Park dens and campfires!
This week the children have all been very busy exploring the outdoors and enjoying the weather. In the park they found a great den, and climbed inside , and under and over it. Elissa and Abigail loved climbing over the den, they balanced their way up well, and when Elissa got to the top she shouted to Abigail encouraging her to join her. Abigail quickly climbed up to the top and joined her further encouraging their friends to join them. They then looked out over the park spotting the deers, counting them. William helped and pointed out a dog, asking his friends if they could see any more. Zach managed to see Zayne through a small gap in the logs and shouted ‘Boo!’ into the den, and Zayne looked up and laughed before joining Zach on top. ‘It’s a bit like the bear cave! We’re going on a bear hunt ! ‘ shouted William, and they decided to make a story. Varun ran away with Jessie until they found a tree to hide behind. In the park Hlenhaze and Imani were happy to see some ducklings and feed them and ‘Mummy duck’, which reminded them of a song and on the walk back they sung ‘5 little ducks’.
In one of the garden areas they made some lovely dinner over a ‘fire’ use bark. Sophia and Ines mixed the bark and leaves around until it looked tasty enough to eat. Sophia spotted a snail on the ground and suggested they give the bowl of food to the snail. as ‘It might be hungry’. Ines pointed out the fruit growing and said ‘That will taste better’. Thinking about hungry animals and insects they made some bird feeders, Thomas liked getting messy with the seeds, but after squashing it into the lard the bird seeds stuck to his hands, he tried to shake them off, and sat shaking his hands and waving them around. This made Bodie laugh and he joined in, accidentally knocking some of the food on the floor, they said ‘Uh-oh!’ before carrying on laughing. Back at nursery, Lyra and Nyra were hiding from everyone in a cosy den, and when someone came close they jumped out and said ‘Boo!’ which made everyone laugh.
The babies have been exploring lots of different colours. There explored a rainbow wall to hide and find things in. Theo enjoyed playing peekaboo in between the colours, spying his face in the mirror between the coloured fabrics saying “Boo!” and giggling at himself! Alex loved putting the orange mesh on his head creating a lovely veil, showing all his friends. Ciana swished the fabrics to the music of ‘Wheels on the bus’. On the colour cloud Honor was fascinated by putting the different colour pegs in the slots banging them and making lots of noise. George kept a good grip on the red ones, as the seemed to be his favourite colour!
Emma and Ciana loved playing in the treehouse in the garden. Ciana would bend down and then jump up and shout ‘Boo!’. Emma smiled and waved saying ‘Hiya’. George hid inside the treehouse and giggle when others found him. George then crawled away quickly and say “bubye”, and loved being chased around the garden. Louis enjoyed climbing and exploring in the garden, climbing up and down the steps to the treehouse. He bought his friends some ‘cups of tea’ using water, and the all then decided to pour the water out and have a good splash about!. Edward thought it funny to catch the football and hid it in his arms before rolling it back out to Grace who copied him and laugh at their new game.
Rainy days and dens!
The pre school children have been learning about different types of weather systems after many conversations around the weather we are experiencing at the minute. Last week they were learning about how rain clouds are formed. Oscar said, "I know how, the rain comes from the sea, its sucked up in to the sky and it makes a cloud". Max was then prompted to follow on to say, "Yes and I know what happens then; the cloud gets too heavy and it rains". The children made their own chalk rainbows, making patterns on the chalk board and then watching as the rain water was smudging the chalk down the board. Eloise called out, "Wow, its a real rainbow".
The children took part in a colour sorting activity using the coloured hoops in the garden. Maya suggested to her friends, "I know what we can do; we need to search the garden and find the right colours for the hoops". A lot of the children were involved in a colour hunt, searching all around the garden for various toys and materials and then placing them in the matching coloured hoop. After coming back inside, the children them enjoyed a paint mixing activity and talking about the colours they were making.
The children have been busy making dens using the wooden blocks and some blankets. Ollie suggested "We need a door so we can get in to our new house". The children worked together to move the blocks around so that they could make a small space for a door to be able to get in and out. Once they were all inside and cosy, Eddie started to tell his own story to the children. The children then took it in turns to add parts to the story.
Last week the toddlers enjoyed the home corner being transformed into an ice cream parlour. Each toddler had their own ice cream cone and was able to choose which flavour ice cream they wanted as well as their toppings. Isabelle couldn’t wait to join in. “Make ice cream” she said. Sophie loved adding sprinkles to her ice cream and Ari thought the sprinkles looked so realistic that he tried to eat them off the floor!!
Outside the toddlers have been on kitchen duty making mud cakes and washing up the dishes. Eve enjoyed mixing the soil and water together and said “Look! Chocolate cake” as she mushed it together in a frying pan. Amelia picked up some leaves and added it to Eve’s cake and said “Yummy”. Connie put on her apron and said “I do the washing up” as she gathered the plates and put them in the soapy water. Jonny loved splashing with the cutlery and shouted “Bubbles!”. Zac laughed as the bubbles flew high up in the sky and then landed on his friend’s faces.
Back inside, the toddlers have been getting creative and sending home lots of lovely masterpieces for their parents to keep. Alastair loved making a colourful caterpillar using glue and pom-poms which he carried so carefully out of toddler room to give to his parents. Rhys enjoyed listening to the rain through his handmade rainmaker which he continued to shake round the room. Charlie was so excited to show his parents his creation that he even corrected them when they said “It’s a lion”. Charlie said “No!, it’s a Roar!”
The under twos were really excited to be playing with the light up shakers in the dark sleep room. Sadie was shaking them really fast listening to the loud rattling sound they made and Sophie and Billie were shrieking and shouting “Whoooo” with excitement.
Outside, Zack, Rafferty and Emily loved exploring the garden, holding on to the rail of the wooden bridge and investigating the tunnel, taking turns going through it and laughing when someone emerged from the other side. Chloe and Blake were really engaged with mark making in the garden, using chalk on wooden slices of blackboard.
Olivia, Billie, Chloe and Sadie explored the sensory experience of foam, and they loved squeezing it between their fingers and throwing it in the air, laughing as it fell on them.
Last week the children began learning about healthy eating and sampled some exotic fruits including kiwi, pineapple, passion fruit, papaya and cherries. They all had a plate and a little piece of each fruit to sample. Finley found the blackberries very sharp, Daniel loved all the different flavours, eating everything! Ada liked the raspberries and kiwi and Tommy was a little more cautious.
Next time the younger children will be sampling different vegetables.
Park games at Hampton!
The older children have been exploring Elmer the Elephant as their book of the month and have incorporated the theme of diversity. This was inspired by the Elmer quote ‘In our herd, each one of us is a little different’. Some of the children took part in a group sticking activity where they made a giant Elmer the Elephant which will contribute to our book of the month display board. As he was sticking William said, ‘Elephants are grey, but Elmer’s got lots of different colours hasn’t he?’ and Xanthe replied ‘Lots of colours like a rainbow!’ Jasper then picked up a handful of tissue paper and threw it up in the air like snow; all of his friends laughed together. The children also talked about the parts of our bodies that are different, such as hair colour, skin colour and eye colour. ‘I’ve got blue eyes like my baby brother!’ said Maxwell, to which Zach replied, ‘My eyes are green!’. We also moved on to some model drawing of different animals. Bodie pointed out the stripes on the tiger and the zebra, whilst Sophia noticed that although they were both stripey, they were different colours.
The children went for a lovely walk to the park and played different activities. Emily wanted to play ‘Duck, duck, goose’. Whilst running around the park the children started singing to each other chanting for the chaser, and Oliver had a great time running away! He quickly jumped down and sat on his bottom laughing as he rolled backwards and made his other friends laugh. James and Eve had a lovely time playing ten flying saucers, and Eve ran around in circles like a saucer and trying not to tap her friends, which turned into a game and Lyra tried to catch Eve. When she eventually caught Eve they laughed and Thomas shouted ‘My turn!’
They used coloured bubbles to make some amazing pictures. Abigail noticed all the colours and called them out as she blew the bubbles. When the bubbles were put on the paper Alba laughed at them popping all the bubbles at the same time, Ines and Nyra instead choose to pick the bubbles up, and clap them making them go everywhere!
In the under 2’s room the children have been exploring different textures and noises. In the messy tray they loved playing with the farm animals hidden in oats. Theo was trying to eat all the oats while Grace made her own game of sprinkling the oats on the floor! The tray hid different farm animals and the children dug them out to find them! Sidney’s favourite animal was the cow, and squealed with delight when he found it !
We read the book ‘Elmer’ at the table before lunch, which is one of their favourite books, and the children were able to see all the different bright colours. Every time the page was turned George held up the toy elephant ! At the sensory table we put out mirrors and shakers for the children to play with. Emma looked in the mirror at herself, pointed and said “Emma happy”. George looked at himself and said “Ooowww”. Emma also made a big tower by stacking the shakers on top of each other until they fell over. She then said “Uh oh! ”. Honor loved playing with the blue cellophane ocean and shaking it above her head.
During sparkle time the children explored the lightbox and started looking at different shapes and colours, and were fascinated by the effect the light had on many dig=fferent objects. Theo decided he would like to sit on the lightbox himself to get himself to light up!
Blue coloured water created an aquarium. George went straight over, although wasn’t too keen on the apron! They loved splashing and picking up all the different sea creatures. Louis’ favourite animal was the shark and so everyone sang ‘Baby shark’ and all were dancing and wiggling to it!
