Aquatic Animals & Under Water Adventures!

Over the last couple of weeks in pre school, the children have been learning all about what can be found under the sea. They have been very busy exploring various messy and sensory activities including a blue spaghetti coral reef scene, blue play dough, a crazy foam shark hunt and making their own 3D paper plate jellyfish and sharks! Whilst on the shark hunt, Sadie warned her friends, “Be careful guys, the sharks might bite your fingers!”. Alfie laughed and said, “Don’t worry, no they won’t, the sharks are just not real”. At the messy spaghetti, Luna wasn’t so sure if she was impressed with the texture of the spaghetti but found it very amusing that her hands had turned blue. She told Jaxx, “Now I look like a real shark!”. 

The children then went on to do an observation drawing of various sized shells. Isabelle found the biggest one under the water tray and took it to the table saying, “Wow guys, look at this one, it’s gigantic!”. Sophie was very impressed with the size of the shell, telling Isabelle, “Well done Isabelle, that is a super big shell that we can all draw”. After all the busy creative work, the children moved out to the garden, taking their under the sea imagination out there. Jonny was pretending to be a crab, crawling around the floor, encouraging his friends to join in saying, “It’s fun guys, come on!”, whilst Alba was the jellyfish, wriggling her arms and legs all over the place!

World Book Day celebrations!

Over the last couple of weeks the toddlers have been learning all about different types of food and put on their chef hats to cook up a storm in the home corner. At the beginning of the week the toddlers were very excited for pancake day as they got to decorate their own pancakes at snack time. They had a variety of fruits in bowls on the table in front of them with spoons to serve themselves and were offered a small amount of sauce to go on top. Jude chose to fill his plate with bananas while Jasper licked off all of the chocolate sauce from his pancake! Esmeralda served herself some strawberries and bananas and asked for “Chocate sauce” although it looked like she had more on her face than in her tummy! Sophie was very good at flipping her pancake in the home corner, sticking her tongue out in concentration and holding the pan in front of her laughing as the pancake landed flat on the floor! Joshua was very gentle while flipping his pancake and carefully moved the pan forwards and backwards exclaiming “Oooow” when it nearly fell out. 

In the garden the toddlers used the bikes, wheelbarrows and buckets to become delivery men and women! Starting off with making meals in the mud kitchen comprised of sand, mud sticks and leaves the toddlers transported their creations to the backs of their vehicles. Sebastian said “Beep beep! I’m coming through” as he scooted the bike around the garden, Otto followed closely behind exclaiming “I’m coming”. Amelie chose hand delivery and carefully balanced the food she made in her hands and said “Here you go”.

Whilst on a walk around Imber Court grounds Freddie spotted a pizza van and shouted “Pizza!” which then started a chorus of the toddlers shouting “Pizza!” and pointing at the van in hopes of a complementary slice! 

Back inside they have been loving world book day as the celebrations have been spread throughout the week. Isabelle came in with her costume and tea pot as ‘the tiger who came to tea”. Each day Joshua came into nursery with a different character themed top, starting with the Gruffalo and Zog excitedly pointing the character out to his friends. Throughout the week they have been doing activities based on some of their favourite stories including ‘The colour monster’, ‘A squash and a squeeze’ and ‘The big red bath’.  The toddlers got their writing pens out and made their own story books, decorating each page with a variety of colours. Eloise said “I’m drawing circles” as she doodled in her book and Cleo excitedly swapped colours after each mark she made. Cecilia decorated her book with the excitement of sharing it when she went home “For mummy daddy”.

Over the last two week the under twos have been looking at different animals. The children have enjoyed getting messy with paints painting Tigers and Zebras, Edward was really focused making his Tiger stripes across his paper holding the edge of his paper so it didn’t move, Blair found it more fun to paint her hands and then rub them together, and Oliver watched her and began to copy her with a smile on his face. Tilly and Ava were painting white stripes to make zebras, Tilly started saying “ Dab dab dab” Harry copied her saying “dab dab dab” then started to laugh.

They enjoyed exploring the crazy foam and India was the first to put her hands into the foam; she then started clapping furiously causing the foam to go everywhere! Arthur found this particularly exciting and was laughing away.

 They have seen lots of the horses coming into the fields near the nursery. On one of their walks, Eva started to jump up and down in the pushchair so very excited as they walked past the amazing animals. Edward was pointing then Harry doing the same followed by lots of babbling on seeing them.

Space and Bushy park visit!

The last couple of weeks have been full of lots of fun for the preschool children where they have enjoyed a wide range of activities about space and mini beasts. The children particularly enjoyed playing with the solar system water tray activity. The water tray was filled with black water and balls to represent planets floating in space. The children made sure to wear their aprons as they enjoyed spinning and splashing the balls in the water, as well as pouring the water out of jugs and funnels. Sadie asked with a laugh “Why are there balls in the water tray?” Alastair replied “They are planets!” Ari then added “We live on planet Earth!”

A group of children also enjoyed a trip to Bushy park in the buggies. Along the way the children enjoyed looking at all the different vehicles that they could see on the roads. Zac began to count how many buses he could see, at one point exclaiming “There’s 3 buses! One, two, three!” The children sat down for a small picnic morning snack before going off to explore the park. They stopped to investigate a tree, looking for any mini beasts they might find lurking under the bark or in the crevices. Alba asked “Where are they?” Isaac replied “The beasts are all hiding from us!” They collected sticks, twigs and leaves to add to the growing collection for the new display shelving unit. The children choose and add such materials to add to their play in many areas in the preschool room. There was just enough time for a laugh filled game of ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ before it was time to return to nursery in time for lunch.

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!