Ocean Exploration & Farmyard Animals!

Over the past week, the toddlers have been looking at ‘Under the Sea’. They have explored different sea creatures by watching short videos of them in their natural habitat. Florence liked the dolphins as she noted that they “Jumped in and out of water!”, before making a dolphin noise like the one she heard on the video. The toddlers spotted some jellyfish on the video swimming under the water. Alastair realised he knew a song about jellyfish and started to sing “Three jellyfish sitting on rock, one fell off... wo wo woooo SPLAAAAASH!”. Sadie and Isaac joined in with the actions, making a loud clapping noise as they shouted Splash. Some of the toddlers chose to make a jellyfish with paper plates, dabber pens, sequins and lots of different coloured paint. Later on, when their beautiful creations were dry, the toddlers were able to attach their jellyfish’s tentacles using their fine motor skills to thread pipe cleaners through holes in the paper plates.

Outside, the toddlers tried to move like an octopus by wiggling their arms and legs all over the place. Chloe enjoyed shaking her arms as hard and as fast as she could while Rowan tried to be a crab by crouching down, holding out his hands like claws and walking sideways. This made his friends laugh and James said “That’s funny”. Back inside the toddlers went fishing by using their fishing nets to try and catch some fish. Sophie got so excited when she lifted up her fishing net and spotted some colourful fish; she shouted “I got a fish! I got a fish!”. While some of the toddlers were busy fishing, Tommy, Ada and Chloe were having a boat race in the builders tray. Tommy said “My boat will win”, and Daniel said “No my boat win”. As they debated Ada pushed her boat passed her friends debating and won the race! and gave a cheeky smile. 

The under two’s have been really busy learning about farm animals and the different noises that they make. The children had a very exciting time meeting the baby chicks. As the chicks were brought into room in a box, the children became curious as they came over to have a look at what was making the chirping sound. The children all got to have a look and stroke them if they wanted to. Cecilia was unsure about touching them and kept her distance, but enjoyed watching. Esmé and Luciano were really intrigued by the chicks, pointing at that them as they hopped around the box and were held out. Esmé and Otto enjoyed stroking the baby chicks head and tried to mimic the cheeping sound. Youcef preferred to just look and was laughing when they cheated; eventually he was brave enough to touch one gently. 

The children have really enjoyed playing with the farm animal toys. They’ve been playing with the farm animals and the farmyard, trying to pass the animals through the gates and doors. Amélie and Esmé were both trying to make “Oink Oink” noises, which made Freddie laugh. Otto put the two large horses on the floor next to each other and tried to ride them with a big smile on his face, before Youcef came over to investigate and began smiling at what Otto was doing. Sophie has became very excited when she saw a dog while reading a story, shouting “Dog! Dog!” as she pointed to the picture. Later on the children did some observational mark making, looking at pigs and cows while they painted, Amélie liked the pigs curly tail. 

During one of our walks around the beautiful grounds, the babies saw lots of police horses going for a walk. As they walked past, Esmé shouted out “Wow!” and then started to clap, this made Sophie smile and point towards the horses and Jack bobbed up and down in his seat with excitement. They continued to walk along the stream on the look out for the baby ducklings, Sebastian shouted out “Quack Quack”, when all of a sudden some of the male ducks appeared from the bushes on the bank and the children tore off some bread and threw it to the ducks.