Exploring Streams, Pulleys and Thunderstorms!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been very excited to play with the new pulley system apparatus. They very quickly worked out how to use it and have been working together to transport buckets of sand and wooden blocks to and fro using the turning wheel. A couple of the children waited at one end as another child turned the wheel and when the bucket of sand got halfway along, the children then swapped over, encouraging each other to be able to manoeuvre the bucket the whole way across. On a rainy day, the children set out some buckets underneath a water flow and once they were full with rain water, they were transporting the buckets to the sand pit on the pulley and using this water to wet the sand with one of the children suggesting, “Now we can make really good sandcastles!”. 

The children have been embracing the wet weather and even welcomed the thunderstorms throughout the week. The children situated themselves to look out through the open doors to the garden and watched as the lightning struck through the sky and eagerly waited, counting how long it took for the thunder to happen. When they got to just 2 seconds, one of the children informed everyone else, “That means that the storm is very close!”. Once the storm had passed, the children went straight out to play in the garden, with some children setting out some guttering to catch the falling rain that had collected on the sail and had placed buckets underneath to catch the water.

A group of children ventured off to the wilderness to observe pond life this week which has been a focus topic in preschool over the last couple of weeks. At group times, the children have been discussing things that live in ponds, rivers and the sea and also how important it is to dispose of rubbish and recycling correctly to protect our oceans ahead of world ocean day. Whilst in the wilderness, the children waded through the stream in their wet suits and wellies, collecting water and using magnifying glasses to investigate the water they had collected. They used nets to scoop up some small creatures that could be found in the water, carefully handling and examining them before gently releasing them back into the water.