Nature, Insects & Wriggly Worms!

Over the last couple of weeks, the pre school children have taken a very keen interest in anything that involves bugs, insects and their natural habitats. The children have been eagerly waiting for the cocoons to become butterflies. Day by day, the children have been coming in to pre-school and checking on them. They are clearly settled in their cocoons right now.

Whilst in the garden and on the nursery grounds, the children have been using magnifying glasses and special insect containers to collect and take care of the insects. In the garden, Luna, James and Jaxx had found several worms in our growing patch and bravely picked them up, Luna told her friends, “Be careful guys, they are very delicate”. Once they placed them in their special pots, Harry collected some leaves that had fallen from the trees and lay them down next to the worm pots and suggested to his friends, “Maybe we can use them as a bed for the worms so they can have a sleep”. This made his friends laugh and Rowan told him, but worms can’t sleep while it’s too light outside in the garden”. The following day, the children were so excited to see that the worms had made themselves comfortable in the pots and were fascinated and very caring when we moved them over in to a worm house full of compost, leaves, banana peels and apple cores.

On the nursery grounds, the children have been going on lots of walks to also explore nature. Alba, Zoe and Finley were collecting worms on the mounds of mud and had carefully held them in their hands all the way back to nursery to place them in the worm house.

Healthy Bodies, New Scents & Underwater Animals!

Over the past couple of weeks the toddlers have been learning all about their bodies and how to be healthy. To start with, the children practiced one of their favourite songs ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes’ as a way to move their body and familiarise themselves with the body parts they use every day. Outside, they also played the bean game where they moved in a variety of ways to match the names of types of beans. The toddlers jumped like jumping beans, stretched up high like a string bean, made themselves as wide as possible like a broad bean, shook their whole body around like a jelly bean and ran around like a runner bean! Sophie said “I shaking!” as she moved her whole body around really fast, Otto said “I so tall!” as he stretched up high and Cleo giggled to herself as she ran up and down the garden. Next, the toddlers moved onto learning about how to be healthy by having conversations about eating lots of fruits and vegetables. Marguerite was excited to tell everybody she liked carrots by saying “Margot carrots” which then encouraged Kitty to join in “Kitty like potatoes and strawberries and cucumber and watermelons!” then Ellie joined in too by saying ”I like watermelon and broccoli”. The toddlers then used some of these vegetables to do some vegetable printing with lots of paint. Luciano got stuck in straight away and grabbed hold of a corn on the cob which he slipped straight into the paint and transferred it to his paper, squealing in delight when paint splattered all over Cecilia. Amelie chose to use carrots and rolled them across her paper “Carrot got paint on”. 

As a part of learning about how bodies work, the toddlers also began using their senses by exploring sensory bags with their hands and using their noses to smell different scents, including Marmite, fruity tea bags, ginger and lemon. Luco leaned in to smell the lemon scent and directed his head away instantly with a shocked face which gave his friends a good laugh. Isabelle and Cecilia leaned in very close to give each thing a good sniff with Isabelle retreating quick with her tongue out exclaiming “Eerrrr” after smelling the marmite. The toddlers also did some self portraits by looking in a mirror and drawing what they saw. Jude amazed everybody by drawing a big circle with two smaller circles inside which he pointed to said “Eyes”. Esmeralda filled her paper with small circles and Sebastian held his pencil perfectly to make lots of marks. 

They have been loving looking at the caterpillars which have now cocooned so they cannot wait until they become butterflies!

Over the last couple of weeks the under two’s have been exploring with lots of different animal activities within the room. They’ve had lots of fun playing with many sea creatures and fishes in the blue netting. Oliver started to lay on the netting like he was swimming, Eva then began to copy him, whilst Matilda was watching them from the edge picking up the little fishes and made out that they were swimming in the air.

They’ve had a great time exploring the play house which was made into a den with lots of animals hidden inside! India enjoyed crawling through the house and going around in circles, Rose was watching her and began babbling as she came through the tunnel. Gabriel came to see the animals inside, he picked up the Lion and held it in the air and roared!

A few of the under twos have been doing really well with their nursery rhymes, and even doing the actions. Amelie was able to join in with “Row row row your boat” with Ashley, Rose and India soon joining in, with India singing the tune as she rocked backwards and forwards.

On a walk to the duck pond, they children been fascinated with the birds and planes in the air. Harry was trying really hard to say “plane” as he pointed high into the sky, Isla spotted the plane and started to point and said “Plane”. At the duck pond Matilda and Edward were throwing bread to the ducks. Some of children started to make duck sounds and Eva used her hand to make a duck sound gesture. In fact the geese came really close looking for bread, which really excited Gabriel as he started jumping around in the pushchair.

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!