Learning with our New Caterpillars!

The last couple of weeks in preschool has seen the children take a great interest in taking care of our new caterpillars and watching them grow. The children assisted with putting their food into the pots and watched closely as the caterpillars were placed inside. Sophie said “The caterpillars are so tiny!” Alba added “They will grow into big caterpillars and be beautiful butterflies!” Jonny then said “First they need to make their cocoons.” The children have really enjoyed watching them grow over the last 2 weeks and have made sure to handle the pots very carefully whilst observing them. Isla said “This caterpillar has got really big!” Rowan replied “He’s nearly ready to make his cocoon.” The caterpillars are now getting ready to cocoon as they have began to climb to the top of their containers. The children are very excited and have been constantly discussing what happens next. Ari said “Its nearly time for them to turn into butterflies.” Tristan replied “I’m so excited!” 

The preschool children have had lots of fun using the caterpillars as inspiration for their play too. The children particularly enjoyed making their very own ‘very hungry caterpillars’ for our book of the month noticeboard. This involved sticking pom poms to lollipop sticks. Tom said “Mine is very hungry!” When Luna finished her caterpillar, she placed it on the drying rack and told her friends “My caterpillar is the biggest! It will be a big butterfly.” Story time has been filled with lots of requests for ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ which the children have had the opportunity to read in both English and French in small groups with Callie who joined the team recently and is french speaking. The children listened intently to Callie read in French, and were able to repeat lots of words back to Callie. The children also learnt to count to 5 in French, as well as the French names of all the foods that The Very Hungry Caterpillar snacks on in the story!

Mother's Day Celebrations & Tea Party!

In the nursery over the last couple of weeks, the children have been super busy, and getting creative leading up to our Mother’s Day tea party! They have been very excited to have their Mummies in nursery, to explore their favourite places and have been talking about it a lot. Otto A repeated, “My Mummy’s coming for a party tea”, and walked around the room, asking if his friend’s mummy was coming as well. The children have worked very hard making special presents for their Mothers Day Gifts and cards. The toddlers love to do finger painting, and they used this method to decorate some mini vases for their Mummies. They used some beautiful pastel colours to create these gifts and were very happy with the result. They also love to get messy and chose to do some hand printing to make the very special cards. Sebastian added, “I choose orange for Mummy, Mummy likes orange.” Margot’s painted her hands and giggled and said, “Oh that’s tickly!”. The handprints were then formed into cute little cupcakes on the front of the card.

After looking forward to the tea party for such a long time, the day finally came and the toddler children were more excited than ever. There would be smiling faces all over the room when ‘Mummy’ was mentioned. The children sat down for tea and had some party food just before their mothers arrived. After being very hlepful indeed in helping to tidy and setup the room, the children were in the garden playing when their important guests began arriving. One by one the they ran up to their Mummies to greet them along with a big cuddle. In the garden was more party food. Sebastian and Otto were the first to spot this and helped themselves to a plate. They run over to show staff they had found chicken nuggets and continued over to the table to sit down and eat them. Otto informed his friends, “Chicken nuggets over there”, pointing towards the baby garden. Luciano was stood next to Alice and said, “Mama and Papa, my cupcake?”, hinting for one of the team to help him get one which of course they did. The children thoroughly enjoyed showing their parents around their nursery and the toys they like to play with. Overall, a great time was had by all! 

The under twos over the last couple weeks have spent lots of time making different beautiful things for Mothers Day, getting messy with glue and paints to make some fabulous art work. Oliver and Eva did a great job using their fingers to make some bluebell flower pictures, Rose and Matilda were laughing when painting their hands yellow to make daffodils to make a beautiful display for their mummies to see.

The children really enjoyed getting sticky using glue and tissue paper to make Mother’s Day cards. When their mummies arrived the under twos were so excited to see them, a couple were unsure but soon enjoyed playing with the toys and showing their mummies what fun they have at nursery. Blair got really excited and squealed when her mummy came into the room, Rose gave her mummy a huge cuddle and Harry shrieked with excitement when his mummy came in with his big brother. Some of the children were eating lots of tasty food with their mummies picnic style, while the others having fun playing with toys.

Happy Mother’s Day Sunday 19th March!

The pre-school children were so excited on the build up to Mother’s Day and couldn’t quite believe that their mums were coming in to nursery to play in the garden and have some tea. Jonathan was telling his friends at the lunch table, “Do you know guys, our Mummies will come and see where we play with the toys”, to which Alastair replied, “But Mummies are too big for nursery”. The pre-schoolers had made their Mummies a planted sunflower seed and decorated the pot. Amelia looked at her own painting and said with a smile, “Ahh, my mummy will love this”. When it was time for the Mummies to come in, the children could not wait to show them around pre-school room and around the garden too.

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.