Storytime with Yoga and Cosy Dens!

Over the last few weeks, the toddlers have been focusing on our book of the month ‘The Very Busy Spider’. By reading the book almost every day, the toddlers are becoming more familiar with the story. Everyone loved joining in, making the sounds of the farm animals that visit the spider as she makes her web. Whilst playing with farmyard animals, the toddlers enjoyed recreating parts of the story with the animals, with Isabelle asking others if their animals “Want to go for a ride?” with her horse. Before long, several animals were having a wonderful run around the farmyard together, with the children laughing and smiling as they played together!

Inside the toddlers had the opportunity to take part in a yoga class, where a teacher comes in and teaches them simple yoga poses using a story. The story began with a tree and so the toddlers stretched up high towards the sky, just like a tree and swayed back and forth when it got windy. Eloise encouraged her friends but showing how high she could reach, “Look how high I reaching”, she said. Gradually, the story moved onto animals and the toddlers got very excited, making their noises and attempting to walk like that animal. One animal was a tiger, India shouted, “ROAR!”, which made her friends jump and giggle.

Outside the toddlers have been using their imaginations and making boats using our stepping stones. They used team work to turn them over and hopped inside making sure they were singing ‘Row, row row your boat’ throughout. Isla shouted to her friends “Quick, you in the water now!”. The other toddlers responded, “Aa ha! Splash splash splash”.

Over the last couple of weeks the under 2’s have been focusing on animals as their main theme. 

A popular activity was a sensory dig tray. Billy went straight over and found a toy horse instantly. Proud of himself he held the horse in the air laughing loudly, this caught his friends attention and they made their way over to see what the fuss was all about. Max started digging around seeing how many animals he could find while on the other hand Margaux was more interested in trying get to as much straw as possible out of the builders tray. More and more babies started to show interest in the digging, but Sienna found it much more fun to sit in the middle of the tray moving their legs around causing the straw to make a funny noise which massively entertained them. 

In spirit of the book ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’, the babies also enjoyed exploring a “bear cave” that was made outside. They quickly crawled inside, looking up at the blankets draping above their heads as well as flopping down on the multiple cushions set up inside. Henrietta found a little passage in between the sheets which meant she could easily get in and out of the cave. This entertained her greatly and she repeated going through the passage multiple times getting her friends to follow her round the loop she found. Megan was most confused when she realised her hair was sticking up and getting stuck to the top of the cave!!

Inside the babies engaged in a ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ inspired sensory tray. They loved the little cut out characters, Hugo in particular loved the little bowls of porridge and pretended to eat them. Max very intently scooped some of the oats into one of the bowls and mixed them around to make “Porridge”. Meanwhile Finley and Henrietta were more intrigued by the oats being poured out from a height; delighted at the noise they made as they flooded back into the tray as they gestured for it to be repeated again and again even trying to do it themselves.