Making Marks, Exciting Walks & Dinosaurs!

The toddlers were very shocked one morning when they walked into the room to see that some dinosaurs had made a mess in the home corner and were eating the food! A couple of children joined the dinosaurs at the table and began passing food back and forth to each other while feeding some to the dinosaurs, meanwhile others explored the other dinosaurs having a bath in the home corner sink. 

On one of the toddlers walks around the Imber Court grounds the children were on the hunt for sticks, leaves and pinecones to bring back to nursery for the nature tray in toddler room. They gathered bagfuls of natural items before stopping on the field and laying down a mat to sit and play with some play dough that they could add some of their collected items into. Several of children began adding sticks to their piles of dough, pressing them in vertically like candles in a cake, while other children rolled in leaves and pine cones. A couple of toddlers enjoyed squeezing the dough as hard as they could, using both hands and shaking with the amount of effort they put in! Once the children had finished playing with the dough they cleaned their hands independently before running around on the field.  

Over the last couple of week in the Under Two’s Room the children have been very busy playing, exploring and getting to know their new friends that have joined. Inside, small groups have been taking part in various mark making activities, one of which was the chalk drawing on a builder tray. The children found themselves a space on the builders tray and sat down, picking up a chalk egg as they did. Some of the children chose to lift the chalk high into the sky and then bang it back down shouting “BANG, BANG!”, as they did, creating unique marks. Others chose to manoeuvre the chalk in swirls, lines and other shapes around the tray. 

Outside, the children have become builders, using teamwork to crate tall towers using foam bricks. They have also become keen investigators as they have searched for hidden objects in the sand. The children chose to use a selection of sand pit tools such as spades and scoops. Alexandra used a scoop and found a toy buried deep below the sand. As she pulled it out, she gasped and said, “Ohhh!”, smiling at her friends. On our daily walks, the children have been doing a lot of running, whether that be chasing after balls, hoops or taking part in running races. On one of our walks, after snack time the children got out the footballs. Emilia would throw one as far as she could and shout, “Ball, ball, ball!”, as she ran after it. Cassie crawled around the grass, exploring the texture as she pulled some out and placed it between both hands. As it fell through her hands back onto the grass she let out an excitable noise as she laughed.