The Weather and Our Growing Areas!
The last two weeks in preschool have been filled with lots of fun activities where the children have been looking at mindfulness and understanding friendships, as well as learning about different weather systems.
The children loved learning about lightening and thunder by taking part in a fun measuring activity. On the table were lots of different sized lightning bolts and the children were tasked with seeing how long each one was using the connecting blocks. Charlie connected his blocks together along the length of his lightening bolt and began to count how many blocks he had used. He turned to Ari and said “My one is five!” Ari then did the same with his and replied to Charlie, saying “Mine is only 4! Your one is bigger than mine!” Louis then added “My one is the biggest because it has 6 blocks!”
Outdoors the children have been hard at work tending to the vegetable patch and herb garden. Luna enjoyed watering the vegetables and herbs with a watering can whilst Florence added “The plants need to drink lots of water!” Zack enjoyed getting stuck in with soil, helping to replant some mint that had come loose in the soil. Zack said “I’m digging a big hole!” Once the mint was placed back in the soil, Zack scooped the soil back over using his hand and said “I have a dirty hand! I need to wash it!”
Fun with Elmer & Outdoor Adventures!
Over the last couple of weeks, the toddlers have been very busy learning all about our book of the month Elmer. Using bright and beautiful colours, the toddlers have been getting creative, using all of the skills they know to make great master pieces for our new Elmer board. Across the nursery we love to recycle and had an idea to create elephants using milk cartons. Once cut into shape and without any colour or details added, the toddlers were asked what they thought they looked like. Sophie pointed to the handle of the milk carton and said, “Big nose”, Jude added, “Big elephant nose”. The toddlers laughed together and began to realise it looked very much like an elephant. One milk carton was decorate using grey paint to represent the Elmer covered in berries and the other the children decorated using lots of different colours to show the real Elmer. Once the toddlers placed the ears and some eyes on their milk carton elephants, they began stomping them around the table, chanting, “Stomp, Stomp, Stomp!”.
Outside, the toddlers have been loving the warm weather and spend as much of their time in the garden as possible. Some of the toddlers went on a nice long walk one morning, taking a snack along with them to have as a small picnic. Along the way, they came across the park in the grounds, Kitty jumped up and down in excitement, pointing towards the park and pleading “We go!”. Since the toddlers were having such a good time, we popped in for a play. In the park there is a new pirate ship which the toddlers ran towards. Amelie was first on and shouted to her friends, “Come aboard, come aboard, I the captain of this ship”, her friends giggled and climbed aboard. Using their hands, the toddlers make pretend telescopes to look around and see what they could see.
Outside, the under-twos have really engaged themselves making sandcastles in the sandpit. Eva and Amelie concentrated really well when filling up their buckets, whilst India watched them and then took a bucket of her own to the mud kitchen and filled it with mud after being inspired by her friends play. Ava was intrigued and tried to help India fill up her bucket, using her hands as quickly as she could to scoop it up, laughing as she was doing so.
As the weather has been lovely and warm, the children have spent plenty of time at the water tray outside, splashing away and having lots of fun. They were also investigating the texture of crazy foam whilst using ice cream cones to make their own ice creams. Ava watched intently as Alice showed them how to scoop up the crazy foam. Blair got all excited when pretending to eat her ice cream and then Harry looked over saying, “Oh dear“, as the foam fell out of the cone and on to the floor. Blair started to blow on her ice cream as if she was cooling it down and then looked all around and laughed when she saw that the adults were watching her.
Inside, the children have enjoyed getting messy using glue and paper to make patchwork pictures of Elmer the elephant. Max was really excited and was picking up all of the paper shapes and laying them out on the floor. Santiago watched him, before getting a handful of paper from the pot and scattered it all over the floor and then brushed his hands through all over the paper and smiling. At music and story time, Alice was using some hand puppets to really animate the story. Amelie and India watched and then picked up a puppet each and were trying to get them on their hands. They both then copied Alice, waving their hands and babbling like they were telling a story. This made Henrietta laugh who had been sat watching what they were doing.
Our Day Out to Bocketts Farm!
What a lovely day at Bockett’s farm the pre-school children had! They were so excited when getting in to nursery, showing each other their lunch boxes and water bottles. Sophie said to Immy, “You know I brought this food from my home, there’s even a snack in there!”. Immy responded, “But we can’t feed our food to the farm animals, they have their own special food”. Sophie laughed and then quite seriously said, “I’m not sharing my food”. The coach journey to the farm was full of giggles, chatting and singing songs, the favourite was clearly ‘baa baa black sheep’. Once we arrived at the farm, Rowan couldn’t wait to get off of the coach, calling out, “Come on everyone, this is so much fun already, I can see some chickens!”. This gained his friend’s interest, with all of them looking out the window to see what animals they could spot. Alastair saw a sheep and called out, “Look this way, there’s some sheep here!”.
After stepping off the coach and meeting our tour guide, the children were very good at listening to the house rules before going straight off for a tractor ride around the farm. The children couldn’t wait to get on, Lana had the biggest smile on her face and whispered “Wow” once she saw the tractor. When the tractor starting moving, it was quite a bumpy ride which made all of the children laugh. There were so many animals on route including pigs, goats, sheep, chickens and cows. When Zach saw the pigs, he covered his nose, laughing, “They’re too smelly”, which made his friends laugh again.
Another great moment was the pig race. The children picked the colour pig they would like to win the race and eagerly lined up along the fence, waiting for the pigs to start. Once the countdown from 10-1 was over and the pigs had set off, Alastair was calling out, “Come on yellow, you can do it”. Tommy said, “Nooo, yellow won’t win, it’s going to be the blue pig”. Indeed the blue pig did win the race and Tommy cheered lots. The rest of the day was filled with lots of animal stroking including a 2 day old goat which the children couldn’t get enough of. Isabelle looked at him, put her hand across her chest and with a gentle voice said, “Ooh, he’s sooo cute”. The day was finished with lots of fun bouncing on the inflatable cushion, with Ethan telling Tristan, “This has been so much fun!”, whilst bouncing around and laughing.
The coach journey home was definitely quieter than on the way to the farm! The children were talking about favourite parts of their day, Jonny said he loved the tractor ride, Alba loved stroking the goat and Youcef liked seeing the yellow tractor. Some of the children used this time to sneak in a little nap time in. We cant wait for our next visit!
