Diwali and Halloween week!
This week, the toddlers have been getting ready for Halloween by reading the book of the month ‘Room on the Broom’. The toddlers have enjoyed making very tall hats that the witch wore on her head, riding on sticks pretending they are flying broomsticks and learning to join in with the sounds of the book. Esmè enjoyed shouting ‘WHOOOOSHHHH’ they were gone while Youcef enjoyed saying “Ribbit Ribbit” every time he saw the frog appear. Jude and Amèlie loved making a dragon by using glue to stick pom-poms, tissue paper, googley eyes and anything else they were inspired to use. Freddie said “Rooooarrrr!” as he held his dragon up over his head, flying him through the air. The toddlers have been busy helping carve pumpkins by pulling out the pulp using their hands and spoons. Freddie said “Ewwww” as he felt it on his skin and ran away quickly to wash his hands. Margot loved the texture and grabbed handfuls of the pulp and laid it on the table. Luco wouldn’t touch the pulp but bent down and smelt it, laughed out loud and said “Yucky!”.
Not only have the toddlers been getting ready for Halloween, they have also been celebrating Diwali. The toddlers picked their favourite costumes from the dressing up box, put them on and danced the afternoon away at their Diwali disco! Joshua enjoyed showing off his dance moves and waving coloured banners in the sky. Ada and Isabelle enjoyed using paint and colourful materials to make some Diwali lanterns to take home to show their families. Oliver enjoyed scrunching up the shiny foil piece by piece to add to his lantern while Otto T was more excited to tip the whole pot of foil onto his lantern which made all his friends laugh.
Outside, the toddlers have enjoyed putting on their wetsuits and wellies and jumping in the huge puddles that have accumulated in the garden. Sebastian loved running as fast as he could trying not to fall over. Jasper enjoyed riding his bike through the water and Otto A enjoyed laying in the puddle rolling his train backwards and forwards. Sophie found a bucket and repeatedly filled it up with the puddle water and threw it on the plants to ensure they were getting a nice big drink! A lot of fun and smiles were shared by the toddlers in the very very big puddle.
The under two’s have been busy playing and exploring with lots of different activities. They’ve had fun playing with pumpkins and making pumpkin pictures using apple halves with orange paint. Amelie really enjoyed poking her fingers into the orange paint when painting the apples, she held her hand in the air showing what she had done, India concentrated really hard pressing her apple onto her paper to make beautiful pumpkin marks.
Monty was straight over to investigate what was in the messy tray, Blair looked, intrigued at what was going on and began babbling and pointing at the pumpkin. Arlo reached forwards to try and get hold of the pumpkin getting the pumpkin pulp all over his hand, India noticed and picked up the pumpkin pulp and squeezed it between her fingers, pulling an unsure face. Oliver found it more fun to bang the plastic utensils on the side of the messy tray to create lovely loud sounds.
They’ve had fun making pictures on the floor using the paint dabbers. Matilda picked up two paint dabbers and made lots of different patterns on the paper, sweeping her dabber across the paper, while Cleo choose to make lots of dots everywhere using the different colours. Harry held his paint dabber on the paper but found it more fun to spin himself around in circles in the middle of the paper, laughing!
This week the children celebrated Diwali, the Hindu festival of light by creating colourful lanterns with glitter paint. Edward and Isla got stick in straight away, using brushes to dab the glittery paint onto the paper plate. Amelie and Harry were a little more cautious at first, but soon began making marks too while Blair loved dipping her fingers into the sparkly paint. The children also loved watching the colourful beams of the sensory lights shining on the walls and ceiling of the dark room. The children pointed and tried to catch the shadows that were cast.
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.
