Wet Play & Exploring Smells in the Garden!

The toddlers have been looking at the theme of ‘light and dark’ recently where they explored light play with torches and light up toys, as well as light and dark colours. The children had a range of coloured paint on the table, along with some white and black paint, brushes and plenty of paper. Maddie used her brush to swirl through all of the colours, excitedly point to her creation with her brush, “Mixing”. Elizabeth giggled at this and with a brush in each hand began splatting the different colours, as she noticed them mixing together she pointed to a large spread of paint, “It’s big pink!”. Lucy scooped up a big blob of paint and dropped it in front of her and began mixing in white and black and with a big smile commented, “It’s colours!”.

The toddlers went on a tour of the back of the garden, along the windy pathway and looking into each of the bird houses, bug hotels, habitat crates and planters. As a group of them stopped at one of the vegetable planters Tabitha leaned over for a closer look and saw something crawling beside her, she shouted “SPIDER!” while pointing to signal to her friends where it was. Sebastian replied, “Woah it is a spider…. it’s alright, I like spiders”. Clara pointed to a tomato plant at the back of the planter and asked, “What’s that?”, Jenson leaned in close and tilted his head to the side, looking at it from all angles before stating, “It’s a tree”. Further along the trail, the children pointed out the pictures of a ladybird, worm, snail and slug before ending up at the herb garden. Immediately knowing what to do Skandar, Theo and Evelyn leaned in close and took a deep breath in through their nose. Phoebe joined them and said, “I want to smell it!” as she reached her hand towards a mint leaf. She gently rubbed the leaf between her fingers before letting go and bringing her hand up to her nose to smell, “Mmm it smells yummy!”.

Over the last couple of weeks, the under 2’s have been exploring the pipe wall in the garden with a range of items including balls, water, and cars! Freya approached and picked up one of the balls, whilst Zavier observed for a short while before also approaching and letting out a little ‘Ooo’ as he curiously watched to see what would happen. Freya stretched up and dropped the ball at the top of the pipes, clapping her hands and watching intently as it began to roll down the tubes. When the ball reached a point where it got stuck, Freya gasped and nudged it forward to get it moving along the pipes again. 

The under 2’s have also loved splashing around in the water to cool off as the weather has warmed up! Lyra ran over and jumped straight in, shouting ‘Splash!’ as she did so, whilst Lydia who was already in the water giggled along with her. Calvin ran over to join in with the fun, laughing as he scooped up a handful of water and sprinkled it over his friends, which made them all laugh. Whilst out exploring the grounds, the under 2’s were very excited to see the ducks come out of the river heading towards them. Lowen clapped excitedly, and began to shout ‘Quack quack’ as they began to enjoy the duck food. Isabella let out a quiet ‘wow’ and then clapped her hands with a big smile on her face.