Sand and bubbles !
The older children have loved the sand pit being opened up again this past week for them to explore. Ollie started to make a sand castle in one of the clear buckets, and realising he could see the sand sliding down the inside, he encouraged some of his friends to come over and watch what was happening. Watching in fascination, Zachary said, “It’s all squiggly and sliding together”. Parker got straight in to the sand pit and very excitedly called out, “This is like being at the real beach!” The children also enjoyed exploring the water trays both inside and outside, using various sized jugs, funnels and water mills. Tom quickly worked out that the more water he tipped in to the mill, the quicker it would spin.
Pre school also really loved a bubble party in the garden as you can see. The bubble frog quickly fired out bubbles and the children loved chasing them around. Dylan was singing to himself, “Bubble, bubble, bubble, pop”. Eddie said to some of his friends “Nursery is so good; there’s lots of bubbles and it’s like a real party”. Once the bubble frog had run out of bubbles, Parker suggested, “That’s ok, maybe we can buy some more from the shops with our mummies and our daddies and we can have another party”.
The children have also been taking part in lots of mark making activities in all types of messy play. One of the favourite activities has been letter mark making in salt using their fingers and practising their fine motor skills. Some of the children were able to recognise the familiar letters and relating them to their own names. Ada said, “That’s an ‘A’; A for Ada, A for Apple” and attempted to make the letter A in the salt whilst encouraging Edie, “Come on Edie, you can do it too”.
Last week the toddlers have celebrated the reopening of the sandpit!! Alastair and Eve have loved filling the bucket with sand using their spades. Eve said “Look ,a castle”. Tristan used the trowel to pick up the sand and lay it on the side of the sandpit to make a smooth surface. Immy and Isla enjoyed burying themselves in the sand and saying “Where leg gone?”.A week later we are still searching for where their legs have gone!
Outside on a walk round Imber court the toddlers were on a hunt for flowers to make a vase to send home to their families. On the hunt the toddlers came across a huge mud mound that they couldn’t resist jumping on. Amelia, Jonny and Ari were first to run up. Connie said “I can see the houses” as she stood at the very top of the hill alongside her friends. Sophie enjoyed shuffling down, Ethan raced down and Charlotte decided to surf on her tummy! Can you believe this was actually the fastest way to get down! Clever Charlotte!
Back inside the toddlers have enjoyed different sensory and malleable play. Isabelle enjoyed stomping the elephants in crunchy pasta and cornflakes whilst Sammy enjoyed the sensory bags where he watched the rice mix with paint to create different colours.
The youngest children have been exploring the sand pit. Sadie lifted two handfuls of of cool sand into the air as she sat in it, and laughed as it fell back down. Blake used her shovel to fill up her tea pot tipping it out repeating the action. Emily was very brave and explored the tunnel pointing and laughing at Melissa though the side panels, Emily also tested her balance walking over the bridge.
While on their walk the children saw horses, and Issac pointed to them and said ‘Horsie clip clop’ laughing away. Sophie and Billie pointed and clapped as they watched the horses run around their paddock. The little ones also enjoyed feeding the ducks. Finley, Tomas and Ada ripped up the bread and threw it to the ducks while Chloe, Emily Zack preferred to eat it!
Back inside Finley, Chloe and Olivia explored the play dough. Finley said ‘Tap tap’ as he bashed his play dough with the rolling pin and Olivia pinched at the play dough pulling off small pieces and carefully placing them onto the table. Sadie and Emily played peek a book popping their heads out of the play house shrieking at each other.
Butterflies and Bushy Park!
This week the older children have said goodbye to their butterflies. They watched them fly around their enclosure before guessing where they would go. Sophia suggested they might fly away really high. The butterflies took their time and didn’t fly out straight away, but when the first one did they all cheered and laughed. One butterfly flew out and landed right next to Hlenhaze’s foot, and he was very excited but stayed very still and quiet simply watching it. After a short while the butterfly began to move and Hlenhaze positioned his hand and gently picked it up. The other children watched as more butterflies were released and landed on different children and surfaces. Eve and Xanthe noticed their brightly coloured wings. Eve said ‘look Xanthe, this one has Orange dots’, Xanthe said ‘So does mine’. The Butterflies got used to being in the garden by firstly walking along the ground. The children were trying to decide where the butterflies would like to be, and William suggested the flowers would be a great home for them and they were gently put on the flowers. William turned to his friends and asked ‘Where will they go now?’, as more butterflies flew around with the children following them. James pointed to one and held Zachs hand to show him where it had gone shouting excitedly ‘Here, the butterfly is in the tree’!. Zach suggested that the tree could be the butterflies new home.
Maxwell and Varun played with the dinosaurs chasing with them around the garden and hiding them away in little places, Maxwell gave the dinosaur colour names and used this to identify the dinosaurs. They even let them live in the tree. Whilst in the park the children looked at trees and searched for different animals and found some birds, squirrels and bugs in the tress, and in the park they also spotted deer, dogs, ducks, swans and lots more bugs. Lyra pointed at a tree stump and said ‘The spider’s home.’. The children saw a fallen log and used it to turn into a snake. Back at Nursery the children drew a magic tree together. It had everything a real tree would have. Ines helped draw a bird to live in it, Jasper and Oliver made the leaves and Nyra and Isla coloured in the tree stump and drew some bugs.
The youngest children have been very interested in their story books. Sidney pulled them all off the bookshelf which encouraged Edward to take a look. The little ones listened to Dear Zoo as they looked and tried to guess all the animals. George helped read the big book as he lifted up the hiding flaps to reveal different animals, Emma copied some of the animal actions such as using claws. Jessie chose her favourite book ‘Moo’, and pointed at some of the animals and said ‘Sheep’. When we showed Jessie her favourite animal (the cow) she laughed and said ‘Moo, cow!’ Alex and Ciana played with the animals with moving them around the room, they also hid them in the shredded paper, when they picked one up they were informed of the name, Alex responded with some lovely meaningful babble as he is beginning to learn new words. Honor helped to make some animal crafts as she painted her bowl to make a pig and duck face whilst trying to make the sounds. Theo and Grace joined in with song time, singing Old MacDonald, making lots of fun noises and copying moves such waving hands for a monkey.
Sidney and Grace had a wonderful time in the garden building delightful towers, Sidney built his tower up nice and tall before he accidentally knocked it over making himself and Grace laugh. Grace used two blocks to hit together and made lots of noise. Alex and Ciana liked the noise, and they choose to add to it using musical instruments using the shakers. Edward also helped make a lovely tune playing with the bell sensory bottle. George and Ciana played with the football in the park pushing it back and forth. if it went to far away Jessie would chase after the football and kick it around before running back to give it to her friends. Jessie kicked it towards Emma before shouting ‘Ball’.
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.
