot of time concentrating on playing with the stacking cars, taking the different parts off then placing them back on the base..

Sophie, Finley, and Emily chose to play with the heuristic objects, putting on gloves and giving each other high fives, playing peekaboo with flannels, looking through bamboo and feeling the rough textures of pine cones and sponges.