Bear Hunts & Picnics!

One of the themes the toddlers have been exploring recently is July’s book of the month, ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’. One group activity the children took part in was creating a cave, just like the one where the bear is found in the story, out of papier-mâché. Maddie and Clara helped to stir the glue and water mixture together and dunk in the strips of paper, using both hands to combine it all. Evelyn watched on with a smile, not as keen to touch, but seemingly enjoying watching her friends, “Mix, mix, mix, they mixing it all up…it’s so messy!”. Tabitha and Cara got stuck in straight away, putting their hands into the bowl of paper and applying them to the cave. Cara patted both hands on top of the cave which made a splat sound, causing them both to erupt into giggles and say, “SPLAT” each time they patted a new strip of paper down.

A group of children enjoyed looking at the story together with some props from the story sack. Sebastian repeated some parts of the story as they turned through the pages, “Splash splash!” and “Squelch squelch!” before flipping to the page with the cave, which is where Jenson joined in and whispered, “Tiptoe, tiptoe, tiptoe” while holding his arms up by his sides and creeping on the spot. As they turned to the page with the bear Sebastian shouted, “AHHH ITS A BEAR!”, as Jenson screamed, triggering their other friends to scream and shout, “BEAR!” as well!Jenson smiled as his friends and said, “Again?” Before turning the page back to the bear causing them all to scream again.

Over the last two weeks, the children in the Under two’s room have been excited to explore the wide range of activities available to them. Inside, they were intrigued by a teacher laying masking tape on the floor, creating a track system. Lowen approached the activity and noticed a box of trains on the floor and said, “Look, trains!”, as he pointed down towards the box. Calvin came along and took a train out of the box, before walking towards the tracks laid out on the floor. Calvin’s friends watched on as he made the link between the trains and the tape tracks, and began guiding the train along the tracks. Lowen took his train and joined in next to Calvin, pushing his train gently along the tracks. Isabella sat down and said, “choo choo, trains, on train track!”, as she connected the carriages together to make a long train. 

On daily walks around the Imber court grounds , the children have become a lot more independent in their play, choosing what they would like to take with them and choosing how they play. On one of the days, the children chose to take a variety of balls on the walk and spent their time kicking, throwing and rolling them to each other. Lydia was running around, holding two footballs when she noticed that Alexandra did not have one of her own. Lydia walked over to her and gave her one ball saying, “Alex, Alex”. On another day, the children helped set up their picnic spot by laying down the blanket and handing out their water cups. Zakariya and Freya picked up a corner of the blanket and lifted it into the air, giggling. Zakariya said, “Put it down now, on floor”, which Freya repeated and said, “Down now”. After getting the picnic blanket down, the two celebrated with a high five and a smile, before settling down to a refreshing drink.