Sports Day!
Over the past couple of weeks, the pre school children have become little athletes and have had the opportunity to join in with a sports day over on the grounds of Imber court. On the build up to the day, the children were having lots of discussions about their bodies and what sort of food we can eat that’s healthy and of course the conversation of not so healthy foods cropped up. At breakfast time, Jonathan was telling his friends at the table, “You know if we eat too many sweets or chocolates, it’s bad for our teeth and our bodies”. As a response to this, Alastair suggested, “Maybe we should eat some fruit instead”. Ari asked, “Is fish good for you?” Just as we were about to set off, Sophie approached a couple of her friends and asked them, “Would you like to have a drink of water before we go? That means our bodies will have some more energy for the races”. What a great idea.
Once over at the field, the children were very excited to see that all of nurseries equipment was set up. Imogen ran straight over to the football goal and challenged her friends, “I bet you can’t score a goal now”. Rowan accepted the challenge and ran up to the ball and gave it a good kick towards the goal”. Imogen saved the first one before Rowan attempted again and managed to score a goal which was cheered on by some of the other children.
Whilst some of the children were focussed on scoring goals, attempting the hula hoop, balance platform competitions and toss the bean bag, Florence, Isaac, Tom Isabelle and Alfie prompted their own game of duck, duck, goose. Florence explained the rules to her friends and over a few minutes had more and more friends engaged in their game.
The most fun part of the day for the children was receiving their medals and certificates and showing them off to the toddler children and staff and of course to the mummies and daddies at the end of the day.
Over the week following the sports day, the children continued their sports activities back at nursery. They used the chalk board to drawer out a football goal and the hula hoop practising continued. Over meal times, the children continued to discuss which foods are healthy for us and which foods are unhealthy.
Handa's Fruits & Vegetables
Over the last couple of weeks the toddlers have been loving the book of the month ‘Handa’s surprise’ and have been choosing to read it at circle times and throughout the day. As the book requires the pictures to tell the underlying plot of the story the toddlers loving shouting out to make sure the staff know what is happening. Kitty pointed and shouted “Parrot has taken the juicy passion fruit!” while Eva gasped and said “Oh no”. Isabelle pointed and exclaimed “That’s a cheeky elephant he’s taken the mango”.
Outside the toddlers enjoyed taking on the role of being farmers and planting, digging and investigating the mini vegetable garden in one of the trays. Although once the rain started and it turned into more of a mud pit than vegetable pit India and Amelie couldn’t be pulled away! India dug her arms in the mud all the way up to her elbows and Amelie painted her hand in the mixture. Joshua saw the fun and ran over getting stuck in straight away “Look my hands!”.
The toddlers have been trying some of the fruits from the story during fruit tasting sessions at snack time and also during exploratory sensory play, including a squeeze, smell and taste activity which encouraged the toddlers to use all of their senses. Iris was very keen to join in with this activity and reached straight for the limes, bringing them close to her nose for a smell, followed by a quick lick and then a taste with a long “Mmmmmm” sound and a happy face. Oliver saw this and went for a lick of the lime too, but having a completely different reaction... he gave a surprised “Ahhh” followed by a swipe of the mouth and a contorted face which made it clear that he was not a fan. Ellie stuck with the broccoli and after shaking it around said “I’m going to eat it up and be strong and have big muscles” and put the whole head of her piece of broccoli in her mouth! Yum!
Over the last few weeks the under twos have been looking at buildings and transportation. Whilst out on a walk to visit the train station to count the trains, Harry got very excited in the pushchair as he saw a train go over the bridge. He began pointing and shouting, “Train train!“. At the station lots of trains went speeding past which was very exciting for the little ones. Alice said “That was fast” and Harry copied, “Fast train”. Monty was waving and smiling as the train went flying by. The next stop was to look at the bus stop and see if the bus was coming. Monty was pointing at the cars, so Amie started to count as the cars drove past. Harry copied Amie and Amelie then in a loud voice said, “One!”.
Back at nursery, the children had the opportunity to paint their own big buses using sponge dabbers. Eva was very keen to get involved and asked, “Eva dab?“ Eva was smiling away she pressed the sponge onto her paper, whilst saying “Dab dab!” Whilst the children were very engaged in their painting, Harry kept looking at the paint on the paper and was calling out, ‘Red!’ and clapping away!
The children in the under twos room really love to get messy with various messy play and this week’s activity was crazy foam on a hunt for hidden stickle bricks. Monty ran over to the messy tray when he saw the crazy foam and shouted, “Ooooh!” whilst he approached. When he found the first stickle brick, Monty carefully put it to the side and started to search for the next one and once he had found a few, he began to stick them together, with a look of concentration on his face.
Streams and woods adventures!
Over the last couple of weeks, the pre school children have thoroughly enjoyed embracing the outside space around the nursery in their waterproofs. After discovering an enclosed area just behind the nursery grounds, the children have very much enjoyed using the space to do lots of exploring. The children were amazed when they saw a waterfall, Isla asking her friends, “Doesn’t it look so beautiful?” Tristan replied saying, “The water is running along the rocks and it does look very beautiful”. The children particularly loved the fishing and crabbing. Florence called out very excitedly, “Guys, come quick, there’s a real life crab!” before using her net to try and fish the crab who was too quick!
Whilst some of the children dedicated their time to do some fishing, some of the other children went off to investigate beyond some rocks they had found, working very well together to help each other over the rocks. Alastair very cautiously climbed over and once he had reached the other side, he did a little relieved giggle and said, “That was tricky, be careful everyone”.
After all of the excitement with exploring for an hour or so, the children decided it was time for a little rest and headed back to base where we had set up some blankets, story books and magnifying glasses. Ari settled down with his clipboard and magnifying glass and was having a good look in the trees and told his friends, “I’m looking to see if I can see any creatures or insects”. Charlie got himself a clipboard too and they both sat down together to do an observational drawing of a tree. What a fabulous time in the great outdoors!
