Pirates, Boats & Treasure!

The older children have been exploring pirates, looking at where they live and what they do. They have practiced their pirate sounds and actions and really liked to find the buried treasure that was encased in ice! Abigail liked melting the blue ice, and when her coin came out she showed it to her friends. She gave a coin to George and helped him melt his ice as he giggled back and said “Ooowww”. Wilf helped to make some pirates alongside Charlie and they both mimicked the sound a pirate would make, saying “Argghh” and moving their arms. Bodie came over and joined in with their crafts saying “Pirates live on a ship”, before they then continued to play around the nursery acting like pirates.

In the garden we had some pirate races, pushing the boats along to see which one would be the fastest! Emma liked watching the boats but much preferred splashing in the water with Ciana, and when Emma splashed Ciana, she would splash bigger splashes making both the girls laugh and laugh. Reuben and Lyra played with some spaghetti sea, which they used to hide pirate treasure and let toy pirates swim. Maeva and Deliah helped to make junk model boats and used lots of colours pointing out that their ship was going to be colourful. Sidney and Zayne preferred to paint a sea using sponges, dabbing the painting dotters on the paper. Sidney felt the way the sponge felt, squashing it and paint in his hand and smearing it everywhere whilst smiling at his new colourful hands. Zayne thought it was funnier to make big splash type marks on the paper with the dabbers and see the the differnet effects when he dabbed either hard or gently.

The children have also explored Autumn this week. They have been into the woods to collect some wonderful Autumn natural resources such as leaves and conkers to create some amazing art works. Alba and Charlie tipped up the tray one end to make wonderful marks with the conkers and paint inside, and Charlie spotted the different colours and thought it was really funny tipping it up above their heads. Oliver and Sienna made some pictures whilst at the park using some of the leaves they collected, and began to make hedgehogs but half way through decided to instead make some family portraits! They talked about their families whilst busy doing their artwork and showed it off proudly.                

The babies became pirates hunting for treasure in a water messy tray. The treasure had sunk to the bottom of the deep dark ocean meaning the babies needed to use different tools to scoop up the gems under the boats. Rouxx opted for a bright yellow sieve shouting “Yeah! Yeah!” whilst Honor used her hands, “Boat!” she called out as she made big ripples and waves by swirling her hands round and round. Dora excitedly used her ladle to collect her gems, transferring them into a bucket. Jamie liked this idea and speedily filled his bucket up whilst babbling “Mamama”. Harriet explored the gems by holding them up in the air and tasting them to see if they were real. This made Alex giggle and he used his ladle to drink up the water. “Pirate” said Dora as she pointed to Carol who was banging her gems together to make a beautiful tune. Theo splashed his hands around in the water, not worrying about what laid beneath the ocean.

The little pirates found a bridge perfect for walking the plank. However, they spotted a group of ducks eating their breakfast in the Woodland Gardens. Rouxx was extremely brave and ran towards the ducks for a closer look, “Quack quack” Luca said and pointed towards them. Dora spotted geese and decided to run the other way. Honor followed “Duck?” she questioned when she saw the large speedy geese. Alex ran on the spot in excitement “Ahh!” he said looking at all the animals in front of him. Mabel clapped her hands and everyone began to sing ‘Five little ducks’ ! 

Experiments, Volcanoes and Colours!

The pre schoolers have really enjoyed our science experiment week at nursery, especially learning about volcanos and watching a volcano erupt using cola and mentos. The children all watched in anticipation, ready for the explosion and as the cola shot up out of the bottle, Maya shouted "Wow, that's gone super high in the sky!". The children also loved watching a volcano eruption from the top of the Lego volcano using baking powder and vinegar. The children watched in wonder as the liquid began to fizz and spill over the sides of the volcano. Sienna said "Ooo! its all fizzy". During science week the children also enjoyed making their own rockets using junk modelling materials and different coloured paints. "My rocket will go so high to the clouds, and then into space!" Henry said to his friend Ezmie. The children enjoyed using the dabber tools to carefully apply their chosen colours to make their wonderful creations. During this week the home corner became the centre of many of the children's exploration and play after being transformed into a space rocket. Many of the children spent a lot of time aboard the space rocket, role playing their journey into space, pushing all the buttons on the space rocket and zooming off into the sky. Joshua said to his friend William "Let's fly up to space and see all the planets and stars!".

During the last two weeks, the children also enjoyed getting messy in the cornflour, searching through it to finding the letter pebbles hidden amongst the cornflour. Leo and Emma had fun using their hands to explore the texture of the cornflour and making marks using the wooden sticks. Leo giggled and said "My hands are all sticky now.". In response Emma giggled and said "It's wet and all slimy, like slugs!" as she watched the cornflour drip off her hands and back into the messy tray. Many of the children have also enjoyed practicing their physical skills by using the scissors to cut materials and create wonderful models and pictures. The children could choose to cut different coloured papers, card and also different fabrics which they could then stick down using the glue onto their chosen junk modelling boxes or paper. Jack had lots of fun cutting up his pieces of paper. He laughed and said "I'm giving my paper a nice hair cut. My mummy cuts my hair like this.". Maya giggled and said "That's a nice hair cut Jack.". 

Over the last week, the toddlers have been learning about shapes and colours by participating in activities that support their recognition and knowledge of them. Alastair thoroughly enjoyed making his rainbow collage where he stuck down each shape individually and named the colours he knew. James enjoyed being asked questions while he was making his rainbow and was asked if he could find the orange triangle and he pointed correctly and said “Orange triangle”. Emily enjoyed hiding the coloured shapes and waiting for someone to find them before sticking them down on her collage.

Outside, the toddlers explored colours and shapes through a colour hunt where a name was shouted and they had to run through the garden to find it. Sammy screamed “I found red!” finding the colour hidden behind the sandpit. Sophie found green but didn’t want to tell anyone so hid the colour under her top and ran away. In the sandpit Rowan and Lana were digging to try and find some hidden shapes. Their faces lit up when they found one as if it was as good as treasure! Back inside the toddlers have enjoyed getting messy with potato printing. Tommy found this funny as he splatted the potato down really hard causing the paint to jump and hit his face! Charlotte loved painting and noticed she had printed a yellow star which she proudly named.  

The babies have been busy exploring different materials in the messy tray. When playing with shredded paper, Kitty liked to pick up individual strands while Margot preferred to grab small handfuls, looking at the different colours. Youcef got really stuck in, excitedly pulling out the paper and throwing it around and over his head. The under two’s also loved playing with the light up sensory shakers in the dark. Margot held them close to her face, watching the colours change as she moved the beads inside. Kitty and Otto were really engaged by the rotating projector, looking at the shapes it made on the ceiling and walls as it turned and the image change. 

The children have been for some lovely walks in the pushchairs where they saw the big horses in the field and fed the ducks on the river. They also helped collect some colourful autumn leaves which they later used to make a lovely collage. Margot held a huge brown leaf and was waving it around like a flag and Kitty really studied her green leaf, holding it close to her face. Otto liked feeling the cool, sticky glue on his fingers as he tried to get it from the spatula to the paper and was confused and amazed when his leaf got stuck to his fingers!

Back inside, the more mobile children have been using their physical skills to climb up the stairs of the climbing frame, coming back down on the slide. Sebastian, Otto and Amélie had great fun following each other around, paying peek-a-boo and looking at each other in the big mirror, then playing with the walker together, using their fingers to move the cogs around on the frame. 

Autumn and Harvests!

The big room children have had a wonderful time exploring the world with their different senses, creating lots of art work and playing different games. The children started with some yoga and they moved around in different ways listening to the music as they stretched out. They blew some floaty materials to the music, Sienna shouted over to Sam “Look Sam, this is how it moves! You go!” and then she blew it away. Alba liked the way the feather felt, and she said “Tickle”. Grace gave a huge smile and laughed when Sam bought the feather over and shared it with her.

Adam and Charlie had a bike race, as they wanted to see who could go the fastest. Charlie shouted “We are going fast, I feel fast as he felt the wind rush past his face. After the race the both agreed they both won. Whilst in the woodlands, they explored lots of different textures whilst searching through the leaves and the fallen tree bark. Jessie and Zayne climbed the fallen tree and felt its textures, and agreed that it felt rough. Jessie then took hold of a stick and used that to rub against the tree “Look, its loud!” as she heard the noise it made. The children also looked out over the river, and Deliah noticed a duck and yelled out “Duck! Quack quack” whilst pointing. Ellis saw the fish near the top of the water, she said “There’s fishes. They are eating”. The children spoke about what else is in the water such as the different plants we may see, Abigail noticed the lily pads in the water she told all of her friends “They are lilies. The frogs jump on them”.

In one of the nursery gardens they children picked some fruit. Cianna helped to pick an apple as she twisted it of the tree she said “Ooww” when it twisted off. Oliver loved doing the gardening and picking different food and picked apples for his friends that weren’t able to and offered them out, and also picked some raspberries. Oliver saw his friends and ran over to ask “Can I have a turn now, please?”. Isla helped Oliver pick the raspberries, when she picked them some of them squashed in her hands, she showed her hands and said “Yuck, its squashed!”.

This week in the baby room was very Autumnal. The babies had great fun exploring in bushy park. They all collected conkers and leaves to make a lovely autumn soup! Luca shouted “Conker” as he found a conker hidden between the leaves. Honor picked up a big pile of leaves and threw them up in the air as she shouted “Leaves!” at the top of her voice. Alex ran around the tree as fast as he could having a race with Rouxx and Edward. Rouxx said “Run” to his friends and they all took off! Alex, Theo and Agnes used sticks to mix up a concoction of water and mud using the tree trunk as their bowl. Together they stirred and were amazed with what they have done. “Wow” said Agnes excitedly, whilst Harriet took a different approach and used the sticks to dig up the mud to help alongside them.

Back inside, the babies used what they had collected on the walk to mix together their autumn soup. Alex scrunched up all the leaves in the water, making leaf confetti. Carol tipped in the bag of conkers while Dora used the ladle to give it a big stir. Mary sprinkled in the leaves saying “Wow” as each one fell in. Agnes played with the lemons and even gave them a taste, scrunching her nose up as they were sour. Honor ran over to the water tray shouting “Water!” and began filling the bucket up with the help of Alex. Jamie loved the treasure and gems, placing them into the bucket!

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.