Summer Concert & Graduation!

The pre-school children have been extremely excited on the big build up to their graduation show. The concert was based on the story book ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ and each of the children had an animal to act out. Each day Eloise would ask, “How may sleeps until my mummy and daddy can come and watch me?” Henry told his friends, “My mummy and daddy are going to come and watch me too, and I’m going to snap all of my friends because I’m the very hungry crocodile!”. Shyla started to laugh and said, “But I’m a monkey, it’s me that you need to snap!”. The children soon got their stride with their new animal roles and day by day were becoming much more confident to say their lines out loud when they were practicing the play. Some of the children even sang the songs at one of the swimming sessions to their swimming teacher!

The day of the play was such a very exciting day for the children. They had one final practise and had a picnic tea with the whole nursery to celebrate the graduation. All of the pre-school children helped to get the room set up ready for their families to come and watch. Ezmie, Joshua and William helped to create the animal art work whilst Emma, Jessica, Riley and Monty set to work hanging the decorations and helping to make the tree. Leo came in from playing in the garden and gasped in amazement, “Wow, it looks like a real jungle in here” and went and asked Zachary and Jasper to come and have a look too.

Well what a fantastic concert and graduation is was and the children all did extremely well. They confidently said their words out loud and sang along to all of the songs. The special part was when the children received their certificate and ‘starting school’ book. Ada even stayed behind in her seat to look through her book before going off to see her mum and dad!

We wish all the preschool children the very best for the future - you will be missed!

Picnics & People Who Help Us!

This week the toddlers have been looking at ‘people who help us’. Each day, the children have been taking on a new role and working to help each other in any way possible. On Monday, the toddlers became police officers, making their very own police badge using different shaped card and decorating them with jewels, paints, cellophane and more. The toddlers learnt to say “You’re under arrest” which Sadie and Rowan said particularly well. On Tuesday, they were firefighters and quickly learnt that fire is very hot and that it shouldn’t be touched. Reegan learnt “Put water on fire to put fire out!” which he told his friends and parents at pick up time. On Wednesday, the toddlers became doctors and took on their caring role very seriously. They were able to dress up and use thermometers, a syringe filled with pretend medicine (water) and plasters on their poorly patients. Flo enjoyed pushing the medicine out of the syringe into her babies mouth saying “Here! Your medicine baby, get better soon”. Ada stuck plasters all over her baby because her “Baby is not feeling well and need plasters to be better” she said. On Thursday, the children became transport drivers and enjoyed venturing out of nursery to spot different modes of transport. Emily spotted “Tractor”, Sophie spotted “Cars”, Blake shouted “Horsey” and Zack saw a “Bike”. The toddlers then sat down on the grass with a clipboard and selection of mark making tools and were asked if they could draw any of the modes of transport that we had seen on our walk. To finish off the week, the toddlers became postman, where they sat down and wrote a letter to the person of their choice. Daniel choose his teddy called Bear, while Lana choose to write to her Daddy. Later on, all the toddlers were able to post their letters and hope they were delivered safely. 

Outside, the toddlers have been playing with different textures from the book of the month ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’. Ada enjoyed jumping in water shouting “Splash splosh”. Caiden and Rafferty laughed away as they threw white pompoms and cotton wool round the garden during a snowstorm, while Finley shouted “Hoooo Woooo Hoooo Woooo!”, which he had remembered from the book. Tommy and Luna ran through the forest trying not to trip in case they woke up the bear, Luna said “This way Tommy, shush don’t shout the bear is sleeping”, Tommy replied “Not wake the bear up” as he tipped toed past the tree house. Suddenly, the toddlers shouted “Look! There’s the bear” and turned to run away. Chloe shouted “Run away, don’t want to go on a bear hunt again!”, quoting the end of the book. 

The under two’s have been enjoying different art activities and having fun outside. They have been looking through the colourful sensory mirrors, and Luciano looked up towards the lights while looking through the coloured mirror and Esmé watched him and began to copy. As she pulled the mirror away from her face she was smiling, Kelly said “What can you see?” Esmé replied “Wow pretty!” and smiled again.

They’ve also been enjoying cereal play, squeezing squashing and crunching different cereals between their fingers. Sophie and Cecilia enjoyed tasting the cereal, Sophie grabbed a handful bringing it to her mouth saying “Mmmm mmmm”, Sebastian laughed as he squashed the cereal against the messy tray, enjoying the crunchy sounds it made.

On one of our walks around the beautiful grounds, the children enjoyed their morning picnic snack whilst sat on a blanket under a beautiful tree. Margot kept looking up at the tree as she could see the leaves moving, and saw two squirrels that were chasing each other around the branches and pointed up towards them. Freddie and Sophie saw the squirrels as well and they laughed as the squirrels ran around the tree. After their picnic, the children ran around the grass trying to chase the butterflies in the air, Kitty kept shouting “Butterbye! Butterbye!” which made Margot point up into the air again. They then took a walk over the bridge to see the ducks that were sitting on the banks, Sophie pointed and shouted “Duck! Duck!” which made Kitty squeal with excitement. They fed the ducks some bread and the children watched as they wandered back to the water.

During our time in the garden, the under two’s had fun splashing in the big builders tray filled with water. Sophie came to over to investigate and sat down in the water splashing, while Sebastian thought it was funny to fill a plastic pot with water and get the staff team wet. Sebastian began to laugh, finding their reaction hilarious and Margot kept putting her toes in. Margot soon found it fun splashing around making the water go everywhere, Otto then joined Margot and both were jumping and laughing together, enjoying the moment.

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.