Ice, Animals & Foggy Walks!

The preschool children have loved exploring ice over the past couple of weeks and talking about the winter weather, including the changes in the trees in our garden and on our walks. The children collected some ice from outside that had formed overnight and placed it in to a tray inside. Shyla very excitedly told her friends, “It’s like the real Elsa has been to nursery!”. Henry, Shyla, Vivienne and Maya were holding bits of ice, laughing and watching the ice melt slowly in the palms of their hands.

Whilst out on a foggy walk, the children found several puddles that had ice formed over the top of them and they all enjoyed jumping in the puddles, watching and listening to the crack of the ice as it broke. Riley said to her friends, “This is the most funnest walk!”. Salvador looked over on to the foggy football fields and very excitedly got his friends attention, telling them, “But we can’t see the park or the trees anymore because it’s sooooo foggy out here”. 

The children have also been exploring various jungle, sea, farm animals as well as different types of dinosaurs. They have been learning about habitats and the names of some animals offspring. In the garden, we had a safari set up where Joshua, Will, William and Benjamin enjoyed playing. Joshua was quizzing his friends, “So who remembers what this ones baby is called?” holding up a different animal each time. When the children correctly answered, Joshua was praising them, “Well done, good remembering”. 

A Warm Welcome Back!

Welcome back to everyone after the Christmas break! It is lovely to see you all again.

Last week the toddlers loved coming back to nursery to see and play with their friends. Florence ran as fast as she could into the toddler room and shouted “Hello friends!” with a big smile on her face. Alastair enjoyed giving Sophie a great big cuddle when she returned from holiday and James couldn’t wait to raid the toy boxes to find his favourite car and truck. They have enjoyed going on cold frosty buggy walks to see if we could find any frozen ice. Rafferty said “Look, look!” as he spotted an icy puddle. He enjoyed hearing the ice smash onto the floor and breaking into lots of little pieces. Chloe spotted the ducks and said “Ducks, cold!” while pointing at them in the water. 

This week the toddlers have loved looking at different shapes. At circle time, they were shown different coloured shapes and Sadie cleverly knew “Purple circle, yellow triangle and red heart”. The toddlers have had shapes incorporated in their play throughout the week when playing in the messy tray trying to find them and dig them out of different materials, for example flour, sand and crazy foam. Ada wasn’t too sure on the messy shape play but instead enjoyed playing with the puzzles where she carefully slotted each shape into the correct place. 

The toddlers have enjoyed reading ‘One Snowy Night’ every day which is their book of the month. As part of looking at this book, they have been discussing how they could keep their own animal toys warm while outside in the cold weather. The toddlers were given a hat, a pot of water, a car and a felt blanket and were left to explore what material would work best. Max tried to put the hat on the horse to keep him warm, while Blake said “Ducks go in warm car”. 

This week in the baby room, the children have been settling back in after the Christmas break. They have enjoyed exploring the puzzles, Otto showed good large and fine motor skills while connecting the cogs on the caterpillar puzzle by trying to place the cogs onto the poles and kitty tried to place the duck and the fish on the animal puzzle board by turning and pushing the pieces into the spaces. Freddie, Esmé and Sebastian liked looking through the new coloured sensory boards while pulling them down from their faces so that they could see the difference in the colours of the room with the boards up to their faces and with them down.

Freddie, Otto and Amélie enjoyed listening to the stories watching as they pushed up the flaps to see the pictures in the ‘peekaboo’ books. They all took turns to by moving the sliders to they they could see the images or the animals popping out. Esmé said “Boo” and laughed as the rabbit popped out of the top of the book.

While on the walk, Amélie, Margot and kitty enjoyed feeding themselves as well as the ducks! They threw small pieces of their bread to the ducks clapping their hands and screaming as the ducks picked up the bread and ran away to eat it all up.

Christmas & End of Year Celebrations!

With this being our final weekly update of the year, we believe that we will let the pictures do the talking! The children have been enjoying many festive activities and parties and as you can see from the pictures how much fun they have had!

We hope you have a safe and healthy festive break and wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We look forward to welcoming you all back in January.