Posting Letters & Finding Flowers!

Over the last few weeks, the toddlers have been looking at June’s book of the month, Dear Zoo, as well as looking at different sea creatures for ‘World Ocean Day’. During circle time one morning, the toddlers had a discussion about oceans, if they knew what an ocean is and what animals live in our oceans. When asked what lives in the ocean, there were shouts of “fish”, “octopus”, “starfish” and “SHARKS!” along with a few impressions of animals as they wiggled their arms like an octopus and placed their pointed hands on their head like a shark fin. The group then went on to learn about how we can help look after our oceans and the creatures that live there, one way is by making sure we put all of our rubbish in the bin. This then evolved into the children talking amongst each other and repeating what they had just learned, “Yeah we have to put our rubbish in the bin!”, “Yeah otherwise it will fly away and go in the stream”, “No because then it will go into the ocean with the fishes!.” 

Amongst other activities based on the story ‘Dear Zoo’, some of the toddlers wrote their own letters to the zoo, which they were then able to post in our nursery post box. Whilst writing their letters at the garden writing table, there were lots of conversations about their favourite animals, “I like an elephant”, “my favourite is the lion… RAAAWR!”. As their discussions continued, they began talking about their different experiences with animals at farms and zoos, “I saw a hippo the other weekend”, “I saw a shark in Egypt and a tiger in Japan”, “I saw a cow and pig at the farm with daddy”, “I saw cows in a meadow” and they evolved into telling their own stories, “I was in a cave with a wolf and then he was hiding from the most ginormous turtle in the world”. Once they had finished telling their stories the children all posted their letters into the post box.

Over the last couple of weeks, the under 2s have been doing lots of exploring of the Imber Court grounds whilst out on their daily walks. One day whilst the children were on a walk, they spotted some flowers, and when one child shouted “Flower!”, they all turned to look and investigate. A group of the children gathered around one of the flowers, and one of them said “Look, a purple flower!”. They then proceeded to smell the flowers and explore to see what other coloured flowers they could find.

In the garden the children have been exploring the new herbs planted in the herb garden. They wandered over to watch as the herbs were being planted and helped with watering them, using the watering cans with a bit of assistance. Once the herbs were planted and watered, the children began to lean in closer to investigate them through a combination of looking at them, feeling them, and smelling them. One of the children sniffed the mint before calling out to their friends “Look”, and beckoning them over. The children then moved around the herb garden, exploring each of the different herbs and kindly showing their friends the different smells they found. 

The children have also joined in with some activities to celebrate World Oceans Day. One of the activities the children joined in with was exploring some ocean animals in blue playdough, to see what different shapes and prints the animals made. One of the children picked up a whale and shouted “Whale!”, before attempting to create their best whale noise. A couple of the other children heard and began to copy, leading to a chorus of “Whale” and whale noises from them. The children then began to investigate what prints the animals left in the playdough, and seemed particularly intrigued by the octopus which left imprints of their suckers. They began to point at the print, saying “Wow!” or “Ooh…”, before reprinting the octopus marks across the playdough laid out round the table to show their friends.