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!
