Butterflies at Molesey!
The pre school children were very excited to release the butterflies this week. They took the butterfly net outside and sat in a circle to allow the butterflies space to fly off when they wanted to. Some of the children were even brave enough to let the butterflies sit on their hands. Scarlett started to laugh and said, “The butterfly is tickling my fingers”. Ada asked, “But why are we letting them fly away? Will they come back when it’s time to go to bed?” Will had noticed that there were slices of orange at the bottom of the net and asked, “Did the butterfly eat the orange to get all of his energy to fly away?” Once all of the butterflies had flown out of the net, they kept returning and landing on the trees and flowers in the garden. The children were very happy about this.
Our new book of the month is ‘We’re Going on a bear hunt’ and the children went on a bear hunt in the garden whilst listening to the story book for clues as to where the small bear pictures were hidden. Eddie found a bear by the mud kitchen and got very excited, calling out, “I found a bear, he was hiding in the mud”. When they got around to the trees (the forest) Ella found a bear on the twig and laughed, “There’s even one hiding on here, the cheeky bear!”. At the end of the bear hunt, Parker had noticed that there was a larger bear inside the tree house and shouted out, “Aaaaaah it’s the bear! Quick, back through the forest!” and all of his friends ran with him, pretending to run away from the bear. Great fun!
The children also took part in parachute games, counting down, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 before shaking the parachute very fast and laughing. Oliver then ran underneath the parachute and was jumping up and down. Some of the children followed him under and they all sat down together. Shyla suggesting, “This could be our den to read some stories”.
Last week the toddlers said goodbye to their butterflies as they were released in the garden. At first the butterflies didn’t want to fly away but this was nice as it gave the toddlers a chance to hold the butterflies and see them up close. Fabian was first to volunteer himself to hold the butterfly; he was very brave and gentle. Immy spotted the butterflies “Eyes” and “Legs” and pointed to show where they were. Rhys said “Bye, butterfly” as one found the courage to fly away. The toddlers have loved having living creatures in the room and watching them change over time. Ari still remembers the life cycle of the caterpillar and says “Caterpillar in a cocoon and now a butterfly”.
Outside in the garden the toddlers have been taking part in wheelbarrow races to practice their agility skills. Tristan loved this and encouraged his friends to join in. He shouted “Ready, steady, go!”. The toddlers have been learning to say “Excuse me” when a friend or obstacle gets in their way. Alastair and Jonny said “Beep beep” to let his friends know he was coming which worked just as well!
Back inside the toddlers have enjoyed being able to dress up again. Zac and Harriet dressed up as builders wearing a hi-viz jacket and a hard hat. Together they used the tools to fix things around the toddler room. Zac said “Fix, fix” and Harriet laughed. Connie has also been busy being a builder fixing her friend’s toys with the saw. Charlie found the fairy dress and sat on the giant bus travelling round the room with the biggest smile on his face. Zachary found the Chase costume and asked for some help to put it on. He then said “Chase is on the case!” and he kindly made sure to help his friends with whatever they needed.
The children in the under two’s room have enjoyed being outside recently. They liked going for walks in the buggies to visit the duck pond where they loved helping to feed the ducks bread by tearing it up and throwing it to them. Chloe and Billie were very excited and pointed to ducks while squealing with joy.
Back in the nursery garden, our newer children, Olivia, Luna and Sophie started to explore the tunnel and bridge, while Rafferty liked to throw the big balls into the main garden, then stretch and lean forward to try and retrieve them. The babies were fascinated with the release of the beautiful butterflies as you can see! Tomas, Finley, Chloe, Sadie and Ada got up close to them and pointed and watched as they were released. Sadie said “Wow!” As they flapped their colourful wings and flew off.
Inside the room, Emily spent some time playing with the zoo animals, smiling when the team said ‘Roar!’ Ada and Tomas concentrated really well during a mark making activity, where they chose the coloured pencils and made purposeful marks on the paper. The whole group have been taking part in different art activities to create a lovely farmyard display, painting pink piglets and sticking cotton wool to make woolly lambs.
Parachutes and daffodils!
The children have been looking at the life cycles of a butterfly and we have had a very special delivery of some caterpillars and the children helped us to put them into the different pots, giving them some food to eat and some holes to breathe. Emily said “Ohh, its wiggly”. One day we took some of the caterpillars outside and used our magnifying glasses to explore the different colours on the caterpillars. Oliver used his magnifying glass to look at the caterpillars and excitedly said “Oh look, really big caterpillar”. Throughout the last few weeks we have looked at how they have eaten their caterpillar food to “grow big and strong” (as Emily has been telling all of her friends). They are all very excited to see our butterflies when they hatch out of their cocoons.
This week it has been such lovely weather, and they children have we spent a lot of time out and about. One day at the park they took a parachute and the children were laughing so much with the different parachute games. Maxwell had a great idea to put the ball on the parachute, and the children shook the parachute and tried to keep the ball on. When the ball first fell of Varun said ‘Uh-oh’ and quickly ran to retrieve the ball, and threw it back on again laughing. The children then decided to hide under the parachute, with some covering their eyes! Sophia ran under the parachute and out the other end shouting ‘Boo!’ and James responded by saying ‘Ahhh!’, starting a fun game of running in and out of the parachute. Zach and Eve played football, and when the ball was kicked away, then had a race to get to the ball and kick it back. Some of the other children got involved and started to kick the ball back and forth, and Jasper was very excited and starting to run after the ball laughing.
The younger children have also been out in the warm weather and explored some lovely daffodils. Isla shouted ‘Flowers!’. Ciana felt the stem of the flower and handed it over to Edward to smell. Edward loved being on the grass, and after smelling the flowers he crawled around feeling the it and other textures such as twigs and leaves. . Ciana then saw some ducks and began to run after them. Bodie started the follow saying ‘quack, quack’. Jessie and Bodie chased the football around, kicking it from corner to corner around the bushy park green, Jessie shouted ‘come on’, whilst Bodie followed laughing. Jessie, Bodie and Isla all held hands together and started walking in a line. Bodie said ‘Best friends!’.
Sidney and Honor had a wonderful time painting rainbows using the bubble wrap. Sidney liked the texture of the bubble wrap whilst Honor liked to hit the table and explore different sounds. After teatime they had a sparkle time session where they experienced lights and bubbles with music. Theo was dancing and bopping up and down. He loved shaking the musical instruments along to the music. Isla was singing along to the songs shouting ‘Dance!’. George was wiggling from side to side and laughing saying ‘Ahhh, ahhh, oo, oo’.
Happy Easter!
This week at nursery the children have enjoyed lots of Easter activities. They painted Easter eggs and made Easter cards for their families. Eddie said to Ellie "The Easter bunny will bring you eggs and give you chocolate and make you so wobbly if you eat all the chocolate!" The children have also took part in an Easter egg hunt in the garden. When Ellie found an egg she kindly said "I found an egg already; I will give this one to my friend." The children had lots of fun running around the garden finding the hidden eggs. When they had finished Ada asked "Can we do it again?"
The children have been observing the changes to our caterpillars, and were really intrigued to see that the caterpillars were forming their cocoons. Shyla said to her friends, "Make sure you don't wobble them or they'll fall on their heads". Ellie asked, "Is their cocoon just like my blanket on my bed?" Dylan said "When the caterpillars come out of their cocoon, they are going to grow some pretty wings and they can fly up in to the sky", and Riley replied, "But they need some food first". The children have also enjoyed exploring the small world butterfly are they made, talking about the different colours that they can see and the similarities and differences in the butterflies.
The children have been learning about body parts over the past week, and talking about the use of our organs. We have been recently focusing on our lungs and our heart and discussing what we use them for. Whilst talking about our heart, Ezra said, "I know what we use our hearts for, we use them to love our families and friends". The children then went on to discussing all of the important people around them who they love and giving reasons why. Zachary told his friends, "I love my mummy because she makes me a nice dinner". We moved on to talking about skeleton bone structure and Benjamin told his friends, "We have lots of bones in our body, our bones help us to stand up". Parker laughed and said if we didn't have bones in our legs, we would be just like Flop in Bing".
The children went on a spider hunt in the garden using the magnifying glasses and small spider homes which have magnifying glass lids. They found a small spider and placed it inside the pot using the scoops to pick up the spiders carefully. Once it was inside, the children were really intrigued to observe it more closely. Ollie spotted some holes in the side of the pot and asked what they are for. Whilst explaining to the children that the holes were so the spider could still have air, the spider climbed through the hole and got caught in the wind and spun a web on to the tree! The children found this really funny.
Happy Easter to everyone!
The toddlers have also been getting ready for Easter by making Easter eggs, Easter hats and going on an Easter egg hunt round the Imber Court site. Isabelle paid attention to detail as she carefully placed each piece of coloured paper onto her Easter egg. Thirty minutes later she finally shouted “Finished!” The toddlers took their explorer role very seriously as they searched high in the trees and down low in the grass for pictures of Easter bunnies and eggs. Immy said “Tree, tree!” as she spotted one. And Sophie said “Ducks” as she hoped to see a picture stuck to the duck! Thankfully the toddlers weren’t able to catch any ducks to see if this was true. Amelia found a bunny stuck on the door, while Connie found one under the buggy, “Found one!” she said proudly.
This week the toddlers have celebrated the “Festival of Colours”. The children participated in this by getting messy mixing different colours of paint with their hands. Rhys said “painting” excitedly and stuck his hands straight in and mixed the colours all together. Zac asked for “Blue”. Jonny asked for “Green” and stuck his head straight into the paint to create some lovely green highlights!
Back inside the toddlers have been busy in their very own supermarket. Leo and Fabian thoroughly enjoyed getting a basket and some money to go shopping. They filled their baskets and then unpacked them onto the conveyor belt. Ari cleverly named all the items he recognised on the shopping list “Bananas, apples, milk”. Zachary enjoyed taking on the role of cashier and having everyone pay him lots of money. He also found pressing the buttons on the till very exciting “Money please, beep beep beep”. The toddlers have also been watching their caterpillars transition into their cocoons. Each day they look closely to see if there are any changes they can see. Tristan said “Cooon” and pointed towards them. Harriet said “Bye bye caterpillar” as she waved. The toddlers are looking forward to seeing the butterflies soon.
The under two’s have had a really fun time investigating the light up sensory shakers. The lights in the room were switched off so the children could see them better. Sadie shrieked with excitement when it became darker and she saw the colours change, Samuel and Chloe loved giving them a really good shake, listening to the rattling sounds they made and Samuel said “Shake, shake!”
To explore the children’s other senses, they loved taking part in a fruit tea bag activity. The tea bags were dipped in warm water to release the colours and scents and the children picked them up, dabbing them onto paper. Charlotte carefully chose where to place her tea bag while Alastair liked to squeeze it in his hands, watching the coloured water drip through his fingers.
Outside the little ones enjoyed running around the field! They loved kicking the balls along the ground, kicking and throwing them into the big goal. Finley, Alastair and Rafferty had so much fun chasing each other and tried to hide from each other by going either side of the net and lifting it up so they could crawl beneath it. Finley said “Boo!” as they were all laughing and tried to catch up with one another.
In the garden, Emily and Zack played with the wooden pebbles and stacking toys, Luna liked exploring the tunnel and bridge, while Sadie and Blake discovered the coloured wooden boxes, looking inside the see through coloured panes at each other and laughing while trying to repeat after Kelly the words red, green, blue and yellow, identifying the correct colours.
