Jungle Exploration & Picnics!
Down in the jungle where nobody goes, the toddlers made a lion using paints, tissue paper and googley eyes. James carefully placed each piece of tissue paper around the edge of his paper plate ensuring not to leave any gaps. Rafferty shouted “It’s a lion! Roar!”. While the toddlers were walking through the jungle they saw elephants washing their clothes in a mud bath. As Isaac spotted the elephants he stopped in his tracks bent down putting his hands on the floor, lifted one arm up as a long trunk and made an elephant noise, “Brrrrrruuppp!”. Meanwhile, Olivia, Lana and Finley stomped the ground as hard as they could. Suddenly Sophie shouted ““What’s that! Listen!” whilst holding her ear, she heard the snakes slithering through the jungle. These snakes had the most beautiful textured skin from the toddlers using bubble wrap to make prints and marks on their creations.
Outside, the toddlers ran into the tree house collecting any leaves they found on the floor on there way ready for the giraffes feeding time. The toddlers waited patiently for the digital clock to hit ‘11’ on the iPad. As soon as the clock hit eleven the tall giraffes walked towards the tree house for feeding. Reegan demonstrated to his friends how giraffes eat by poking out his tongue and licking all round his top and bottom lips! Blake laughed nervously as she quickly dropped the leaves on the floor so the “Giraffes don’t lick me!”.
After the toddlers had returned from their jungle run, they all went to sit down in the cosy corner for a story. With no surprise after a week in the jungle the toddlers voted for the story ‘Walking through the jungle’. The toddlers sat listening carefully to the story, joining in when they knew the words. ‘Walking through the jungle what do you see’, Emily shouted “A tiger!”, “Looking for his tea” finished Tommy. The toddlers are very excited and looking forward to their next trip to the jungle!
The under twos really enjoyed being out on the big field, after going on a long walk around the grounds to look for the horses and the ducks. They found some ducks as they walked across the bridge, Sophie began to shout “Quack Quack!”. They saw a big white horse eating the grass, Isabelle and Sophie were pointing at the horse and Amélie tried making ‘clip clop’ sounds. The children had a great time eating their morning snack outside sitting on a picnic rug. Afterwards they played running games, Freddie and Youcef found it funny when running after one another, while Kitty and Esmé were looking at the daisies and dandelions, saying “Ooh” and picking them. Otto held them in his hands and smelled them, offering them to his friends to also smell.
When out in the garden, the children have been having fun with water play, using their hands to make lots of splashes and were fishing for the colour fruity tea bags. Otto and Amélie were using the utensils to pick up the water and squeezing the tea bags in their fists. Luciano was making lots of splashes making the water go everywhere, which made him and Jack laugh to which Jack then began to splash and both were laughing at one another.
During time inside, the under twos have been using using glue and feathers to make chick pictures. Youcef and Esmé waved their glue spreaders in the air as the feathers got stuck, while Otto laughed at the feathers that were stuck to his fingers, waving them around trying to get them to fall off.
Nature Walks and Magnets!
The pre school children have been investigating different materials using the magnetic toys this week. They were walking around the pre school room attempting to stick the magnets to the wooden furniture, the fabric sofa and then the white boards. Instantly noticing that the magnets fell from the sofa and the wooden furniture, Will explained to his friends, “Oh no, that must not be metal, because metal sides would work”. Ethan suggested, “I know, I think here will work” and guided his friends over to the white boards at the back of the home corner. This time the magnets did stick on to the side and the children all got very excited and started clapping and cheering, “Yaaaay”. A couple of the children then attempted to stick their magnets on to each other and Henry had noticed that Sammy and Benjamin’s ones were pushing away from each other. Henry asked them, “Do you know why that is happening?” He went on to explain, “That’s because the magnets are doing something special, they are repelling”. Ethan laughed and repeated, “Repelling, that’s a funny word”.
The children have enjoyed lots of nature walks in the lovely warm weather. They have all been observing the growth of flowers on a lot of the trees and and bushes within the nursery garden and on the grounds. Vivienne, Emma and Jessica went close up to smell the red roses and Shyla asked them, “Don’t they smell so beautiful?” The children were also lucky enough to see some new ducklings along the river as well as plenty of horses out in the fields. They were very happy that they were able to slowly and quietly get closer to the field without any of the horses moving away. Charlie stood observing the horse for a moment and then said, “Wow, he is so big”. Whilst out on one of the walks, we sat down to have a snack and read some stories about nature. William found the book about ants and then took a couple of the children off with him to look for some ants nests underground.
Ocean Exploration & Farmyard Animals!
Over the past week, the toddlers have been looking at ‘Under the Sea’. They have explored different sea creatures by watching short videos of them in their natural habitat. Florence liked the dolphins as she noted that they “Jumped in and out of water!”, before making a dolphin noise like the one she heard on the video. The toddlers spotted some jellyfish on the video swimming under the water. Alastair realised he knew a song about jellyfish and started to sing “Three jellyfish sitting on rock, one fell off... wo wo woooo SPLAAAAASH!”. Sadie and Isaac joined in with the actions, making a loud clapping noise as they shouted Splash. Some of the toddlers chose to make a jellyfish with paper plates, dabber pens, sequins and lots of different coloured paint. Later on, when their beautiful creations were dry, the toddlers were able to attach their jellyfish’s tentacles using their fine motor skills to thread pipe cleaners through holes in the paper plates.
Outside, the toddlers tried to move like an octopus by wiggling their arms and legs all over the place. Chloe enjoyed shaking her arms as hard and as fast as she could while Rowan tried to be a crab by crouching down, holding out his hands like claws and walking sideways. This made his friends laugh and James said “That’s funny”. Back inside the toddlers went fishing by using their fishing nets to try and catch some fish. Sophie got so excited when she lifted up her fishing net and spotted some colourful fish; she shouted “I got a fish! I got a fish!”. While some of the toddlers were busy fishing, Tommy, Ada and Chloe were having a boat race in the builders tray. Tommy said “My boat will win”, and Daniel said “No my boat win”. As they debated Ada pushed her boat passed her friends debating and won the race! and gave a cheeky smile.
The under two’s have been really busy learning about farm animals and the different noises that they make. The children had a very exciting time meeting the baby chicks. As the chicks were brought into room in a box, the children became curious as they came over to have a look at what was making the chirping sound. The children all got to have a look and stroke them if they wanted to. Cecilia was unsure about touching them and kept her distance, but enjoyed watching. Esmé and Luciano were really intrigued by the chicks, pointing at that them as they hopped around the box and were held out. Esmé and Otto enjoyed stroking the baby chicks head and tried to mimic the cheeping sound. Youcef preferred to just look and was laughing when they cheated; eventually he was brave enough to touch one gently.
The children have really enjoyed playing with the farm animal toys. They’ve been playing with the farm animals and the farmyard, trying to pass the animals through the gates and doors. Amélie and Esmé were both trying to make “Oink Oink” noises, which made Freddie laugh. Otto put the two large horses on the floor next to each other and tried to ride them with a big smile on his face, before Youcef came over to investigate and began smiling at what Otto was doing. Sophie has became very excited when she saw a dog while reading a story, shouting “Dog! Dog!” as she pointed to the picture. Later on the children did some observational mark making, looking at pigs and cows while they painted, Amélie liked the pigs curly tail.
During one of our walks around the beautiful grounds, the babies saw lots of police horses going for a walk. As they walked past, Esmé shouted out “Wow!” and then started to clap, this made Sophie smile and point towards the horses and Jack bobbed up and down in his seat with excitement. They continued to walk along the stream on the look out for the baby ducklings, Sebastian shouted out “Quack Quack”, when all of a sudden some of the male ducks appeared from the bushes on the bank and the children tore off some bread and threw it to the ducks.
