Learning with Lions, Insects & Bears!
Over the last couple of weeks, the pre-school children have had lots of fun discovering different types and species of animals. Inside the pre-school room there was a bugs and insect activity with many natural materials such as bark, logs, small tree branches and acorns. The children enjoyed looking closely through the magnifying glasses at the different marks on each of the bugs and insects. Olivia closely looked at the marks on the butterflies wings and told her friends, “It’s so pretty”. Isaac took a closer look too and agreed, “Yes it is so pretty”. Tom went on to look at the bugs that were inside their own magnifying glass and was fascinated by them for quite some time, turning them very slowly so that he could take in all of the features. When he picked up the one that had a spider in it, he jokingly screamed, “Ahh” which made his friends jump and laugh.
Outside in the garden there was a slightly different and larger type of animal set up, as there was a jungle safari in which the children really loved making lots of noise and roaring along with the lions and tigers. Whilst there was some pretend leaves in the set up, Reegan and Louis collected their own leaves that had fallen on the floor to add to the animals home. James used the giraffe to reach up to the trees and pretended that they were eating the leaves off the trees whilst saying, “Yummy, yummy”. Ari was challenging his friends with their knowledge of the jungle animals. He was asking them, “Now does anyone know what a tigers baby is called?” His friends looked at him waiting for the answer and Ari encouraged, “Just have a guess, it’s the same as a bears baby”. Louis excitedly called out, “A cub”, very proud of himself when Ari told him he was right. Ari then went on to explain, “A tiger, a bear and a lions babies are all called cubs”.
The children really love the story book ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ and have taken a particular interest lately in trying to find the bear outside in the garden. A large group of pre-school and toddler children were very engaged in the story and were using various parts of the garden as parts of the story. The grass area was the river, the trees were the forest and the tree house was the bear cave. Joshua made sure to keep his younger brother reassured, “It’s only a pretend bear, it’s not scary”. The children then went on to create their own version of the story book.
Autumn Social & Treasure Trail!
What a lovely autumn social event this week. It was wonderful to see so many families get together, some for the first time and some regrouping whilst exploring an Autumn Trail in the nursery garden and enjoying some tasty food and drink together. The children from preschool and toddlers had previously had a dance party together to have fun and burn off some energy. The trail in the garden was very popular for the children and even some mummies and daddies! There were spiders to find and real life webs to climb through. Jonathan had spotted the first spider in the tree and called his friends over, “Here is a spider, it’s a big spider, don’t worry though it’s only a pretend paper one”, which seemed a relief for a couple of the children.
The next adventure was to climb through, under and on top of the webs to get through to see what was hidden in the tree house and through the tree and bushy areas at the back of the garden. There were many spiders found throughout the way. Youcef was very fond of the spider picture he had found and certainly wasn’t letting that go.!
The diggers were ready in the sandpit which the children used to dig for treasures such as shells and animals which was so exciting!
Although most of the event was held outside, inside the toddlers room some of the children including our recent school leavers enjoyed drawing their very own pumpkins whilst looking at a real life one. Olivia was fully engaged and thoroughly enjoyed copying what her older sister was drawing. In the preschool room, the train set with dinosaurs invading was a go to as well as the letter stamps and paint pads. Some of the toddler children really enjoyed this activity, getting as messy as they could with their hands rather than the stamps. It was lovely to see all the new baby room parents all get together and engaging in conversations too.
Exploring Seasonal Changes & Volcanoes
Over the past couple of weeks, the children have been exploring various textures and describing how they feel. One of the children’s favourite activities was comparing dry and wet sand. Half of the sand pit was dry and half wet. Florence picked up two handfuls of wet sand and squeezed her hands as tight as she could and as doing so, she very quickly realised that none of the sand was releasing through her fingers which is what had happened with the dry sand. Sadie and Emily started to copy and when Sadie released her hands, she said, “Wow, look, it’s a ball”. Rowan used the spoon to pour the dry sand over his and some of the other children’s hands. As the sand was flowing over their hands and between their fingers, he asked them, “Doesn’t it feel so soft?”, smiling at his friends reactions.
When playing in the garden, some of the leaves had started to fall and as Isla ran across the leaves, she suddenly stopped and said to Sophie “The leaves sound crunchy”. They both picked up the leaves and were very gently rubbing their fingers across the edging of the leaf. Sophie reminded Isla, “You need to be careful because it feels a little bit scratchy”. Tommy, Ethan, Zac and Ari collected the leaves that had fallen in to a little saucepan and took them over to the mud kitchen to do some cooking. Ari scattered the leaves around a large pan before adding some mud and then placed some more leaves on top. Zac told his friends, “That looks just like an apple crumble!”. Alba was very busy making leaf sandwiches whilst Zoe made a “Leaf roast dinner!”
Out in the garden, the children built their very own volcano using the wooden platforms and blocks. Jonathan was guiding the children around the outside, after making sure he had made a full circle with all the props available. When one of the children jumped in to the middle, on to the grass, Jonathan called out to them, “Quick, it’s too hot in there, you need to get out, the volcano is going to erupt”. Harry asked Jonathan, “Erupt?” and Jonathan explained, “Yes, the volcano has got so hot, all of the lava is going to spill everywhere”. The children were then pretending to go on an adventure to Africa and Spain. Alba told her friends, “Yes, that’s where I go to Spain on an aeroplane”.
