Autumn Adventures!
Over the last couple of weeks, the pre-school children have really enjoyed the wet weather and splashing in as many deep puddles as they could possibly find on our walks around the nursery grounds. Alba and Zoe jumped in a very deep puddle and, once realising that the puddle was deeper than they expected, Alba laughed and said, “Woah, that was nearly slippery!” and Zoe replied, “That’s ok, we did good balancing”. Harry held on to Tommy’s hand to guide him through the puddle and reassured him, “Come in Tommy, it’s ok, we won’t get very wet”. However, once Tommy was in the puddle, he didn’t mind getting wet at all!
After stopping for a little snack and watching the world go by with joggers and dog walkers, the children went off to the corner of the rugby field which had collected a lot of rain water and turned in to a small pond that even the swans were enjoying. The children thought this was really funny and decided they wanted to join the swans in the water. Jonny even suggested, “Let’s take some pictures of us sharing the pond with the swans”. Once the ground dried up slightly in the afternoon, the children all loved some football games and hula hoop games over on the field. Sophie, Emily and Sadie all enjoyed throwing the ball to each other and listened to Zac explaining to them how to play ‘Piggy in the middle’.
The pre-school children also really have a keen interest in learning about different types of animals and this week they have really enjoyed exploring different habitats including safari animals in a snow scene, farm animals in hay and some bugs and insects in some naturals materials. Each day Sophie would ask in the morning, “What animals are we going to find out about today?” and really enjoyed helping to set up the habitats. The children especially loved the snow scene, with Florence exclaiming, “It looks like real snow”.
Textures, Rain Storms & Bonfire Night!
Last week in the toddler room the children focused on exploring different painting techniques for their artwork. To start off their week based all around fireworks and bonfire night they created their very own firework display using cardboard tubes rather than brushes. Ceci loved mixing round the different colours of paint with it creating a swirl effect and was careful to not get it on her hands where as Margot got stuck in smearing paint over her picture with both the cardboard tube and her hands with a big grin on her face. Esmè shouted “Oh wow! Fireeeeworks!” and started clapping as they watched a few shorts video clips on firework displays to give them an idea on what it was all about. Towards the end of the week, the Toddlers tried out another painting technique but this time with cars! During the group activity, the toddlers were given a car each which they then dipped in their colour of choice before rolling it across the large sheets of paper making a very cool car print. “Wheeeee!” Youcef shouted as his car flew across the paper and Ada laughed as she copied.
To mix things up last week both toddlers and pre schooled joined up to make their biggest train track yet! Both toddlers and pre school worked really well together as they added different parts to the track. Once it was completed Jude was bursting with excitement and couldn’t resist running over to test it out, Sophie collected a few of the happy land people, placing them around the track, while Otto ran straight for the trains in the box to place on the very long train tracks. “Choo Choo!” he called out as he pushed them along. Meanwhile in pre-school, the rest of the toddlers and pre-schoolers were showing off their best dance moves in a joint dance party. Madan shook the pom poms as he danced about and Ceci began to jump up and down to the music giggling to herself.
As there’s been lots of rain storms over the last week it has meant lots of muddy puddles for the toddlers to splash around in which they all absolutely loved. The toddlers really enjoyed sitting and listening to the loud heavy rain. The children all put on their coats and wellies before they headed out into the garden where there were giant puddles of water to explore. The toddlers collected some boats from the toy box and let them float along the water seeing which way the wind would push them, “Oh no, boat! “ Kitty said as her boat drifted off in a different direction. Madan also really enjoyed giving his dinosaurs a bath after they had stomped through the mud and bark, he giggled as it sunk under water and shouted “Dinosaur’s wet!”.
This week, the under two’s have been really busy enjoying lots of different activities using cereal, pasta, leaves, shredded paper, chalk and paints. They’ve had lots of fun using the builders tray to experience different textures. They had cereal that had hidden farm animals in it which Rose had fun squeezing and squashing between her fingers, while India and Gabriel thought it was an extra snack, munching on the weetabix, Rose saw what they were doing and began to enjoy eating it too. Amelie was crawling around the builders tray gathering up all the toy sheep, Blair then began to crawl through the cereal looking a little confused as the cornflakes scrunched under her knees, Gabriel thought that it looked fun and started to copy her.
They’ve also enjoyed tearing up tissue paper to make a bonfire. They watched Melissa intently as they were shown what to do, Cleo and Blair were the first to get stuck into tearing the paper, Rose began to babble away as she tore up her pieces of tissue paper, while Matilda was having fun waving her paper in the air, smiling as it swished backwards and forwards in front of her.
India and Eva were really intrigued by the cornflour in the messy tray, when Charlotte began to lift up the cornflour and it fell through her fingers they stared in amazement. Eva then put her hands into the messy tray and was a little unsure as touched the cornflour, Blair copied her and screwed her face as her fingers touched the cornflour not liking the texture.
Whilst out on our morning walks, we’ve seen lots of different wildlife. Whilst watching the squirrels race up and down the trees chasing one another, Oliver was fascinated and began to point at them as they disappeared up the tree and when feeding the ducks Amelie started to get excited in the pushchair as she had spotted a little Robin sitting on the bridge waiting for some bread. The staff threw handfuls of leaves up into the air which made Gabriel and India smile with excitement as the leaves swirled and landed.
Autumn Colours
The pre-school children had a lot of fun learning about the Diwali festival. The children listened all about the festival at group times and enjoyed various activities and experiments involving Autumn colours throughout the week. One of the experiments that the children particularly enjoyed was under water fireworks! This activity included a glass of water, some vegetable oil and a mixed selection of food colouring. Sophie, Zoe, Alba and Ari helped to mix the food colouring with the vegetable oil before it was time to slowly add the oil and colouring to the glass of water. Alastair and Tom waited very patiently looking through the glass, Alastair asked, “What’s going to happen now?”. After only a couple of moments, the children very quickly noticed that something was happening as the colours were swirling around in the water! Ethan called out, “Wow Jonny, come and have a look”. He was very eager to show his friend what was happening too.
The next colour experiment was walking water. The children helped to roll up some kitchen roll and placed the ends in to various cups which had a different colour in each cup. This experiment had an instant result and the children watched in amazement as the colours climbed up the tissue. Zoe said to Isla who was sitting next to her, “It looks just like a beautiful rainbow”. Once the blue and the red were about to touch each other, Isabelle wondered, “I wonder what the colour will make now?”. As the colours crossed over, Isla said, “I think it looks a little bit purple now that they have mixed”.
The children had a very interesting week going on a daily walk to collect the leaves that had fallen from the same tree each time. Each day, the children bagged the leaves and brought them back to nursery and saved them in a box. The children then compared as the days went on, just how different the colours were looking. With only a two day space, Florence noticed, “These leaves are orange now, but these ones were still green on Monday”. It has been lovely to see how much the children have been involved in nature and taking in the quick changes of the season. Once they had finished collecting the leaves over the week, Lana, Youcef and Ada enjoyed doing a beautiful nature collage with the leaves.
