Transport and Feathers!

Over the last few weeks the toddlers have been learning all about their favourite thing - transport! They absolutely loved using their creative sides to make their very own versions of some of their favourite modes of transport. Margot concentrated really hard while making her train “This goes here”, Oliver covered his paper plate completely in paint to turn it into a digger and Sophie stuck down the sail of her boat with a smile “Boat swimming in the water”. By far the toddlers favourite part of the week was exploring with these modes of transport in their typical environments. Esmé and Isabelle had a great time manoeuvring the boats around the water tray and making waves with their hands, ending in Esmé getting a big wave to the face which made her giggle and say “Splash!” while wiping the water away from her face. Youcef was very busy moving the cars and tractors across some grass play dough, rolling the cars back and forth while telling his friends “It’s wheels go round and round”. The toddlers were challenged with finding some trains in cornflakes which Kitty took very seriously, exclaiming “ I found it!” each time she found one. Oliver grabbed handfuls of the cornflakes and sprinkled them through the air giving his friends a giggle when they landed on his head! The diggers in mud was a big hit with the toddlers and they spent the whole morning with their construction hats on, transporting mud from one area to another digging holes and filling them again, Sebastian explained “I’m a builder” as he made a large gap in the soil ready to fill it again using the scoop of the digger.

 As well as this the toddlers have been focussing on emotions. As the toddlers have been becoming more familiar with these they have also been learning to recognising them both on themselves and others. Whilst listening to the story ‘The Colour Monster’ at circle time (where a confused monster is helped to arrange his feelings by colour) Freddie repeated “Red is angry” while Amèlie demonstrated a perfect example of this by shouting “ROAAR”. Luciano sang “Happy happy happy” whilst being shown the yellow page that shows happiness and Cecilia demonstrated some fantastic calming deep breaths saying “ahhh” as she exhaled. Otto demonstrated a fantastic example of what to do if someone is feeling sad and leaned over to give Jasper a big cuddle. On the very last page of the story the colour monster is pink and surrounded by hearts, when the toddlers were asked what emotion the monster might be feeling Eloise answered “love”.

Recently the youngest children in the under 2’s room have been exploring sensory activities.

They have had lots of fun playing with the feathers. Blair sat herself amongst in the builders tray and began to pick up handfuls of feathers and throw them up into the air, India watched her closely and then began to join in with Blair babbling away at Blair, causing Blair to screech with delight. Rose saw the fun going on and came to investigate, she began to put the feathers in her hair. Rose smiled when staff said “ Wow! Very pretty Rose”.

They have been fishing for ducks in the water and leaves in the builders tray, each time Amélie found a duck she clapped her hands in delight in her achievement each time. Ava was really intrigued what Amélie was doing and began to hand Alice the leaves, looking pleased with herself.

The sensory table is always popular with all the different materials each time. Eva was very interested in the pine cones, while Ava was having fun banging wooden sticks on the table top enjoying the different sounds that they made. Matilda was busy looking for all the twigs and gathering them up into a pile, and started to say “ One, two “ Well done!

Out in the garden they have explored the sandpit. Matilda was experimenting filling up the star with sand then carefully emptying it out, Gabriel climbed into the sandpit and and started picking up the sand and letting it fall through his fingers, which made Matilda smile and Gabriel smiled back at her. Matilda then copied what Gabriel had been doing.

Science, Colour & Geography!

Over the last couple of weeks in pre-school, the children have been investigating all things to do with science, geography and the world around us. The children took part in a fun picture floating tin foil activity. They drew their own shapes and people on to some tin foil and watched in amazement as the pictures slowly came away from the foil once water was slowly poured on to their pictures. Alba had drawn a person and Ari thought it was so funny that, “There is a dancing man!” and called all of the other children over. “Come and look, the man is dancing, how is he doing that?” Sophie and Imogen were busy drawing some shapes whilst Olivia and Tristan were drawing their own ‘dancing men’.

The children then went on to investigating an underwater firework experiment. Isabelle spotted the first bubble that had popped and encouraged her friends, “Guys, if you bend down, you can see under the water properly and you can see the beautiful fireworks!”. Sammy had noticed that there were different colours in each bowl and suggested, “What do you think would happen if we mixed the colours together?” Zac said, “I know! It would just make a big brown messy colour”. Carrying out the investigation, the children very quickly realised that this is exactly what the outcome of the colour mixing was. Zac was very proud of himself, “See I told you that would happen, I know because I have done colour mixing before”. After the oil, food colouring and water were mixed together, Isla had noticed there was a swirl in the water and called out, “It’s just like a real tornado, I saw one of those on my TV”. Reegan asked, “What’s a tornado?” To which Isla replied, “I don’t know how it happens but it looks super cool”. The children thoroughly enjoyed learning how a tornado is formed. Rowan very quickly sped his arms in to a spin and laughed, saying, “Look, I’m making a tornado with my body”.

The children were busy in the construction area building their own landmarks from around the world including the Great Wall of China, Big Ben, the Taj Mahal and the Statue of Liberty. Jonathan was very inquisitive of what the Eiffel Tower was and where we could find it, whilst Alastair was telling his friends that he had seen Stonehenge when he had gone to see his grandparents with his family. Lana also make her very own Eiffel Tower building using the coloured blocks and went on to correctly count the blocks from 1-12. Well done!

Chinese New Year & Exploring Culture through Music!

Over the last few weeks, the toddlers have enjoyed preparing for and celebrating Chinese New Year. As this is the year of the rabbit the toddlers loved venturing out into the woods to search high and low for rabbits. When the toddlers couldn’t find any they decided to become rabbits themselves, by crouching down on all fours and jumping up and down. Back at nursery Oliver, Ellie and Jasper had the best time making a dragon to be hung up in the toddler room. Margot shouted “Look, red paint!"” as she splatted it across the box, table and floor. Sophie picked up a sponge and pressed it into the yellow paint and said “Yellow painting”. As the toddlers worked together to paint the dragon, Youcef started to see another colour appear. He pointed to the dragon and said “Orange”. As part of the Chinese New Year celebration the toddlers had the opportunity to try egg fried rice and noodles. At first Kitty said “yuck” but soon after watching Jude throughly enjoy his, she was willing to try some and to her surprise she actually really enjoyed it! 

The toddlers have also been looking at different types of music from the different cultures they have within the room. The toddlers have enjoyed daily dance sessions listening and dancing to Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic and Jamaican music. Otto loved wiggling his bottom to the Spanish beat while Amèlie enjoyed banging a goblet drum to the Arabic music. Isabelle enjoyed playing her french lute that she had made using cardboard boxes and elastic bands. She said “Ping Ping!” as she pulled the bands to make a sound. Outside, the toddlers explored different ways to make music using different surfaces and objects to make sounds. Sebastian used a sand toy to hit a wheelbarrow, making a high pitch sound. Otto used sticks along the wooden trims in the garden which made a sound that caused him and his friends to laugh and Esmé used her hands to bang on the table making up her very own rhythm. 

The under two’s have been busy with lots of Chinese New Year activities and been using bright red and yellow paint on paper plates to make a Chinese dragon. When using the sponges Harry kept saying “dab dab dab”. Eva watched Harry and started to copy, but she missed her paper plate and made a lovely mess on the table. With a big smile across her face, she looked and said “Oh dear!” which made Oliver laugh.

The children had great fun ripping up tissue paper to make fire for the fire breathing dragon! Rose was the first to get stuck into the paper, babbling as she ripped the paper into pieces, whilst India sat intently watching what Rose was doing. Monty came over to investigate and took hold of the red paper and began to tear it, the more encouragement he was given, the more he ripped the paper, smiling the whole time!

The under two’s enjoyed playing with sticky noddles (although some of us enjoyed eating them more!). We used kitchen utensils to try picking up the noddles, Arlo reached into the messy tray and grabbed big handfuls of noddles then put them towards his mouth, whilst Edward carefully used the ladle.

The under twos have explored the garden during the recent sunny cold weather. Arthur was having fun moving the leaves around the messy tray while Rose found it funny to crunch the leaves between her hands. Rose began to laugh when Kelly threw the leaves up into the air and they fell around her feet. Over in the sandpit, Ave was carefully using the spade to scoop up the sand, Harry watched and then join in, by using a small sandcastle shaped pot to scoop up the sand to add to the pile!

Frosty Walks & Learning about Habitats!

The past few weeks in preschool have been filled with lots of fun activities and learning. The children have been focusing on habitats and learning about different environments and which animals might live there. During a group discussion at circle time the children suggested different animals and where they live. Zac said “Elephants live in Africa!” to which Isaac added “I love elephants!”. The children were shrieking with delight during animal snap! They love small group activities such as these which became fast furious and very loud!The children took turns to place their cards on the pile, all the while looking out for when there was a pair. Louis placed his card down before quickly shouting “Snap!” Charlie pointed to the pile and said “Look, they are the same!” The children used the water tray to explore underwater habitats, filling it with sea creatures and splashing in the water. Alfie said “Look! A crab!”, Ari replied “Crabs live in the sea!”.

They took a winter walk in the forest with a small group of friends from the toddler room, taking in the sights along the way. Once they arrived at the forest, it was time to explore. As Olivia went to collect some sticks, she noticed that the frosty ground was crunching underneath her wellies. She said “Look Max!” as she stomped her feet. Max and Tom came over to join in and shared a laugh as they all crunched the grass with their wellies. Tom then noticed his shadow on the ground and watched as it copied his movements. He told his friends “It moves!” and waved his arms in the air.

Charity Shop Visit & Animals!

Last week in the Toddler Room, the children went on a very exciting walk to different charity shops on a mission to find some more books for the nursery. Friday morning, they wrapped up warm before setting off on their journey from the nursery heading off towards Esher high street. As they crossed under the bridge a train passed over above them, “Choo Choo” Youcef called out as he heard the loud rattling of the bridge. They continued on their journey waving by all the cars they saw before finally reaching their first Charity shop on the high street which lit up the toddlers eyes, “Look, shop!” Sophie told Jasper next to her with a enthusiastic look on her face. Once they had arrived outside, the toddlers paired up and took it in turns to go into the shop and choose a couple of books that took their interest. Up first were Sophie and Cleo, Sophie took hold of Cleo’s hand and guided them into the shop towards the massive wall of books! They chose their books and headed out waving goodbye to the lady at the till. Up next were Margot and Jasper and it didn’t take long before Margot found a Gruffalo book, “Gruffalo! Mouse!” she shouted as she took it over the till. Oliver grabbed a couple others and followed her to the till, smiling to himself. Margot did great at remembering her manners “Thank you” she whispered while the lady passed over a big bag full of books. They marched out to meet their friends back at the buggies for a well deserved snack before heading back. “Oooo!” Ellie giggled as she saw the big bag, Successful trip!

Over the past week, the toddlers have enjoyed taking part in lots of activities based around our theme of the week ‘Wild habitats and hibernation’.  To begin the week they watched a few short clips on birds in their natural habitat, “Birdie, tweet tweet!” Cecilia clapped when she saw the bird appear. The children have also been creative with different textures in their artwork. They made their very own hedgehog out of colourful match sticks to create their own prickly friend. Kitty absolutely loved picking out various colours such as yellow and purple and covering her paper, carefully recalling each colour as she did so. They then got creative with shredded felt to make their version of a cosy nest just like the one they saw in their video clip! Esmèralda and Freddie found it hilarious to throw bundles of colourful foam at each other watching it float down slowly. Sebastian and Otto spent a morning hibernating in their own den made out of tables and blankets, “Oh Basti hide hiding” Otto would tell his friends who came to explore inside. 

The under twos have been really busy since the Christmas holidays, focusing on nursery rhymes and making lots of different things to represent the nursery rhymes. The children have been singing during circle times, and Oliver stood up and did his own actions when singing ‘Incy wincy spider’, and Rose started to clap and wiggle to the song.

They’ve had lots of fun using the tray as a farmyard, with pigs rolling around in the mud! Eva shouted and pointed as Amelie picked up the buried sheep under crushed weetabix. Rose picked out the cereal in the tray and enjoyed eating them, with a big happy smile when asked what she was doing. Great fun was had when mark making using paper plates and pink crayons to make pig faces, whilst trying to make pig sounds, which made Iris laugh with excitement. The under twos have also really enjoyed story time, with Matilda and Gabriel were really focused on the story and looking intently at the different animals on the pages.

They have been on some lovely winter walks around the amazing grounds of the nursery to see nature and any animals and birds they could see. Blair got really excited in the pushchair when she saw some of the horses that were in fields, Harry saw Blair getting excited and started to smile.