Obstacle courses and building!
This week the children really enjoyed taking part in our Shooting Star Hospice fundraiser. They helped to create an obstacle course using our new garden tunnel and climbing equipment. At circle time in the morning the team explained how our obstacle course was to raise money for charity and to help people. When the children were doing the obstacle course Xanthe said “Its like the floor is lava, you cant touch the floor!”. “Go, go, go !” Alba shouted as she watched her friends moving along, encouraging them along the way. Oliver stepped off of the balance beam and said “Uh oh” giggling to himself.
The children have been talking about where we live. In the garden William, Zach, Maxwell and James decided to build a house. “We need big strong bricks to build our house” Maxwell said as they stated to stack the bricks. The children all worked together to carefully build “I have a big house!” Zach excitedly told his friends. “Me too” exclaimed James. They then continued to stack the bricks on top of each other, “We need 1000 bricks!” Maxwell said enthusiastically. Imani then came over to play and added cones to the top of the house, “It’s a chimney on the roof!” she said. When it was finished, the childern clambered inside. William then shouted, “Now we’re not going to get wet from the rain!”. The childern were rightly proud of their building, and took it in turns to hide inside.
They have been learning how to look after animals and plants in the garden. Thomas told his friends “Plants need water to grow”. After filling up all the watering cans everyone went off to water the fruit and vegetables. Oliver, Ellis and Alba found some Tadpoles in the pond using the magnifying glasses. “There will be lots of frogs in the garden going ribbit, ribbit” Ellis said happily. Ellis and his friends then hopped around the garden like frogs! Great fun!
The babies have been very busy being artists and explored lots of different colours. The babies used their paintbrushes to paint their masterpieces using the different primary colours. Emma shouted ‘Blueee’ while George’s favourite colour was red! George decided to rub paint over his lips! The toddlers learnt about colour mixing and what happens when they mix. Louis made purple out of red and blue while Sidney used blue and yellow to make light green! Emma kept smiling to the camera saying “Cheese” when the pictures were taken. Agnes giggled as she dabbed her paintbrush all over the page. Ciana decided to paint her hands and rub them all over the paper. Grace observed her friends painting and then picked up he paintbrush to copy what they were doing. Theo loved getting messy and was very focused on the activity. George said “Ta daaa” when he was finished and Emma shouted “More!” when she was ready for a new piece of paper. Rouxx loved using sponges pressing them as hard as he could onto the paper.
Outside, the babies explored in the garden. Emma practiced her tennis skills using the racquets and the balls while Sidney climbed over the bridge avoiding puddles. Emma hit the ball and shouted “Ball” waiting for Sidney to run after it! Rouxx and Alex used magnifying glasses to observe the plants and trees. The babies listened to “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” and used their magnifying glasses to watch out for big grizzly bears. Rouxx ran over the bridge whilst Edward walked through the “Swishy swashy” grass. Rouxx used his binoculars to look for bears. “Roar!” Emma practiced her scary bear noises whilst Honor giggled loudly at her. Agnes built towers out of logs, she clapped her hands and then knocked it down ready to rebuild it. Busy!
Bug Hunts and Duck Walks!
The preschool children have been busy the last couple of weeks immersing themselves into a variety of messy play activities. The children made their own play dough portions using the different ingredients. Henry said to his friend Dylan “I like making play dough because it’s warm and very fun.” Dylan said, “I like mixing all the things together.” The children enjoyed using their hands to mix all the ingredients together and exploring the different textures. Joshua looked at the mixture on his hands, laughed and said, “I’m quite messy aren’t I ?” The children explored using the different tools and utensils to make shapes and cut the play dough into smaller pieces. Ari said, “I’m cutting up pizza” as used the cutter to cut his slices.
During the last couple of weeks, the children have had fun with colour sorting activities, number matching games, letter searching and a variety of mark making activities. One activity has them sorting the coloured bears and matching them to the appropriate number on the paper plates. Parker looked at his plate and said, “Woah that’s a big number!” after counting 7 small toys onto his plate, and after looking round the table said, “I think I need some more on here.” Rowan giggled and looked her plate, saw the number two and said, “I’m not two, I’m three years old!” Tom said to Rowan “You can have these two for your plate.” The children also immersed themselves into mark marking in the mud and salt. They enjoyed using paint brushes to make marks and copy the letters they could find amongst the different materials. Riley said, “Look I write my name Riley- see?”
The preschool children had a great time when they went on a bug hunt around the grounds of nursery during the last couple of weeks. The children loved finding lots of different slugs and worms that had come up to the surface of the ground because of the rainy weather. Ellie said, “We’ve found babies and daddy slugs.” Eddie replied, “There is a lot of slugs out here in the water.” The children searched high and low for the different bugs that had emerged in the rain and enjoyed splashing in the puddles with their wellies. Max giggled when he found a big puddle and said, “That ones like a bath.” Ezra encouraged his friends to watch a slug and a snail race along the fence of nursery. Benjamin got very excited when the slug crossed the finish line before the snail.
Over the last few weeks, the toddlers have been participating in music week, where they have had the opportunity to use lots of different instruments and see how they work. Rhys liked the instruments with the bells the most and said “Ding ding” as he shook them. Sammy enjoyed bashing the tambourine and asked his friends to listen as he played. The toddlers used their musical instruments at circle time where some tried to sing and play which required a lot of focus. Immy found it was easier to sing a line of ‘Miss Polly’ and then use her instrument for the next! Not only did the toddlers get to use lots of different instruments, they also had the opportunity to make their own maracas. Zac loved dancing round the room with a maraca in each hand saying, “Look at me, I’m dancing!”
Outside, the toddlers were excited to give their baby dolls a bath. Blake said “Babies dirty” as she saw them in the water surrounded by bubbles. Harriet used sponges to wash her baby being very careful; she did not leave any part of her baby unclean. Isabelle was ecstatic splashing the water to create more bubbles, she said “Isabelle splashing water on baby”. When the rain stopped last week, they took full advantage of the nice weather and went for a play on the field with the frisbees and balls. Amelia loved watching the balls be kicked high in the sky and would run as fast as she could to retrieve them. Alastair preferred to relax by sitting on the bench alongside his friends Luna and Harry.
Back inside, the toddlers have had a fun time with their climbing frame being transformed into a pirate ship. The toddlers were able to drive the boat with their pretend steering wheel and hunt for treasure using their telescopes. Ethan and Tristan found the treasure chest and took all the gold they could carry while Finley was more interested in pulling down the bunting so he could have a closer look at the pictures.
The children in the under two’s room have had a very busy time outside. Olivia, Sophie and Daniel loved playing peek-a-boo together through the tunnel, crawling through the middle and waiting for each other on the other side, laughing and smiling as they emerged. When the children went for a walk around the grounds, they were fascinated to see the young ducklings which had really grown! Ada and Rafferty did a great job of tearing the bread and throwing it from the buggy to feed them. They were saying “Quack quack ducks!” and were giggling when the ducks quacked in response.
Inside the room, the children loved investigating the feely-bags, using their senses to squeeze, smell and listen to the different textures inside. Sadie said “Mmmm” when she sniffed the bag containing raspberry conditioner, Isaac enjoyed squeezing the wet porridge oats and Emily squished the shaving foam. During a painting activity the children were using paint brushes to make marks, but Rafferty and Ada preferred to use their hands, using the brushes to paint their hands then used their hands to make marks on the paper.
During circle time the children have been very interested in listening to stories, sitting nicely and looking at the pictures, Emily and Chloe liked pointing to the pig and lion in the books. The children loved singing the “Dingle dangle scarecrow” song, laying on cushions, with Sadie patting Chloe pretending to sleep then they all jumped up and danced around before sleeping again!
Exploring and Drawing in the Park with our Teddy Bears!
The children had a teddy bears picnic, they enjoyed their delicious picnic food and made a lovely story of the teddy bears eating the food. Thomas’ elephant liked the sandwiches whilst Lyra’s bear ate her salad for her. On a messy tray the teddy bears had a picnic in the woods. William hid his teddy bear under a tree waiting for Maxwell’s teddy to walk past and say ‘Boo!’. Maxwell had great fun, running far away with his teddy to hide, waiting to be found. Oliver and Sophia had a throwing competition with the teddy bears to see who could get it the furthest away. Oliver decided to throw his up high and tried to throw it the highest whilst Sophia practised her throwing so she could get her bear to fly past the highest number on the floor. After Sophia threw the teddy, she celebrated it going past all the numbers by shouting “Yay!”. Oliver joined in the celebration and before long, everyone was shouting “Yay!” trying to be the loudest. Jessie and Zayne drew some teddy bears in the park and Zayne enjoyed colouring it in. After Jessie was done, she did not like the chalk being all over her hands and she clapped them together making a nice big cloud, which made Zayne laugh and he joined in clapping his hands to add to the mess.
Playing hide and seek in dens is so much fun! Zach and Emily helped make a den in the garden which everyone loved to hide in. When Ritika and Varun made them jump, they laughed and the ran away so Zach and Emily could catch them before they got back into the den for safety. This turned into a lovely fun game and lots more children got involved, it led to lots of laughter all round. James and Isla choose to read in the den to their teddies. They then choose to build a fun obstacle course, with stepping stones, balance beams and a water trap. When they children fell into the water, they all laughed at the big splashes. In the park the children looked at the wildlife whilst out on a nature hunt with leaves and bugs. Hlenhaze pointed out so many of the list, he found the leaves and a squirrel by looking down his binoculars with Xanthe. When Xanthe found a woodlouse, they gently scooped it up and put it in a pot to investigate it further before the children released it back into the wild.
Last week in baby room, the babies were mathematicians and explored numbers and shapes. In the cosy corner, the babies enjoyed reading about numbers and opposites. “Ooo ahhh ahh” George said when he saw “10 monkeys” displayed on the page. Ciana giggled at the butterflies and Emma became a loud and scary crocodile, snapping her hands at everyone in the room. Once the babies had gathered important information from their books, they used the light-box to look at a variety of colourful shapes. Grace held up the red cube, “Red!” she said with a huge grin on her face. Alex had found some squishy numbers and watched the glitter inside them swim round and round. Sidney and Louis worked together to create a tall, looming tower, with both concentrating to gently stack each shape carefully. However, Grace and Theo preferred to demolish their towers making everyone giggle and squeal. Edward decided he should be the main attraction, sitting in the middle of the light box and waving his hands. The babies clapped along to a range of number songs. Agnes swayed her body left and right to the rhythm whilst Honor banged her shapes on the floor for a louder beat.
In the garden, the babies listened to the story of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” which inspired them to stomp and crawl over our bridge to get to the other side, where the grass was greener. Rouxx enjoyed when the goats “trip trapped” and wiggled his body with excitement. Emma ran around the bridge to show the troll she was not scared! Eesa gently tip toed over the bridge, so he did not wake the troll up and Louis was extra brave and leant over the bridge to babble to the troll. The babies loved playing on the bridge and created an obstacle course out of it using tunnels and wooden planks.
