Wormery leaves and spiders!

The children in preschool were very excited about their new wormery and could not wait to start collecting the worms for it. The day of the search was a pretty warm day and the children very quickly realised that there weren’t any visible worms. Sophie found a small worm at the mud kitchen and very excitedly called out, “Hey the worms are here!”. Her friends ran over and before we knew it, the mud kitchen was on its side and the children found so many worms underneath. They were so excited to get them in to the soil in the wormery and watched in amazement as the worms buried themselves down in to the soil. they will be observing them daily.

The children have really embraced nature and their natural surroundings over the past couple of weeks. In the nursery garden, Ari had noticed one morning that there were cobwebs on each side of the tree house. He called a couple of his friends over and encouraged them all to bring magnifying glasses over with them. Once they were gathered around the webs, Ari calmly said to them, “Guys, if you be really quiet and look closely, you might be able to see the spider in the web”. After taking a close look but finding no spider, Charlie suggested, “I think the spider might be too scared of all of the noise”, to which Jonathan replied, “No, I think the spider is waiting for a fly to land in the web and then he will come out for his dinner”. The children then did their own investigations around the garden to see how many webs they could find. Following this, the children really engaged themselves in a threading activity to weave their own spider webs.

Whilst out on a walk on the nursery grounds, some of the children set themselves their own task of collecting as many leaves as they could to bring back to nursery to do some leaf artwork. Once the bags were filled with sticks, leaves and grass, Ethan said, “I’m pretty sure we have enough now, maybe it’s time to have a rest”. The children settled down around the mat to have some snack and then on to explore a leaf threading activity. The children concentrated very well with the aim to use the hole punches to make some holes in the leaves before using the string to thread through the leaves. At first Alfie couldn’t quite work out how to hold the leaf in place as well as press down on the hole punch, but with great perseverance, he successfully made the hole and was incredibly proud of himself. The children worked together to make themselves some bracelets and necklaces and were very keen to get involved in the clay leaf printing activity back at nursery.

In the growing patch, the tomatoes have been a great success and the children have been picking their own tomatoes which they have very much enjoyed eating at meal times. Rowan told his friends, “ I don’t usually like tomatoes but I will try nursery tomatoes”. Finley reassured him, “That’s a good idea, you should always try new things”.

Team Games & Sensory bags

The toddlers were able to take part in lots of creative activities including one involving cars and paint. Since the nursery rhyme for that day was ‘The wheels on the bus’ it was a perfect lead onto making vehicle tyre tracks, using a variety of different colours and shapes of tyre. As Kitty moved the lego car forwards and sang, “Wheels on the bus go round and round and round and round!” She sang this the whole time she took part in the activity and eventually caused the toddlers break out in song! 

The toddlers have had lots of fun exploring the grounds of Imber Court, taking to the field with preschool. They had hoops, footballs, tennis balls and rackets. Oliver and Jude were that excited, they ran to the gate first, followed by Iris shouting, “I’m going to get my sissy!”. The toddlers, ran, hopped, skipped and jumped to the field, excited to begin. Jasper picked up a football and said “Look, I kick it far”. Other toddlers ran to find bothers and sisters.The couldn’t contain their excitement and did funny poses and faces in front of the camera. The toddlers set up running races together and with Sophie in charge, she shouted “Ready, steady, GO!” They all ran as far as they could before somebody pretended to fall over and they all copied in fits of laughter.

Over the last couple of weeks The Under Two’s have been exploring different textures and have had lots of sensory experiences to engage themselves in. 

In the activity tray, there was a selection of big and small coloured feathers, Monty and Blair came straight over to investigate what was inside. Monty put both of his hands into the activity tray and scooped up a handful of feathers and placed them on his head which really made Blair laugh. This clearly interested Harry and Arlo as they rushed over to see what was going on. Blair then started to pick up the feathers and sniff them like they were flowers screwing up her little nose.

In the builders tray, the little ones had the opportunity to explore a filling and emptying activity using pasta and cups. They particularly enjoyed pouring and really shaking the cups with that were filled with pasta, listening to the different noises that they were making. As the pasta fell out of the cups and fell on to the tray, Gabriel called out excitedly ”Pasta pasta!”. Cooper was giggling as he shook his cup of pasta. Gabriel and Ava decided they would like to get a closer look and sat themselves in the builders tray and moved the pasta round using their feet. Harry was watching before he then built up the confidence and sat himself next to Ava and copied them. “Look at me!’ he shouted” as he pushed the pasta with his feet.

Outside we invited some of the older pre school children into the garden to join the babies playing with the sensory bags. Tom picked up a bag with peas in and showed it to Ava who started to squash the bag using her fingers which made the peas move around in the water. Ava began to giggle with Tom, looking up at him. Harry then joined them whilst shouting, “Peas peas please!” as he pointed towards the bag that Ava was holding. Another sensory activity that the little ones enjoyed exploring was shredded wheat. They were crumbling the wheat between their fingers and moving the cars around in the activity tray, even banging the cars down and laughing whilst doing so. Max picked up a car and rolled it in the wheat, Blair then joined in shouting, “Beep beep!” giggling as the both of them picked up the shredded wheat crushing it in their hands.

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!