Gardening & Treasure Hunts!
The pre school children have really enjoyed helping to do some gardening in our growing area. Whilst helping to turn over the soil, they discovered lots of potatoes and carrots that had been growing in there over the winter. Francis dug himself a potato from the soil and took it inside to the kitchen, offering it to Rebecca, suggesting, “You can use this for our lunch”. The children were discussing lots of food options that we could make that would contain the potatoes and carrots. Riley suggested, “I know, we can make a potato and carrot soup, that would be delicious”.
The children then went on to making their very own potato and carrot recipes in the mud kitchen, Henry made a potato pie whilst Jessica made a carrot cake. Tomas, Leo, Fabian and Joshua set up a camp fire to cook the potatoes and carrots, using the sticks and bricks to place around their campfire and telling all of their friends, “You need to stand back, it might be too hot”. The children also helped to plant some new seeds and have taken a very keen interest in wanting to look after them, Vivienne reminding us daily, “We need to put some water on our seeds so they can grow”.
The children have also took part in a very exciting treasure hunt in our garden, following an actual treasure map drawn on some paper. The small dinosaurs had been hidden as treasure around the garden and the ‘x’s were marked on the map as to where they had been hidden. Ezmie, Vivienne, Emma and William concentrated really well to position the map and work out in the garden where they thought the ‘x’ mark represented. They started off at the sand pit, and very quickly worked out there was an x just behind them in the toy shed and found the dinosaur instantly! Ezmie said, “That was super easy to find”. They went on to find a couple more positioned at the back of the garden, again, following the map carefully. They had picked up several more children along the way who were very interested as to what they were doing and after Ezmie explaining to them what they were doing, Ada went on to find some in the water tray. Ari found the ones in the tree house and with only a couple left to find in more hidden areas, Ezmie told her friends, “Maybe that wasn’t so easy!” and started to laugh.
Science, Gummy Bears & Owls!
Over the last week the toddlers have been looking at magical materials and taking part in science experiments. The toddlers have explored solids and liquids by melting ice with jugs of warm water. Chloe would carefully hold the jug with two hands while trying to pour some of the warmer water over the ice. Florence noticed the big pieces of ice were changing, “Ice get smaller”. The toddlers also explored a magical transformation with cornflour as they played with it changing from a hard solid in the tray to a gooey substance in their hands. Sophie loved watching the gloop fall between her fingers.
Zack, Blake and James thoroughly enjoyed the gummy bear experiment where each of the toddlers had the opportunity to throw a gummy bear into the water. The toddlers left the gummy bears over night and waited eagerly to see them the next morning. Alastair couldn’t wait to see them the next day and was asked if he could see a difference between the gummy bears out of water to the ones in the water. He noted that they were “Bigger!” as he pointed to the sweets that had been soaking. The toddlers eyes widened as they saw the gummy bears had TRIPLED IN SIZE!
Outside, the toddlers have been using their binoculars to try and spot some real life owls as we started our new book of the month ‘Owl Babies’. Back inside, the toddlers used paint, feathers and many other materials to create their very own owl to take home to their families. Sadie said “Twit Twoooo” and held her owl high above her head as if it was flying.
This week in the under twos room, the little ones have been painting using small sponges. Amélie knew to press her sponge straight onto the paper to make paint marks on it, whilst Jack was a little unsure of the sponge at first but soon got stuck in getting paint on his paper and best of all his hands! The children have had fun exploring the new books in the library box, and Sebastian and Ada have enjoyed learning how to get the pictures in the push and pull books to move around.
Esmé and kitty found it funny looking through the colourful wooden shapes, Esmé kept laughing each time she held it to her face. The children also been playing with the farm animals, putting them in and out of the farm house, as well as learning the name of the animals and the noises that they make. Margot and Amélie tried copying the animal sounds which made Jack laugh.
On one of their walks they came across a massive digger in the fields which they found mesmerising as you can see! You never know what you will find when out and about!
Chinese New Year!
The pre-school children have been learning all about Chinese New Year and discovering all the special celebrations that happen over this period. The children took part in noodle and rice food tasting at snack time. Shyla particularly enjoyed the egg fried rice and told her friends, “This rice is so yummy and it’s just like the rice that we have with our chilli at nursery, but this one has special nice bits in it”. The children have also been listening and dancing to Chinese music along with various types of music from all around the world. Jasper, Ethan and Salvador were all dancing together and really laughing and enjoying themselves.
Outside in the garden, the children were practicing their writing skills whilst attempting to copy some of the Chinese writing symbols. Ezmie mentioned to Sophie, “This writing isn’t like the letters we have in our names because this one is Chinese letters”. The children loved getting messy and painting some boxes to make their very own 3D dragon to hang up at nursery. Once the boxes were all connected together, Emma got very excited and called her friends over to see, “Look, it’s the Chinese dragon from the great river race story!”.
The children have also been very active and loved football, hula hoop and frisbee games over in the football field. Zac and Amelia loved chasing each other around, kicking the football and laughing together when they got it in to the goal post. Joshua, Jasper and William practiced their frisbee skills, testing each other to see how far they could throw it, together counting, “1, 2, 3, go!” and then seeing who was the quickest to collect the frisbee again.
Some of the children decided to take a more relaxed approach and have a little lay down on the grass, looking for worms inside the holes in the ground. This then set in to a challenge to see who could get the muddiest hands ! After not finding any worms, Maya suggested, “Maybe we need to find some wet soil instead” and they all moved to the tree to have a closer inspection.
