Building Dens & Reading Books!
The pre-school children have been very interested in making dens outside in the garden. They used the fabric to make covers to protect them from the rain and Jonathan made sure they had blankets for the ground so they didn’t get wet sitting down. After they had set up their shelter, the children all worked together very well to collect the wooden planks to put around the bottoms of the tree. Eloise told her friends, “It’s just like a real campfire now!”. Amelia and Isabelle enjoyed looking for bugs and insects around the bottom of the trees, Amelia telling everyone, “We need to keep the bugs nice and warm too”. The children also enjoyed taking some story books in to their den as well as in to the tree house when the rain was poring down to look at the books together., which was very cosy! They were discussing what they could see in the books and also made up their own stories, Henry telling them, “I’m using my imagination to tell you this story, I’m just like an author”. William asked, “Are you Julia Donaldson?” And started to laugh.
The children have also been busy designing buildings with the various sized wooden blocks. Sammy built a house and Joshua built a hotel. He told his friends, “I’m building a house so that I can go on a super sunny holiday”. Salvador went on to constructing a tall building and when Fabian asked what he was building, he told him, “I’m building a very, very tall tower”. Fabian laughed and said, “But now it is way too tall, it’s even taller than you”. Salvador said, “I know because towers are taller than people”. The children were then talking about their own homes and what their bedrooms looked like. Some had dinosaurs whilst others had lots of toys and teddies.
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.
