Fresh Smells & Outside Adventures!

With the arrival of spring, the toddlers have been really enjoying the outside spaces! Many children have been making comments about the weather, “It’s a lovely sunny day”, “It’s so nice outside”, “The suns come out” and showing off their sun hats and sunglasses. As all of the plants around the garden have started to bloom and vegetables have began sprouting in the growing area, the toddlers have started to take notice and went on a tour of all of the new additions. A couple of children made their way to a small collection of beautiful white flowers and leaned in for a smell. One child mentioned that they liked the smell while another laughed as the flower tickled their nose. After a short period, they moved onto a planter which contained lots of herbs and plants with different smells. As the children leaned in for a smell, smiles bloomed on their faces as they took in the different aromas. After this they made their way to a different planter and began carefully feeling the different textures of the leaves, “This one’s soft”, “Ah this one’s tickling me!”. 

To go with the sunny weather, the home corner inside the toddler room was turned into an ice cream shop with cones, scoops and tissue paper ice cream for the children to serve! There were calls across the room of “WHO WANTS ICE CREAM?!” and lots of responses of “MEEE!”. As the children began scooping, serving and handing out ice creams, they had lots of discussions of their favourite flavours, “I like pink”, “I like the white one”. One of the children serving the ice cream reminded their friends to use their manners, “Say please and thank you… there you go!”.  As the commotion died down some of the toddlers serving began making ice creams for themselves, with one child stating, “Mmm… it’s so nummy!”.

Over the last couple of weeks in the Under Twos room the children have been eager to get outside as much as possible, whether that be in the garden or out and about on their daily walks, leading to the children spending a lot of their day outside taking part in activities or choosing to explore their surroundings. 

In the garden, the children chose to get some clay out by pointing at the bag. As the table was being set up, a small group of children made their way over, intrigued with what they saw. One child pointed at the clay and said, “Oh… play dough!” as they looked around at peers, almost as if to see their reactions too. Once a practitioner confirmed it was clay, the children were all able to repeat the word and applauded each other for doing so. Once the table was set up, some of the children ventured deeper into the garden to see what they could use with and add to the clay. Some children brought pine cones, others brought sticks and scoops. Together they stood around the table and explored the clay, how it felt and what marks different objects left within the clay. One of the children pushed their index finger into the middle of the clay block and said, “Uh oh! Hole!” and pointed it out to friends around them. Everyone at the table began to poke the clay, making as many holes as they possible could and giggling together as they showed off their marks. 

The exploration continued out and about on the daily nature walks, where the children took part in lots of hunting and gathering activities. During one morning walk, the children we able to explore and collect natural materials such as, grass, leaves, sticks and flowers. Once they’d collected their items, the children could stick down their findings onto sticky tape and make a little keepsake to take home. The children were very enthusiastic in gathering their items and would run back and forth, bringing the most exciting things to stick down. Some children were even able to name the things they had chosen such as ‘flower’, ‘stick’ and even ‘daisy’.