Exploring Insects, Flowers & Herbs!

Over the last couple of weeks the toddlers have been experiencing lots of seasonal changes with both the weather getting warmer, seeing plants and leaves brightening in colour, as well as getting the chance to see more insects in their everyday environment. 

Whilst on a walk around the Imber Court grounds, the children led the way to a grassy area in search of flowers. Henrietta and Rafe went straight towards the daisies and plucked them from the ground, Rafe immediately held it up so show off his success of finding a flower, “Flower!” he exclaimed for all his friends to hear. This then attracted other children to the area, one of them being Blair, who came across a dandelion. With three big huffs and puffs, Blair blew all off the seeds off the stalk and squealed with delight as she watched them get carried by the breeze, pointing to show everyone. Megan thought this was a great idea and plucked a dandelion of her own, only to misjudge how close it was and accidentally suck the dandelion fluff into her mouth. Ooops! As the children were searching the area for more dandelions, Maximilian and Santiago wondered over to a fallen tree and both bent down to have a closer look. Santiago quickly leaned back with a shout and a point, “Ahh!”. They had stumbled across a trail of ants making their way into the cracks of the tree. Maximilian commented “Spider” but then corrected himself, “Ant” as a member of staff explained what insect they were looking at. This again intrigued the other children and they too all joined in to watch the ants, occasionally saying “Shhh” to each other so as not to scare them away.

The children have been loving planting with lots of soil and cress. As the theme of that week was gardening, the toddlers gathered their tools and pots, ready to replant some cress. Arthur and Gabriel got stuck straight in, both picking up a glove to put on before picking up their choice of gardening tool. Monty grabbed a tool belt and once that was on he selected a trowel and began scooping the soil and transferring it from the tray to the pot. Arlo picked up some cress and said “What that I going to put it in my pot” before filling his pot with soil and patting it down with his gloved hand.

Over the last couple of weeks, the under two’s have really shown their love of the outside, enjoying the sunshine and exploring our brand new herb garden. This includes, rosemary, thyme, lemon variegated thyme and curry plant. Whilst looking at some of the very beautiful plants, the children have been testing their sense of smell. Finley picked up a piece of rosemary and showed an adult. Finley was asked, “What does it smell like Finley?”. Finley put the rosemary carefully to his nose and said, “Mmmm nice”. Finley and his friends continued to pick small pieces of each herb in order to see what each of them smelt like. 

Inside, the under two’s particularly enjoyed an activity related to our book of the month, ‘Dear Zoo’. The activity involved discovering the zoo animals, hidden by pieces of paper. Leo approached this activity straight away and really showed off his love of animals by being able to name almost every one. Leo would lift up each ‘door’ to reveal the animal and say either the name of the animal or the sound. Phoebe wanted to see what was going on, so pulled herself up from the floor and stood next to her friends. After watching and working out what to do, she began searching for animals. Sienna then approached the activity after seeing how much fun her friends were having and began lifting the doors to see what animals she could find. When finding the lion, she gasped and said, “Rahhh!”, as loud as she could, making her friends giggle.