Garsons Farm!
The pre school children had a lovely morning at Garsons farm where they had the opportunity to pick several different types of fruit and vegetables. It was a very exciting minibus journey on the way there, with many of the children calling out as we drove passed their houses or streets. Flo was so eager to get to near where her house was, telling her friends, “That’s where I live with my family. In my family is my mum and my dad and my baby brother”. This then started a conversation between all of the children and staff on different family groups and who lives in their households. Olivia was very proud of the fact that her little brother, “Is in the toddler room now. He isn’t a baby any more”. Once we arrived at the farm, the children couldn’t wait to take hold of their own bags and investigate what vegetables were ready to pick. The first row of strawberries were not quite ready and had a chain across the entrance. Rowan reminded his friends, “We mustn’t go that way because the chain is there remember”.
The children soon approached where the courgettes were growing and could not wait to get going. They all scattered off in their own groups and set themselves the challenge of trying to pick the biggest courgette they could find. Freddie was so happy to find himself a very big courgette and ran over to Joe, “Look, look what I found”. Luna laughed and challenged Freddie to be able to fit the courgette in to his bag, which he was able to do. Once they got to the broccoli, the children found it quite tough to get the broccoli away from the stem but they didn’t give up. This was also the case with the cauliflowers, but luckily the adults were able to help the children with this. As they got the to the end of the farm, there were several rows of strawberries that were ready to be picked and Margot and Sophie couldn’t wait to get going. Sophie called to Margot, “Come on, we need to pick some strawberries”. The children very carefully selected the biggest and juiciest looking strawberries to put in their bags. Tom laughed, saying, “That is too many strawberries, our tummy will go pop!”
Once everyone’s bags were full of produce including pumpkins it was time to leave. Back at the nursery the children were eager to help wash the fruit and vegetables ready to pack them in to their bags to take home. Lana told her friends, “My mummy and brother will like this”, pointing at the courgettes. Over the next couple of days, the children engaged in many activities with the left over vegetables such as including them in their cooking in the mud kitchen and making strawberry smoothies in the water tray.
They look forward to visiting again in the Spring!
Sea creatures & colours
Over the last couple of weeks the toddlers have been focussing at shapes and colours. The toddlers were challenged to find different shapes and colours in nature and Oliver straight away pointed at a bush and said “Green leaves” which then encouraged the other children to go and have a look. Upon inspecting the bush and its flowers the toddlers noticed a bee nesting in a high up flower. Blair screamed and covered her mouth, showing her shocked face as she gazed up at the bee. This then led Matilda to push her finger to her lips and say “Shhh be quiet”. Whilst conversing about what colours the toddlers could see on the bee Isla announced “he’s black and yellow”. Sadie was on a shape hunt and began investigating the garden with a magnifying glass, holding it up to her eye she said “Where the circles?” and with a little bit of help found a round piece of bark which intrigued Monty to have a peak “Oooo look”.
They have been looking at different animals, including what they like to eat, where they live and how we can care for them. Isabelle and Ellie were very focussed on making sure the animals had a full tummy as they plied them with scoops of coloured oats during a “feeding time at the zoo” activity. Isabelle said “I’m getting a big scoop up like this and holding it to the horses mouth so he can eat it all up and get a full tummy like this um num num” and pretended to eat the oats too. This made Ellie laugh and say “No it’s not for you it’s for the animals- there be none left”!
Over the last couple of weeks the under two’s have been exploring under the sea theme as their main focus as well as experiencing different textures.
They were very enthusiastic about looking for shells and sea creatures amongst the sand. In the sandpit, Billy and Joseph were using the spades to dig deep to hunt for the seashells. Arthur came to see what they were doing and spotted a seashell in the sand and picked up the shell and began to rub it against the stony wall. As it made a scraping sound, Arthur began to giggle at the sound that it made. Joseph then stood up and copied Arthur, looking at each other and laughing as they scraped the seashells down the wall.
At the water tray, Gabriel and Arlo were hunting for sea creatures using small fishing nets. An adult was showing them how to scoop them into the net and George stood watching closely at what they were doing. George then started splashing the water at the side of the water tray, some of the water splashed his face and George started to giggle. Margaux then came to investigate and joined in with the splashing the water everywhere and smiling a lot at her friends as she did so.
Inside some of the little ones have been using paint dabbers to make bright coloured coral pictures and sticking paper to make mosaic pictures, with a little helpatfer being shown how to use their paint dabbers to make a sweeping motion. Henrietta was enjoying dabbing her paint dabber on her paper, making big coloured splodge marks.
Some of the children have enjoyed sticking using different coloured paper to make mosaic water pictures. Arlo was carefully using his glue stick and spreading the glue across his paper when Rafe reached for a handful of paper and threw it everywhere. This made Arlo laugh which made Rafe smile and wriggle about.
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”.
