The Chicks Have Arrived!
The chicks have arrived and the children have been so very excited, waiting patiently for this very inspiring process. On the weeks building up to the eggs being delivered to nursery, the children did plenty of art work activities including making their own paper plate hatching chicks and making some 3D clay eggs. Whilst making the hatching chicks, Ada told her friends, “This chicken is just like the chicks that are going to be at nursery soon”. The children have also been looking in to life cycles of various animals including chickens, frogs and butterflies and talking about different habitats.
When the chicks first arrived at nursery as eggs, the children all enjoyed going to pay them a visit and were very carefully looking out for any cracks in the shells. Fabian told Tomas, “Shhhh, we need to make sure that we are not too noisy otherwise we will wake the chicks up in their shell”. Tomas laughed and replied, “But the chicks won’t be able to hear us through their shell”. Vivienne and Emma were lucky enough to be able to see one of the chicks fully hatch out of the shell. Vivienne told Emma, “He is so cute and he is now so tired from all of that hard work”.
The children have absolutely loved seeing the chicks grow over the past week and have all been very affectionate and gentle towards them. Each day Connie and Henry have gone home, they make sure they go and say, “Goodbye and goodnight” to them. Benjamin has asked each morning if the chicks, “Can come out to play in pre-school today?” Leo hadn’t seen the chicks since they had been eggs and was very excited when he came in to pre-school and had seen them playing in the tray. He very gently stroked one of their heads and said, “They are so lovely and small”. What a fabulous experience for everyone!
Chicks, Ducks & Scavenger Hunts!
This week, the toddlers have enjoyed learning about chicks ready for our new fury friends to hatch out of their eggs. On Tuesday, when the eggs arrived, the toddlers all went to see them in their incubator. Lowri got very excited seeing the eggs and asked to “See eggs again” multiple times throughout the day, which she did! Olivia shook with excitement as she pointed towards the eggs saying “Egg, egg, egg! ”. To help the toddlers understand what was inside the egg, they were given a picture of a chick covered in whiteboard marker in a shape of an egg for them to rub off. Florence loved this as she was the first to see the chick appearing, she looked up and shouted “It’s a baby chick!”. Tommy and Lana were both very patient as they rubbed the wet wipe as hard as they could to slowly reveal the chicks underneath. Ada K enjoyed going round to her friends saying “I’m a chick, tweet tweet!”.
Outside, the toddlers have loved having a picnic where they were able to choose which snack they wanted. Alastair said “I would like apple and a pear” while Blake asked for “Banana please”. The toddlers then went on a chick hunt, searching all round the garden. Rowan found one hiding underneath the tree house and said “Look! I found it under here!”. Sadie found one hiding in the tree and reached as high as she could to try pull it down.
Back inside, the toddlers used clay to try and build their chicks a nest. Finley enjoyed poking his finger right through the clay saying “Holes holes”. James took his time using the rolling pin trying to get the clay as flat as it could go. Tommy had fun squeezing the clay and said it was “Cold” while Chloe excitedly tore pieces of clay off to make food to go in her frying pan. Towards the end of the week, the toddlers were able to spot changes to the incubating eggs seeing cracks appear and hearing the chicks tweet from inside. Can’t wait to see the chicks running around next week!
The under twos have been busy exploring their senses this week. During an Easter painting activity using carrots, they dipped the carrots in paint and were rolling them across paper to make different marks and patterns. Amélie dipped her carrot into the paint and said “Dab dab dab”, Youcef then copied Amélie, smiling as he was very proud of his art work. The children also created lovely Easter eggs using cut potatoes. Some of them chose to hold on to the fork so they didn’t get as messy and Sebastian loved getting stuck in, waving it around. Otto carefully placed his potato on the paper, looking at the print it left behind. Margot held her fork up to gesture she wanted more paint and dipped it in before making different coloured patterns.
During outside walks around the beautiful grounds and the duck pond, we went looking for the ducks to see if any ducklings had been born. Kitty kept shouting “Quack quack “, while Sebastian was pointing at the ducks swimming across the water. As the ducks came swimming over, Esmé threw the bread towards the water and began saying “Woo wee!” at the ducks. After the walk they stopped at the field and did some running, Kitty and Otto ran really fast across the grass, Kitty suddenly stopped and bent down to look at the small daisies in the grass, Amélie came over and was very curious and bent down next to Kitty to look at them too.
The children have been popping in to look at the chicken eggs and waiting patiently for the chicks to hatch. In the meantime, they have been creating their own chicks using coloured glue and feathers. Sophie looked very confused as the sticky feathers stuck to her fingers and she shook her hands trying to get them off. Esmé and Amélie concentrated really well on where to place the feathers, holding them up to their faces to investigate them before sticking them down.
Easter Celebrations and Butterflies!
The pre-school children have been looking after our caterpillars for a while now and this week saw them hatch from their cocoons as beautiful butterflies! The children were really gentle and careful whilst handling the butterflies. Joshua said “We need to be really careful to not hurt the butterflies!”, Zachary added “It tickles!” as a butterfly crawled over his hand. After feeding them and letting them gain their strength for a few days, it was time to set our butterflies free in the Garden. We took one more opportunity to hold them before letting them loose. Maya said “There is so many beautiful colours!” and Connie said “Look, they are flying away!”
The children also enjoyed taking part in a special Easter Egg hunt in the garden! They searched every nook and cranny to find the Easter Eggs left by the Easter Bunny. Henry said “I found a blue Easter Egg under the treehouse! It was really hidden!” Jasper said “I found one too! The Easter bunny is going to leave chocolate eggs in my garden too!” When the children had found an Easter Egg, they brought them to a grown up to get themselves a sticker. Riley said “We get a Easter Egg and a sticker too, wow!” They then sat down for a group photo wearing the Easter Bonnets they had made to celebrate a job well done in the Easter Egg hunt!
