Ducks & Frozen Ponds!

Over the last couple of weeks, the toddlers have been learning about winter and what it involves. They discovered how cold their hands get when exploring a frozen sensory tray filled with colourful ice cubes and objects that encourage the use of motor skills.  As Blair picked up a piece of ice, she laughed aloud and said, “Wow, cold!”, placing it back into the tray and choosing a scoop as her next choice of tool. Whilst playing with the ice, Harry realised that it slid very well across the bottom of the tray shouting, “Zoom, zoom, so fast!”. Continuing their motor skills practise, the toddlers have been taking part in the new daily play dough disco. This allows the toddlers to work on their fine motor skills by moulding dough in time to music and performing different actions such as rolling it, squeezing it, pinching it and squashing it. The toddlers can’t get enough of it and often break out in dance too. Edward said, “Flat like a pancake!”,whilst flattening the dough, whilst Arlo rolled it out and made a “Wiggly worm”. 

Despite the chilly weather, the toddlers have still very much enjoyed their time outside and in particular our walks out and about. During a walk to the ponds to feed the ducks, they came across the pond completely frozen over and the ducks sliding about all over the place! Whilst feeding the ducks, the toddlers were fixated on how the ducks were walking and sliding across the ice to get their bread. Ava was in constant fits of giggles whilst Gabriel told his friends, “Look, the ducks slipping on the ice!”. 

Over the last couple of weeks the under two’s have been discovering their senses in many different ways and investigating different textures through a variety of activities. When exploring a baked bean activity, Finley quickly took hold of the spoon and began to scoop up the beans with a very big smile on his face. George watched intently as the beans fell from Finley’s spoon which clearly appeared to intrigue George as he watched Finley for a few more moments before picking up the cup and squashing it down onto some beans. They lifted up the beans between their fingers and let them fall, and as they hit the table they made a splatter sound which really got the full engagement of the little ones and they couldn’t wait to join in. Margaux repeatedly said “Uh oh” as they fell onto the table. 

The children had a variety of textures to explore including play dough. Imogen used her fingers and sunk them into the dough, looking up with a curious look when the dough was completely filling her hand. Matilde was sinking cutters into the mix until she spotted a roller cutter. Matilde then began pressing it into her play-dough making lots of track marks, smiling as she was doing so. Imogen continued to squash and squeeze it babbling away as if telling everyone what she was doing. 

Outside in the garden, some of the children have been busy making mud pies using a selection of different kitchen utensils. Margaux climbed into the mud kitchen and started to use the scoop to lift the mud, laughing as it fell back onto the ground. She spotted the herbs at the back of the mud garden and made her way over to them to smell them and Matilde and Billy very quickly followed suit.