New Languages, Foods and Music!

The pre school children have thoroughly enjoyed getting involved with role play cooking in the mud kitchen. They were pretending to make birthday cupcakes for their friends. Tomas had seen his friends mixing bark and mud in one of the saucepans and told them, “Hang on guys, I know what we need to make it better” whilst searching through the box for the cake tray. He placed it on the mud kitchen and Jasper told him “That was a great idea” and gave him a cuddle. After the cakes were finished, Tomas, Leo, Jasper and Ethan went on to offering cakes to many of their friends whilst singing happy birthday to them.

The children also went for a nature walk to observe the changes of the colours of the leaves that have started to fall from the trees now that we are approaching the autumn season. Sienna had noticed that one on the trees still had “All of its green leaves” but the tree next to it “Has got orange and red leaves”. Joshua suggested to Sienna “Maybe that’s because that tree didn’t get enough water to drink”. The children collected a whole bag of leaves and enjoyed doing sticking back at nursery with the leaves and feathers. Whilst on the the children found several mud piles and Jack asked “What is this for?” Monty went on to tell him “That’s where the moles live, they dig underground so they can stay nice and safe”. They then came to another big mound of stones and Ethan started to laugh and said, “That must be the house for a really big mole”.

This week, the toddlers had the chance to learn about the different countries their friends are from as well as exploring the different cultures celebrated by the toddlers and their families. To start the week the toddlers explored China, making yin-yang plate puzzles and playing with sticky rice in the messy tray! After exploring China, the toddlers were off to Spain and Germany where Sadie and Lana carefully decorated some flags using pens, glue and paints. The toddlers enjoyed waving their flags around at the ‘cultural’ disco and dancing away to songs in different languages. Sophie showed off her leg shake while Chloe jumped up and down. 

Outside, the toddlers had a go at countries native sports which included curling. This was made possible using imagination, brooms and frisbees. Tommy and Reegan tried their hardest to push the frisbees as hard as they could with their brooms however they didn’t go very far which made them laugh. The toddlers also tried table tennis and football which were a big hit. James showed off his kicking skills by running really fast and shooting the ball at the wall. Blake demonstrated great hand eye coordination when hitting the ping pong ball with the bat. 

Back inside, the toddlers explored tasting some new foods from India, Spain and American thanksgiving however they were luckily not tried at the same time. When visiting France, the toddlers had the opportunity to make their very own french baguette which they thoroughly enjoyed. Charlotte had fun squashing it flat like a “pancake” she said while Issac preferred using his fingers to make prints. To end the week of cultures, the toddlers learnt to say hello in all their friends languages, for example Spanish “Hola”, French “Bonjour”,  Punjabi “Sat Sri akãla”, Mandarin “NÍ Háo” and German “Hallo”! 

The under twos have been having a lovely time exploring different textures during messy play activities. Margot and Otto enjoyed feeling the paint on sponge rollers, squeezing and moving their hands to spin the sponge and make marks on the paper. The babies also experienced hand painting, choosing which coloured paint to dip their hands into. Youcef got very excited choosing green and brown colours, scooping up handfuls and smearing it all over the paper. Ada, Kitty and Freddie were a bit more cautious, just dipping their fingers in the red and yellow making a few marks and Otto made some lovely patterns. 

The children have had fun using musical instruments, Ada, Amélie and Margot loved shaking the rattles listening to the beads inside and also playing with the cars, picking them out of the box, spinning the wheels watching them move. 

Outside the babies enjoyed going for an early autumn walk, where they got to see some horses and a big tractor. They also, helped to feed the ducks beneath the bridge, holding on to some bread but not much of it got thrown in! When it was time to leave we said goodbye to the ducks and Kitty, Youcef and Sebastian all waved cheerfully. In the garden, Kitty liked taking the coloured pegs out of the board, Amélie was feeling the different treasure basket pebbles and Margot explored the wooden racing cars, trying to fit them into a wooden box.   

Tree Climbing and Space Exploration!

This older children have been having great fun outside, including visiting the woodlands gardens. They climbed up on a fallen tree, and Oliver climbed onto the trunk and shouted out, “My go, my go, my go, I’m going to be the tallest!”. They began to jump down one by one, practicing their jumping, landing and balance. Alba jumped down with a little bit of help asking “Help, I jump”. Whilst out in the park, the children found another fallen tree, which they quickly climbed up and sat on before pretending that it was a bus. Whilst on their bus they began to sing ‘The wheels on the bus’. Lyra started the song and her friends joined in, whilst Louis clapped along and with some brilliant babbling to the rhythm. Zayne pretended to beep his horn whilst sat there and shouted out “Beep, beep”.

The children feed the hungry ducks with oats they had brought along, but at the beginning the ducks were nowhere to be seen! The children called out to them shouting “Quack, quack”. Whilst waiting for the ducks to arrive, they spotted the big fish and found it funny when they swam right to the top and ate the oats. Charlie pointed at the fish and shouted “Look, it’s eating” he then covered his face and laughed to himself. This made all of his friends laugh and they turned it into a game to see who could see the fish swim up to the surface first.

In one of the nursery gardens the children helped to pick some wonderful fruit. Alba and Ruben twisted the apples off the tree and then carefully placed them in the wheelbarrow. Jessie and Abigail helped to pick the raspberries, and they were very gentle, but one squashed in Abigail hands and she said “Yucky, look its red!”. Oliver helped pick some fruit afterwards. When the apples fell off the tree he said “Uh-oh” and then picked them up and then he watched the fruit and made sure it was kept safe ready from anyone eating it before snack time.

This week the babies trained to be astronauts! They put on their moon boots and walked across the moon leaving a trail of tiny footprints. Edward stomped his feet on the moon whilst clapping his hands to ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’. Alex preferred gathering the flour on the moon into his hands and throwing it up in the air, to create snow! Agnes took a more laid-back approach and sat down on the moon observing all her friends floating in space. Jamie found a big stick and stuck it in the middle of the moon as if he was placing ‘The Hamptons Day Nursery’ flag for all the other planets to see. Honor found this funny and used the stick as a giant spoon to stir all the flour and sparkly stars together. Isla pointed at the messy tray and said “Moon!” and Edward responded with a “Wow!”. Honor looked closely at the shiny stars and picked one up for Theo to look at, “Star” she said and Theo began collecting stars in his basket. Once Theo had finished collecting his stars, Rouxx helped to leave a trail of them around the garden for all the aliens to follow when they visit Earth.

After the babies exciting trip to the moon, they recreated what they found on paper plates. Reuben loved the sequins and piled them up high on his moon. Abigail dabbed her sponges up and down on her plate, making sure to fill in all the blanks. Alex and Ellis dipped their fingers in to the silvery paint to create small craters on their moons. Varun decided to put his moon on his head to look like a proper astronaut in a helmet, this made Jamie giggle loudly and he threw his moon up in the air.

Washing and vegetable soup!

The preschool children have really enjoyed messy play activities throughout the last couple of weeks. The children loved making marks using the tools and exploring the different textures of the corn flour in the water play. Shyla noticed the corn flour was dry, she said to Maya “It’s very chalky isn’t it?” Shyla then giggled and said “I think we should add water to make it all slippery.” Maya laughed and agreed saying “Let’s make it slippery out of our hands.” Vivienne then said “We can add water with the jug.” Together the children had fun adding water to the corn flour to turn the mixture into a different texture. Emma put her hands and arms into the cornflour and began to laugh, Emma said to Rowan “My arms are all messy now- they go swimming in corn flour!” During the last couple of weeks the children also enjoyed using the sponge dabbers to create many colourful shaped pictures to take home. The children explored putting the dabbers into the different paints and printing them out onto their papers. Francis said to Zachary “Wow I got lots of circles.” Zachary pointed to his picture and responded “Look I got yellow circle, it’s like the sunshine.” The children mixed the different coloured paints on their paper and exploring the colours they changed to. Tomas giggled and said “This colour’s gone purple now.”

In the garden the children all mucked in, using the cleaning tools to wash the water tray and toys. Josh said to William “Come on this is dirty water we need to make it clean again don’t we?” Together the children scrubbed the mud away and organised a toy wash on the different levels of the water tray. Ethan liked using the cloths to wipe the bark from the toys and made sure the mud was being washed off. Jack said “We need bubbles and more water.” Once more water was added William said “Wow that’s a lot of water it will really shine now.” In the mud kitchen, the children made fresh soup with lots of vegetables. Ada said to Jessica “This soup will be hot!- it’s cooking the vegetables to make it good for us.” Jasper said “I don’t like vegetables much, they yucky in my tummy.” In response Sienna said “Vegetables make us big and strong! We need them sometimes.” The children enjoyed stirring their creation with the big spoons and serving the soup out into pots, whilst scooping sand and mud into their big bowl and making a wonderful soup for all their friends to try.

Last week the toddlers had the chance to explore different types of transport as part of their weekly theme. Alastair and Tommy said “Trucks” were their favourite, showing off how they work and pointing to the “wheels”. Whereas, Sammy said his favourite was “Aeroplanes” as he pointed to the sky to show where he usually sees them flying. On Wednesday the toddlers had a catastrophe as all their cars had broken down, causing an oil leak which made a great messy play activity! Sophia said “What’s that?”, and pointed to the oil separating from the water. Due to the cars being out of action, the toddlers had to find something else to do, so they made kites. Blake and Lana enjoyed taking their time to decorate their kites using silky crayons while Rowan and Issac decorated theirs as fast as they could so they could get outside to fly them! Jonny said “Wow look at kites flying in the sky!”

Charlotte couldn’t wait to get outside to participate in a boat race, where she splashed the water as hard as she could to see her boat move which made her laugh. On Thursday the toddlers went out on a walk tractor spotting. Together they counted “Seven tractors, two horses and one lorry!”. To top off the transport week, the toddlers were able to sit on a real tractor which, by their faces, was the best experience they have ever had! 

The under twos have loved listening to stories, Sadie was looking at books with Margot and Ada. Sadie liked turning the pages of the book and ’Peepo!’ Sadie repeated “Peeeopooo” laughing as she helped turn the pages of the book to see the new pictures on the other page. Margot, who was also listening to the story started to babble tapping the book and smiling at Sadie as she laughed.

Ruaridh, Amelie and Youcef enjoyed playing with the shredded paper. Youcef took out two handfuls of the paper and put it in his lap on the floor, he then swished his hands in the paper listening to the sound and liked watching it move around the floor. One of the team hid some rattles for them to find, and Kitty was able to find one of the rattles and shook it before starting to look for the other. Ruaridh liked tapping the water toys on the paper. While exploring the room Ada found the wooden plate and and wooden bowl. She liked hearing the tapping sound and she brought her hands together to tap the wood together. Otto and Youcef took it in turns to put the monkey into the cart pushing it backward sand forward.

Fruit picking and bugs!

This week the older children have been out exploring the world. They have started by searching for bugs and looking at them noticing the differences. Emily saw a spider and put it into the ladybug bug pots to explore with her friends. Sophia and Eve looked at the spider and they spoke about how many legs spiders have. Sienna then found an ant that she was very interested in and held it in her hand for a while asking how many legs it had, to which Eve responded that she thinks they have 6 legs not 8. In the tree stump and fallen tree they had a climb around and used magnifying glasses to look at the leaves growing and to see if they could find more insects. Sienna found a woodlouse and bought it over to her friends shouting “Look, a worm!”. She held the woodlouse very close to Zach’s face and he said ‘Yuck, that’s a woodlice, not a worm.’ before he then ran away laughing that he was then being chased by a woodlouse. When they were finished Sienna put the woodlice back and they watched it crawl away. Louis and Zayne climbed on the bark hills, standing at the top giggling to themselves before running back down, shouting with their hands in the air. George and Emma liked playing with the cars in the park, rolling them around on the mat as well as on the grass, and watched as the cars would slow down or stop on the grass but go faster on the mat.

In one of the nursery gardens, the children picked some yummy raspberries. Lyra said that the raspberries were sweet when trying them and then looked around to see what else she could find. Abigail found the tomatoes and said ‘They are green, but they are turning red , and then they will be ready’. Xanthe then found the strawberries and pointed out they were half white and half red, Lyra said that “They were not ready yet”. The children also had a yoga lesson and loved to get involved. Varun really liked to play with the pom poms and gave them a big shake shouting ‘Hooray’ whilst Louis like to hide under the pom poms and George tried out some of the moves alongside Emma.

The babies had a fantastic time learning about bugs! The babies enjoyed exploring in the woodlands with their magnifying glasses and binoculars, searching for lots of butterflies and ladybirds. “Butterfly” shouted Emma as she pointed to one flying by. Louis looked up to the bright blue sky, “Ahhhh” he exclaimed excitedly as he saw a plane fly over us. The babies created their own bug houses using lots of sticks they collected on the walk. Honor carried her basket to pick up all the sticks she could find, whilst Alex ran around on a scavenger hunt with his clipboard ready to write down all he could see. Agnes used the bug catcher, and she carefully put a leaf inside and then closed the lid to take a closer look. Edward giggled while on the hunt for some more leaves, throwing them up in the air whilst he smiled at Rouxx and laughed. Theo preferred the brown and crunchy leaves which he crumbled between his fingers to make crispy confetti. Grace, George and Sidney loved climbing over the logs and all sat on a big tree trunk pretending it was a car. “Beep beep” said George as he drove the tree truck through the woods!

Workouts!

The preschool children have really embraced the bubble system relaxation over the past week and have themselves taken on the responsibility of looking after the toddler children and showing them around to parts of the garden and in to the preschool room for them to explore. Eddie took Zac by the hand and asked him, “would you like to see all of the fun things in preschool?” Once in the preschool room, Eddie, Ezmie, Max and Jasper showed great pride when showing him around the room, especially towards the car mat area where the trains were set out. Shyla said to him, “See, it’s so much fun in here isn’t it?”

In the garden, we had set up an obstacle course to challenge the children’s physical skills, giving them opportunities to climb and balance along beams on different levels. Vivienne had seen that one of the toddler children were a little hesitant to cross the taller beam and very quickly went over to assist her, holding out a hand for them to hold on to. Maya had wobbled slightly and started to laugh and said, “I’m all wobbly like jelly on a plate”. The children all then started to wobble and giggle whilst singing ‘Jelly on a plate’.

 Some of the children enjoyed making rainbow pictures on the chalk board, carefully selecting a different colour each time they drew a line. Once they had finished, Edie told her friends, “This is a very beautiful rainbow, it’s just like the one that we see in the sky after it rains”. Ada then suggested for them to wash the rainbow away and they all looked in amazement when the water ran through the chalk, making the colours smudge down the board.

This past week the toddlers have enjoyed taking part in many different ‘body’ themed activities. They had the opportunity to explore a variety of messy activities that involved using all of their senses. Reegan tentatively explored gloop with his hands one at a time while Isla got stuck straight in, getting messy up to her elbows. Alastair had fun driving the cars through the gloop, saying “Oh no it stuck”. Immy loved the barefoot sensory tray and excitedly took her shoes off so she could jump in .“It’s in my toes” she said while Sophia enjoyed picking up the different materials and crumbling them between her fingers. Isabelle giggled as she bent down to make marks in the oats , saying “I’ll make a circle”.

Outside the toddlers were moving all parts of their body’s, limbering up with Joe Wick’s PE lessons. Zoe showed off her amazing moves as she jumped along to the workout instructions whilst telling the others “Look, I’m doing it!”. Louis showed great balance as carefully moved along the balance beams on the assault course. Tommy sped through the assault course, doing a big jump at the end alongside a countdown, “3, 2, 1, Jump!”.  Blake and Amelia had fun doing the hopscotch, laughing as they hopped on one leg along the decking, both bursting into laughter as Amelia stumbled.

Back inside the toddlers have been playing doctors with the dolls. They were able to apply bandages and plasters to the different parts of the dolls bodies. Jonny took his time carefully applying plasters to the dolls head saying “He fell over and got a scratch, he needs a plaster”. Luna applied bandages to the doll’s knee and held her leg up to show everybody. Harriet and Charlie showed great teamwork as they applied plasters and bandages to the doll’s tummy while Charlie explained “Baby has got a sore tummy”. Florence took great care of the dolls, giving them cuddles after each bandage applied.

The under twos room have been busy settling in new babies and transitioning the older ones ready for the 2-3s room. Sadie, Ada and Sophie had lots of fun playing with the big wooden stacking board, taking turns in removing the shapes from the board, handing them to each other and placing them back on. Sadie said “Share” while she waited for Ada to pass her the flower shape and she replied saying “Here, go”.

The children loved getting messy with the mashed potato play, Olivia was using the masher making big arm movements to squash the potato. Zachary preferred to use a spoon, stirring the mash and occasionally tasting it, saying “Mmm”. Chloe tried using the small plastic tongs to pick it up but got frustrated when the mash stuck to them and asked for help to clean it off to save her hands getting messy. Youcef was a little bit cautious at first but soon got stuck in, exploring the sticky mashed potato.

All of the children love story time, and always choose the books to be read to them. Rafferty chose a Gruffalo book and repeated the body parts including eyes, nose and toes and pointed them out in the story and on his own body. Chloe and Ada liked feeling the different textures, whilst Emily and Olivia enjoy reading the lift the flap books, finding the hidden animals and making sounds of them.

Rafferty and Sophie had fun playing with the different shapes sensory balls, taking them out of the box and throwing them to each other. In the garden, Amélie and Margot liked playing with the stacking boxes, banging them together and trying to fit them inside.