Happy Holi!

World Book day saw some different characters arriving at Preschool!  The children came dressed up as princesses, dinosaurs and even the dragon from ‘Zog’. Shyla was telling her friends, “I am the Very Hungry Caterpillar and I am going to eat all of the foods!”. Barnaby brought in ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’ book to go with his outfit, and proudly told everyone at circle time that he was the tiger.

The children were very excited at the arrival of our caterpillars.  We have talked about how we need to care for the caterpillars and the children are fascinated watching them change and grow bigger.

The Preschool children had so much fun celebrating the Holi festival this week. They watched a video to help them understand what the festival is about and who celebrates Holi. There were some very keen participants in the paint throwing around the garden with lots of laughter as everyone got covered in coloured paint! Ezra called to Zachary and Oliver saying, “This is so much fun, I wish we could do it every day”. Oliver replied, “But I have changed colour, I’m not Oliver anymore” and started to laugh.

This week for World Book Day some of the toddlers dressed up and brought their favourite books to share. They came as princesses, a flamingo, a scarecrow, a ladybird, the Stickman and even as a Spanish dancer, complete with little heeled shoes dancing shoes! The children enjoyed listening to lots of stories being read with their friends.

During one of the free flow sessions with Preschool, the Toddler room was transformed into an obstacle course. The children had to walk across the stepping stones, lie on the floor, slide through a tunnel, then crawl under two tables, onto the climbing frame, down the steps and finally jump onto cushions the floor. Some children liked challenging themselves to keep their balance and there was a lot of laughter when one of them wobbled and fell off!

The Toddlers went on a walk around the grounds of Imber Court and focussed on jumping in all the puddles they could find. On our walk this week, we showed the toddlers a small pathway over the bridge and showed them how they could walk along it. Some of the toddlers walked normally, others put their arms out to help keep their balance, some walked really slowly and Scarlett decided it was best to walk sideways. The children loved the freedom of playing with the balls in the big field, practising their catching and throwing skills. Salvador showed us his good hand-eye coordination by catching the ball every time. Vivienne enjoyed holding the ball after she caught it, while Charlie loved to kick the ball as hard as he could, watching as it rolled along the ground. Harry, Zachary and Arthur liked being in the goal best. 

The babies had lots of fun playing with the rice this week. Faris was busy filling up a metal cooking pot, listening to the sound it made, laughing with his friends.  Ari spent some time filling up a cup and pouring the rice out, watching as it sprinkled. The babies have also enjoyed mark making, using their fingers and the other equipment. They have also helped to make colourful pictures for our The Very Hungry Caterpillar display, using paint, sticking paper, pens and crayons. 

When playing in the garden Tristan and Zac chose to play on the bikes, pushing themselves around the garden. Tristan was very excited when he spotted the wind chime, pointing to it and babbling to Melissa. Zac was also very brave and crawled through the tunnel, stopping to peer through one of the windows at his friends, before crawling out the other side. Ari and Melissa played with the ball, throwing and kicking it to each other. Ari decided to kick the ball, saying "Kick, kick”.

The babies also liked the sensory experience painting with fruit tea bags. They tried feeling and tapping the tea bags on the table and squeezing out the water, smelling, and occasionally tasting, the different flavours.

Planting Seeds!

As part of World Book Day, the children have taken part in various activities based around books. They have created their own fish number line with Eve declaring “I can count all my numbers” and proceeded to count from 1 to 10. They also looked at the Gruffalo’s paw prints and compared the difference in size. Zach pointed to one paw print and said, “It’s big like me”. The children took a trip to Squires Garden Centre to look at the different types of vegetable seeds they could find. Ines became very excited when she saw all the seed packets and said, “Too many” and giggled. Thomas picked up some tomato seeds and started shaking the packet with excitement.

Back at the nursery, the children planted the seeds that they had chosen in the growing area. Xanthe dug a hole in the soil and carefully placed her seeds in. She smiled and said, “I’m planting”. Roma was interested in the large plant pots and asked, “What are these for?” She also noticed a big bag of potatoes and studied the pictures on the front of the bag. The children helped to plant the potatoes making sure they were all covered in soil. Zach started to giggle and wave his hands in the air and said “My hands are really muddy”.

This week the babies have had fun working on their motor skills. They really enjoyed chasing and popping bubbles as well as waving floaty scarves around. Oliver used his fingers to poke at some bubbles before deciding to have a go using a scarf to pop them. Zayne and Abigail were very focussed playing with the large pegs and boards. Abigail tried to put the pegs into all the holes while Zayne decided he wanted to try to stack the pegs on top of each other. When Zayne’s tower fell over, Abigail laughed with him before helping to build it again, handing pieces saying 'Ta' each time.

The babies enjoyed the sensory experience of playing with flour and herbs mixed with different scents. Lyra crumbed the flour between her fingers and squashed some in her palms before bringing it to her face to smell. Lyra and Jasper laughed while giving did some floury high fives, spreading flour everywhere. Owen and Bodie built some towers together. Owen helped Bodie to straighten his tower and tried to stop it wobbling. Owen took some bricks to the park with him and, with his friend, built some towers to be as tall as the flowers.

Bubbles!

The preschool children have been very attentive doctors this week in our new doctor’s surgery role play area. Charlie was pretending to be the doctor, laying Elodie down and using the syringe saying, "I will make you better now". The children have explored x-ray pictures of parts of the body and Raegan identified the foot x-ray, telling Charlie, "My foot is hurt doctor". Barnaby took on the role of receptionist. He booked in appointments on the appointment card, asking Peter, "What time would you like to see the Doctor?"

The children also experimented with making huge bubbles in the tufty tray in the garden. They loved splashing in the bubbly water and then used the hoops to make huge bubbles with them inside. They were very intrigued as to how it was able to happen and were full of questions. Ida asked Chloe, "Wow, how did that happen?" Parker enjoyed popping the bubble as it formed around him. There was a lot of laughter during this fun science activity.

This week, the toddlers have experienced den building. They went into preschool to choose some materials to cover the climbing frame. Ada came back with army blankets and Tomas ran in with some green netting. The staff helped to cover the climbing frame to create a den. The toddlers then took turns to crawl around inside the den. George found it funny to hide behind the netting and poke his head around the side with a big smile on his face. Harry decided to join in and do the same.

The toddlers played with an obstacle course, testing their balancing skills on blocks as they moved around. They had to move really carefully so that they did not fall off the blocks. Scarlet, Vivienne and Jasper stretched out their arms wide to help them balance. Elena helped the children, who were struggling and kept falling off, by holding their hands which supported their balancing. Tomas shouted “Jump!” as he hopped off the end of the obstacle course. Oliver and Harry then said “Whee!” as they got off, sharing big smiles as they did.

This week, the babies they have enjoyed exploring the garden, kicking and throwing balls, peeking and crawling through the tunnel, popping bubbles, and digging in the sand using the buckets and spades.  Eve really liked playing with the sand, using her hands and a spade to fill a bucket while saying "Dig, dig, digging!" They have also had fun moving around the garden on the ride-ons.

During the messy play activities, the babies have explored the cloud dough by squishing, pushing and smelling it. Some of them liked breaking it up into little pieces. Faris, Chloe and Tristan loved playing with the tapioca, picking up handfuls and watching it as it dropped back into the tray. Faris tried a little taste of it and seemed to like it!

As part of our World Book day activities, the babies have been painting paper plates to make a caterpillar picture for the walls. They have also used crayons, pens and jelly to make their own pictures of different foods. 

More Pancakes Please!

The preschool children went on a walk to the Imber Court playground.  They had lots of fun taking turns on the slide and seeing who could go the fastest. They loved swinging high on the swings and Callum was excited when he spotted a motorbike to ride on, saying to Chloe, "It's a police motorbike". He was then rocking backwards and forwards saying, "Nee-nor". The children crouched underneath the climbing frame using it as a lions den. They pretended to be lions trapped behind the bars, roaring at each other and trying to escape from the cage.

The new Pancake Café roleplay area has created some fantastic imaginative play this week. The children made pancakes with playdough, with customers selecting what they wanted from a menu and paying with money.  Lily called out, "Pancakes for sale here" when she was the shop. Max asked Lily, "How much monies?" The children also had tasty pancakes at snack time, choosing to top them with golden syrup, sugar and lemon. 

This week, the toddlers have loved going on walks around the grounds of Imber Court. They got dressed in their waterproofs and wellies then went out to explore the fields and splash in all the puddles! They found some muddy grass with some of them deciding to walk over it and others deciding to walk around it. Oscar and Arthur jumped in every puddle they could find, laughing as the water sprayed up around them. Jasper found some sticks and used them to makes little splashes in the water, carefully squatting down and drumming in the puddles. Will laughed as he waded through the water saying “Deep puddle” before getting very excited when he saw the ducks and running after them. Jack, Benjamin and Scarlett said “Duck, duck” while Elena, George and Tomas quacked as they pointed to the ducks.

The toddlers have also really enjoyed engaging in magnetic activities. They played with tubes that rattled and shapes that all connected together. Ada decided to put two tubes together and said “It noisy” as she noticed it make a sound whenever she shook it. Oscar and Sienna had fun connecting the pieces and then shaking them to see if it would fall apart. Oliver said “Wow” as he rolled the ball around the table.

This week the babies have enjoyed exploring water! They have been busy filling cups and jugs with water and watching it pouring back into the water tray.  Zac loved splashing in the water getting himself and his friends wet. They shared their excitement by laughing and splashing together. There was a lot of interest in the smell of the water as it had lemon essence added to it. Some of the babies dipped their fingers in the water and sniff their fingers, or licked them!.  The babies had great, messy fun with a pile of flour. Chloe, Luca and Faris experimented using their fingers to make marks in the flour and seeing how it stuck to their hands.  Ethan tentatively prodded it with his finger and Wren liked brushing it off the table on to the floor.

The babies have been working on the drawing skills and created some lovely pictures using the coloured pens. Zac showed good control of the pens and had a look of great concentration while drawing. Jonathan was more interested in tasting the flavour of the pens!

The babies also had a go at making pancakes with playdough, using the rolling pins to spread out the dough and, after being shown how to, trying to flip them. 

Pancakes Please!

This week, the children have had great fun playing in the Pancake Shop role play area as part of the Pancake Day activities. They took their friends orders with Eve declaring "I would like a pancake with chocolate and strawberries please!" William proudly pointed out "You use eggs, flour and milk to make pancakes. I know these things". This sparked a conversation about what toppings the children like on their pancakes. Imani excitedly said "Lemon! I'm having lemon at home". Roma joined in with "I have syrup". Xanthe then proceed to count out her money to pay for her pancake and said, " This is for me". The children were excited to have tasty pancakes for their snack.

The children also enjoyed their walk to the river, watching the boats and feeding the ducks. As the birds flew down to eat the bread, the children started to count how many they could see. Florence said, " I see 3 birds". Thomas started to clap and said "Up" and pointed up to the sky showing where they were flying.

This week, the babies have been busy using all their senses to explore and learn. They had great, messy play with soil and worms (cooked spaghetti). Oliver made holes in the soil, hiding some spaghetti inside them.  He the carefully held one end and pulled it out, shaking the spaghetti before dropping it on the floor. The babies loved making splashes in the water table, watching each other and copying. Abigail made a big splash and said 'Splash'! Jasper and Abigail worked hard to bath the animals in the soapy water and used flannels to clean them.

The babies also played with herbs, leaves, lemons and limes in the water, creating a wonderful sensory experience for them. Zayne made noises by splashing in the water and saying 'Yay' and feeling the herbs that had mixed with the water. Adeline was curious and tried to squash lemons in her hands before smelling the citrus scent.

On one of their trips to the park, Jasper and Owen had great fun chasing each other around the field. When Owen caught up to Jasper, Jasper put his hand over his mouth and said 'Ooo' before giving each other big cuddles. In the play park, as they explored different ways to move and climb, Adeline went down the slide babbling happily to herself. Lyra, however, decided to have a go in the spinning chair. As it spun around, Lyra looked at the sky occasionally copying the staff by saying 'Whee!'