Streams in the woods!

The older children have had a wonderful time exploring in the woodlands. On the first of several woodland walks this week the children focused on finding different animals. The stopped at the first part of the trail where they say some horses and ducks. Abigail spotted one of the horses was lying down and she pointed and said it was sleeping. Jessie and Isla made some duck noises as they were more focused on watching the ducks. Further into the woods they found some lovely stumps that they climbed on and over like a mini nature obstacle course, Sophia stood up nice and tall and encouraged her friends to join her, and she was happy that she was taller. After climbing the children then used the stumps as little tables and drew the nature and animals around them. Emily and Xanthe made some nature explorer bracelets; they found different natural objects on the walk and stuck them on, Emily found a big leaf and said ‘Look, a big one!’ Xanthe then quickly ran around and looked for something similar, and when she found it she laughed and said ‘Me too!’ The children then and a nice big splash in the muddy puddles! When they saw all the messy mud splashing marks, they laughed and made more! Eve suggested splashing everyone would be funny. They then went paddling in the stream and were pond dipping for insects and fish , but sadly only found little stones and pretty pebbles on this occasion.. William was particularly pleased with the ones he found, and Sienna then found some and they looked for similarities and differences between them.

Back at the nursery the children watered all the crops and picked some apples! Lyra and Isla filled up the wheelbarrows and pushed them over to their friends, and they all sat down and shared all the fruit and made different tasty meals. Hlenhaze made apple pie! They found a beautiful butterfly in the garden and took it safely for a closer look. Zach said ‘It looks like a zebra pattern!’ and James remembered when we raised our own butterflies from caterpillars. After catching the butterfly they looked for some more insects in the woodlands and found a spider, some ants and woodlice to examine before returning to the woods.

The babies became construction workers this week and participated in a wide variety of activities! Inside the babies used their construction tools to create masterpieces using different colours of their choice! Emma shouted “Blueee” as she saw the option to have blue paper on the table! The babies used their great technique of rolling the paint onto the paper mixing the colours to make very pretty concrete! Theo decided the tools took too long to use and decided to get his hands stuck in instead! Louis adopted a dabbing technique using sponges. Sidney shouted “There!” and pointed to the yellow paint. Rouxx drove his roller over the paper creating bright orange tracks, saying “Ta” as he shared his tools with his friends!

Outside the babies drove their big yellow diggers around the garden collecting resources for their building works. Agnes used the big wooden blocks to create a tower until Rouxx decided it wasn’t quite right and knocked it down! Edward and Emma came over to give a helping hand and decided to use the mega blocks to create their own construction! At the woodlands the babies used spades to dig up some mud and create mounds. Sidney piled up the mud and then used leaves to decorate! Honor investigated, saying “Tree, tree” as she found lots of different sticks to build with!

Shopping!

The preschool children have really enjoyed exploring the outside spaces during the last couple of weeks. They decided to use the big blocks to build their own shop and role play shop keepers. They carefully carried the blocks and balanced them on top of each other. Once the shop was built, Ada said to Edie and Jessica “I think we should get the till and make money.” They found some food boxes that they brought over to their shop and loved offering them to their friends. Edie asked Arthur “Would you like some food at the shops? We’ve got Rice Krispies over there.” Eddie came over and had a look at all the different boxes the shop had to offer. He asked “Is this food expensive?” Dylan said to Eddie “I think it’s £50.” The children the decided to also use more blocks to make a water fall using the pipes, funnels and used the different sized jugs and beakers to take water over to the pipes and watch it run down. Tom said to Millie “We need water on here.” Millie loved going over to the water tray and enjoyed collecting the water and taking it back to the water fall creation. Tomas said to Millie “Can I pour water too?” 

The preschool children have also enjoyed getting messy and creative this week. They have enjoyed using different materials to make their own junk modelling creations. The children loved using the tissue paper, pom poms, fuzzy pipe cleaners, string and feathers to make their wonderful models. Henry was very proud of his creation, Henry said to Sienna “I’ve made a monster box” and enjoyed telling his friends “my mummy and daddy are going to love my hard work.” Whilst Sienna replied “I making a lovely present.” Salvador and Ethan enjoyed messy mark making in the builders tray where they could use the use the different tools to mix the coloured paints and make marks across the tray. Salvador told Ethan “I made these lines in the colour.” Ethan began to giggle and said “I chopped the paint with my knife.” Will mixed lots of the paint together and said “Look it’s a big mess now.” 

The past week the toddlers have enjoyed participating in their own “olympics” week. They have tried new activities and sports to push their abilities to their limits. At the beginning of the week Amelia found an interest in the long jump where she showed off her skills to run really fast and jump into the builders tray full of sand. As Amelia landed on her bottom she burst into laughter. Luna and Harry had a whale of time weightlifting, where they used a wooden pole and two wooden blocks to demonstrate their strength, lifting it above their heads and down to their toes. Meanwhile, Immy and Rhys enjoyed show jumping where they were able to gallop over the small jumps and neigh like a horse. 

Out on a walk the toddlers participated in some athletics. On Thursday the toddlers went to the big field to try the 100m sprint and shot put. Alastair enjoyed picking up multiple balls at once and throwing them towards his friends. Charlie and Sophia loved the 100m sprint where they asked to repeat this “again” and “again”. Zoe shouted “Ready, steady, gooo!” and ran as fast as she could. The toddlers then completed a 1500m buggy race where they all looked surprisingly composed and hardly out of breath!! Harriet particularly liked racing down the hill where she shouted “Wheeeeee”. 

Back inside the toddlers had the opportunity to try gymnastics and karate on the yoga mats. Finley smiled at his friends as they enjoyed showing off there interpretation of a ‘head block’ which in Japanese is called a ‘Jodan-Uke’. Sylvie laughed as she was supported to do a ‘scissor kick’ in the air. Her friends watched with amazement and said “My turn, my turn!”. 

This week in the under two’s room the children have had lots of fun as they went to the park and being pushed on the swings. Sadie kept saying “More please” as she wanted to go higher, laughing and screaming shouting “Higher!” Rafferty laughed as a teacher tapped the bottom of his feet as he sung forward loving the game, Ada laughed a copied her friends saying “Whee, whee, push!”

When they were out enjoying the garden the children loved the bubble machine, one of the bubbles popped in Sophie’s face making her laugh running on the spot to show her excitement, Zack was a little unsure of the bubbles at first but soon realised that they were fun and started to point at them in the air, clapping trying to copy his friends popping them and laughing. Sadie laughed as she chased the bubbles around the garden squealing as they popped before she could get to them.

During their art activity of tea bag printing, Daniel was having lots of fun squeezing the tea bag so the colourful water went all over the paper, lifting up his tea bag so he could have more water, after a few squeezes busting the tea bag, spreading it over his picture using his hands. Sophie enjoyed the berry taste of the tea bag sucking it in between dabbing it in her picture!

Exploring the woods!

The preschool children have been getting messy and creative this week. They started by exploring textures, William thought clay would be a great material to use for making art work and he decided to make a self portrait encouraging Ellis to do the same. Ellis used leaves to make his hair whilst William choose to have two eyed and he said ‘My hair is silvery white’. Zach though playdough would be a fun texture to explore, so he got some playdough and began making some different marks. Lyra used the cutting wheel to make a track mark and felt the indents made whilst Zach pushed it through a playdough pasta maker and said it looks like pasta, he went on and said ‘I love cheese and pasta!’ so Lyra agreed and helped him make some dinner. Sophia and Xanthe noticed some new, different textured pom poms were added and began making some lovely art work with it using poms poms and feathers, Xanthe said there are so many colours and it feels so nice as she felt the feathers. Varun liked to stick the pom poms on and had a go at pushing them around the table like a football before sticking it on, when the pom poms feel of everyone at the table screamed and laughed before having a small game.

The children have also been to the park and explored the woodlands. They started by looking at the logs and searching for bugs, Emily found a woodlice and showed it to all her friends, Imani said ‘wow, it has loads of legs’ Emily laughed and said I only have two. The children then skipped around and hopped using there legs as they spoke about different movements they made and what movements animals can make. Oliver saw a duck and made a quaking noise as they tried to talk to it and pointed out the different colours, Ritika counted the ducks and suggested next time to feed them. Further into the woodlands it got very muddy and the children thought it would be fun to splash in their welly boots. Thomas jumped high and a big muddy splashy making mud go everywhere, everyone laughed and decided it would be great fun to get as messy as they could and all make big splashes.

The babies became Olympic gold medallists this week by taking part in a variety of tense Olympic Games. To start the week off, the babies participated in a rapid game of ring toss, using paper plate rings and Olympic ring coloured cardboard rolls. The babies worked together to come up with a tactic that would help them all out. “There!” Emma pointed towards the ring, “Ta” said George giving it to Emma so she could have a go.  Emma took the ring with two hands and threw it on the roll, “Me, Emma!” She said proudly whilst Edward clapped for her. “Oooh ohh!” Agnes crawled over to the ring toss podium and explored what was in front of her, Agnes pointed at the colourful rolls and Louis held her hand so they could play together. Working as a team, the babies created their very own Olympic Rings by dipping their kitchen rolls in to paint. Grace made bubbles in the paint “Ooh bubble!” She said excitedly as she swirled the paint round and round. Honor loved the yellow paint and painted her hands and face as well as her paper! Rouxx decided to mix the yellow and blue together with his fingers to create a lovely green colour, perfect for our Olympic Rings.

In the park, Eesa helped setting up cones for an obstacle course. First in the running was Alex who weaved in and out of the cones with a huge a smile on his face. Next was Emma who had help from Grace who was removing the cones from the obstacle course, therefore making her an immediate winner! Theo crawled over the cones and stuck his head inside, “Hat!” Emma shouted and she gave everyone a pointy cone hat. George patted his head as he patiently waited for his hat to arrive. The babies practiced their clapping when cheering for one another, they were all very supportive and showed team spirit!

Graduation tea!

The pre school children have really enjoyed playing football games and setting up their own goals. Ezra and Eddie worked really well together to set up a goal which included a ramp for the football to go up. The children then took it in turns to “Score a goal!” be the goal keeper and were really celebrating each other’s shots and cheering each other on. Benjamin quickly realised that the ball kept going too high and knocking the top post down and cleverly suggested, “I know, we need to make it taller so the ball doesn’t knock the goal down”.

 The children have also been aeroplane spotting on a cloudy day. They were listening out for when they could hear an aeroplane approaching and then working out which direction they thought it was going to come from. Ada called out, “Guys, if you are quiet, you can hear one coming now”. Tom said, “I can hear it, I think it’s coming from that direction”, pointing in the right way. The children were also counting how many aeroplanes that were flying below the clouds that they could see and how many were above the clouds that they could hear. They then enjoyed doing some observational drawings of aeroplanes.

 We held a graduation picnic tea to celebrate the children that are going off to school. All be it there were thunderstorms so we moved inside, the children all had fun and were in a party spirit. They were given a certificate and a book about starting school. Each of the children confidently stood in front of their friends to receive their book and certificate and let everyone know what they are most excited about when starting school. Oscar told everyone, “I’m so excited to see all of the new toys and to see my friends from nursery”. When reading the story about school, Edie noticed that quite a few of the school activities and routines of the day were “Just the same as nursery”.

This week the toddlers have started their “holiday” theme due to the summer holidays starting. Some of the toddlers went abroad and decorated paper aeroplanes. To go on the aeroplanes the toddlers needed a passport. Together with an adult Harry and Charlotte wrote their names and signed their signature. In the messy tray the toddlers went to a foam party where Alastair got covered head to toe and came out with purple highlights in his hair! Sammy and Zac roared loudly as they enjoyed visiting the dinosaur museum where they saw dinosaurs in their sandy habitat. At story time Blake said she goes to the “farm” when she goes on holiday so the toddlers listened to ‘The Farmers Away!’. Rhys spotted the horse in the book and went and found a toy horse from the drawer to show his friends while saying “horsey neigh neigh”. Jonny tried some seaweed at the beach which he thoroughly enjoyed and asked for “more”, whereas most of his friends disliked the taste and spat it out as quickly as they could! 

 Outside the toddlers have enjoyed going on a walk round Imber court to collect leaves for a leaf printing activity. Ethan couldn’t wait to get out of nursery and run as fast as he could to find the first leaf in his tracks, “Found one!” he shouted as he picked it up off the floor. Immy was very proud of herself when she found two leaves, “One, two” she said and put them in the bucket. Back at nursery, the toddlers loved painting the leaves they found and printed them on the paper. “Wow” Amelia said as she saw her leaf appear in the paint. Sophia became a teacher repeating instructions to the other children “Make sure you cover it all” and “press down hard”. 

The under twos have had fun this week playing with the new car mat and the new cars, pushing them over the rug and pulling the large removable parts off and trying to put them back on again, Chloe, Daniel and Olivia gave some of the parts to the staff team to help them put the parts back onto the car. Ada was able to put one piece on the car with out any adult help. Rafferty pushed his car off of the car mat causing it to fall over, Rafferty laughed and said “Oh no, fell over” and pointed to the car.

Sophie, Ada and Olivia have really enjoyed exploring the new books, taking turns to sit on an adult lap to listen to the story being read to them. Their favourites were Rabbit’s nap, A squash and a squeeze and Dear Zoo lift the flap book. While they waited for their turn they listened to the other stories and chose new books from the book case ready for their next turn.

 Outside the children have enjoyed playing with the sensory basket, banging the large pebbles together and enjoying the tapping sound. Zack enjoyed taking all of the small wooden sticks out of the basket and dropping them on the floor as he got another. Sadie, Chloe and Ada enjoyed digging in the sand pit using their hands and the spades. Sophie was fascinated by her game of lifting hand fulls of sand and throwing them over her head, laughing at her new game.

Bug Hunts!

This week the older children have been on a hunt for nature and bugs. They started of in the woodland gardens looking for horses and ducks. Xanthe found the horses and she quickly called her friends over to explore. Xanthe and Wilfred began to neigh at the horse as they counted them and spoke about their different coats, pointing out one that looked like a cow because of its markings. As we got further into the park, the children found a log and began to look for some insects. They managed to find a woodlouse and some ants. Hlenhaze stopped to count the ant’s legs but it was a little bit difficult as they were so fast. The children spotted lots of butterflies, Sophia remembered how butterflies grow from when we had butterflies in the nursery. Eve added that when they had changed from caterpillars they flew away. The children then began to run around like butterflies flapping their wings.

We have also been to the woodland area in Carlisle Park and looked at the board that told us about some of the things we may find. After looking for the bugs they wanted to race as fast as the bugs they had found. Nyra started the race and she shouted that she was so fast! Back at nursery we went to the outdoor learning area where Zach found an ants home, he told everyone they must like the fruit the nursery has been growing. James and Zayne found some lovely worms and snails. James pointed to the snails shell and told Zayne the shell was the snails home.

With all the hot weather we have had lots of water play, Ritika and Lyra liked to pour the water down the marble run and watch it trickle down to the bottom. They both shouted “Yay!” when the marble came to a stop. They celebrated by splashing, but they accidentally splashed Alba who laughed and decided to splash back until there was water everywhere! Emily and Ellis instead decided to play in the sandpit, the built some lovely towers but they found much funnier to knock them down again and watch the building crumble and the sand spread everywhere.

In baby room, the babies became explorers searching for ancient, hidden dinosaurs. George loved the textured brown paper that the dinosaurs used for their beds in the messy tray. Grace let out big “roars” whilst Sidney investigated the scales of each colourful dinosaur. The little explorers painted their findings with a variety of colours and resources. Agnes chose a rectangular box and used long sweeping brush motions, Rouxx opted for a bumpy egg box which depicted the spikes of a stegosaurus’ spine. Edward was very proud of his masterpiece and gave his dinosaur a big kiss which left him wearing fabulous blue lipstick, Alex found this extremely funny and gave himself some lovely red highlights for the day.

Outside in the mud kitchen, the babies cooked food for their dinosaurs. Sidney used a wooden spoon to stir his leaves in a saucepan. Louis was sous chef and was very busy picking leaves and fetching pots and pans for chef Sidney. Ciana used a watering can to add stock to the leaves and mud that was bubbling on the hob. Eesa carefully placed the muffin tray in the oven so that the dinosaurs could have a sweet treat! Theo searched the ground and garden for any predators and Honor helped him keep lookout as she collected all the toy dinosaurs in the garden for dinner time.