Colour Hunt & Exploring the Fields!

Over the last few weeks one of the themes the toddlers have explored is colours, where they were able to experiment with colour mixing with different paints, sort some of the favourite toys into colour groups and challenge themselves with a fishing game in the water tray, trying to catch specific colours of fish with their stick fishing rods. One activity that the children enjoyed was a rainbow sensory tray with a variety of coloured toys, pom-poms, pipe cleaners and feathers among other textured items. Eliza approached and looked at the items in the tray before selecting a small piece of ribbon, which she slowly traced over the palm of her hand. Evelyn picked up a ‘nut a bolt’ toy, immediately recognising the colour, “This one’s yellow”, looking up to see that Jenson had picked up the same toy in the same colour, “Oh, Jenson’s got the same as Evie, he’s got a yellow one too” causing them to have a little giggle. However the thing that got the most laughs from all of the children at the activity was the discovery of the feathers! Jenson gasped as he picked up a feather, seemingly knowing what he was going use the it for, and gently stroked it over Eliza’s face. She pulled back, shocked for a second before squealing and picking up a feather to tickle her own face. Evelyn saw this and grabbed her own feather too, making her way around the tray tickling each of her friends, causing them to erupt into giggles!

One afternoon in the garden a group of the children playing in the sand pit,rolling cars and boats down a large tube, noticed that the outside of the tube made a noise if it has something dragged across it. This then led to an impromptu music session where a mix of the toddler and preschool children had their own sticks and began dragging them up and down the ribbed tube and requesting songs to sing. Along to the renditions of ‘Baa baa black sheep’, ‘Twinkle twinkle’ and many others Emily dragged her stick back and forth along the tube with a smile while Madeline wiggled to the beat of the music. The preschoolers tapped their sticks to make a beat and Theo used his hands to run up and down the end of the tube, giving a small round of applause at the end of each song. 

Over the last couple of weeks, the under 2s have been having an absolute blast and it’s been full of challenges, fun and laughter. Inside, the builders tray filled with sand and farm animals was a very popular activity. Calvin took inspiration from his friend and carefully built his own sand mound and checked to make sure he was doing it just right. And Emilia and Freya? What a team! They were having a smashing time (literally!) with the farm animals, lifting them up and banging them back down into the sand. 

Outside, the car and track tray was a big hit where Lowen and Lyra were so focused, carefully guiding their cars down the taped tracks. It was lovely to see them working together and problem solving. Lydia's little cheers and claps every time a car made it across made everyone happy! Our daily walks have been a lot of fun, especially with this lovely weather. Zakariya's face lit up when he spotted a flock of birds flying overhead, pointing and shouting "Bird, bird!", and with Sophia's clapping and excitement right alongside him. After snack time had finished, the children were free to explore the field, and could choose to run around, play football or play with the toy animals. 

It has been a lovely couple of weeks, filled with learning, laughter and lots of happy little faces.