Fresh Harvest & Fun with Ice!

The pre school children have recently been helping out with our growing patch. A couple of months ago, the children sowed the seeds and have helped with the daily watering and weeding around our vegetables and plants. They have closely observed week by week the changes that have been happening in the growing areas. Fabian noticed that the carrots, "Have fluffy hair" whilst Ezmie found a sugar snap pea and told her friends, "This looks just like the green beans I have on my dinner". Finally the time has come for some of our vegetables to be ready to be picked, including sugar snap peas, green beans and kale, which has been a very exciting time for the children. William, Eloise, Salvador, Joshua and Ezmie could not wait to get involved, knowing that we were going to be using the kale to have with our roast dinner that day. Carefully picking the kale and placing it in to the bowl, Salvador reminded everyone, "We must wash it first to make it nice and clean for all of the children to eat". The children were so proud of their own vegetable picking that they were all willing to even try the kale with their dinner, Monty even told his friends, "This is nicer than the kale we usually have". 

In the warm weather, the children have taken part in many activities to keep cool and one of the favourites was definitely ice play with trucks and cars. The children were challenging themselves to see how long they could hold a piece of ice in their hands and laughing when it was becoming quite cold. Vivienne noticed some of the water dripping between her fingers from the ice cube and asked Rowan, "Do you know why there is water dripping?" When Rowan said no, Vivienne then explained to her, "It's because the my hands are warmer than the ice cube and it's making the ice cube melt". The conversation carried on to how ice cubes are made and Ethan told everyone, "We need to put them in the freezer to make some ice because it's very cold in there". Some of the children were then rubbing the ice cubes along their arms, Tristan saying, "Ahh, it's so nice and cold".

Exploring Senses & Visiting Ducks!

Over the past week the toddlers have been focusing on their book of the month, ‘A Squash and a Squeeze’. They have been listening the story at circle times and reading it quietly to themselves in the cosy corner. As well as this, the toddlers have been exploring some of the farm animals that feature in the story and looking at pictures and videos of them in their natural habitat. Raffy did a great cow impression and shouted “MOOO!” for all of his friends to hear, when Rowan heard this he said “I can do pig”, followed by an almighty “Oink”. Hearing all this animal talk made Sophie jump up in excitement and say “Old Macdonald! it’s old Macdonald!” before bursting into song, followed by many of her friends joining in too. Emily and Flo worked well together trying to ‘squash’ and ‘squeeze’ as many pom poms into a small pot as they could, saying “We have to squash it in, SQUEEZE!”. 

Outside, the toddlers have been going for lots of walks in search of more animals. As soon as they left the nursery Daniel spotted one of his favourite animals and said “I found a horsey”.  Ada was intrigued by the horses but a little hesitant and said “I don’t want the horse to sneeze on me” and impersonated a horse sneeze. Rowan helped Reegan find the confidence to get close to the horse and put an arm round his shoulders “It’s ok Reegan, come see the horsey”. The toddlers stopped for an impromptu story time by the river and Youcef squealed in delight as he saw some ducks approaching for a quick hello. Sadie threw the bread as far as she could, “Come on duckies, we got your lunch!”. Tommy was very proud of the ducks eating up the bread he threw, exclaiming “I did it”.

This week the under twos have had fun learning about their senses. During an art activity using glue and cotton wool balls, Kitty and Isabelle enjoyed using their glue spreaders to spread glue across the paper, while Otto and Jack were not sure when the cotton wool got stuck to their fingers. Otto began to laugh at Jack when the cotton wool wouldn’t come off his fingers, Kitty saw what Otto was laughing at and said “Oh dear!”. They have learnt how to use rollers and make different marks on paper plates.  Esmé watched Kitty use her roller to paint her hand, Esmé then copied her laughing as it tickled as it rolled across the palm of her hand. 

During one of our walks around the beautiful grounds the children came across the ducks on the side of the river bank. Jack got all excited kicking his feet and pointing at the ducks as they came closer, whilst Sophie was making duck sounds saying “Quack quack” as she threw her bread towards them. When the the ducks came closer Kitty started to count the ducks, saying “One two three” with a big smile on her face. All of a sudden Amélie began to shout and point; she had spotted a squirrel waiting for some bread. 

Out in the garden the little ones have been playing with the damp sand. Amélie was using her spade to scoop the sand and put her fingers into it as it fell from the spade, while Sebastian was using the sieve, laughing as the sand fell through the small holes. They have also been exploring our herb garden, and Sebastian and Amélie enjoyed smelling the mint and the rosemary, Kitty said “Mmmmm” as she brought the mint leaf towards her face, she then started laughing as it tickled her nose. 

Fun at Bocketts Farm!

We had an amazing day at Bocketts Farm last week! The children all had so much fun and were so excited on the build up to the farm trip. On the day the children were all super excited to come in to nursery and were very eager for the coach to come and collect everyone. Once the coach arrived, even more excitement kicked in! The whole coach journey was filled with lots of laughter, chatting and singing songs such as Old MacDonald and The Wheels on the Bus.

When they arrived, the children were greeted by their personal group tour guide and the children were very good at listening to any information and safety talks that she gave. Most importantly it seemed, the children were very keen to know where their snack and lunch boxes had been taken to and loved that they had their own little hut to keep their food and water bottles in.

Once all of the house rules had been set, they were good to go and explore the farm. Seeing all of the animals was a must! The children even got to see a pig race and cheered on all of the pigs before the yellow pig won the race! Henry called out, "Yay, that was the pig that I knew would win the race because yellow is my favourite colour!".

The children then got to see a baby goat (kid) close up and were so gentle with it, Isabelle said in a very soft voice, “Aww, he’s just a baby, isn’t he so cute!”. Next were the pigs with her piglets. The tour guide explained that the piglets were very young, only a couple of weeks old and still needed lots of rest throughout the day. Sophie said, “Yes, I need a rest too in the day, I have a nap”.

The tractor ride was also one of the favourite parts of the day. There were so many animals to see along the way and the children thought the wind and the bumpy ride was good fun. It was a really amazing day finished off with great enjoyment by bouncing on the large inflatable cushions.

The coach journey back to nursery was much quieter, with some of the children enjoyed a little nap whilst the others were chatting to each other about their favourite parts of the day.

Back at nursery, some of the children had good fun making a den in the garden using the materials they found in the play house. The children worked together very hard to make their own den, only asking for a bit of help when they couldn't quite reach where they wanted it to be tied up to. Fabian and Jasper were discussing and suggesting the best place for this, Jasper telling Fabian, "If we do it too low, we will bump our heads and it will then fall down".

Once the den was up, the children took some books in to there and enjoyed looking at the stories together.