Seasonal Changes: Exploring Autumn!
The preschool children have really been noticing the changes in their environment over the past week or so, which has sparked many discussions at nursery about the change of season now that we are into autumn. Whilst out on a walk around the nursery grounds, Rowan had noticed that one of the trees leaves had started to change colour. He took hold of Youcef’s hand and then encouraged Zack to follow, telling them both, “If you look here, look closely, the leaves aren’t really green any more”. Rowan gave his friends an opportunity to respond and once he noticed that his friends were closely observing the leaves, he called more of his friends over, “Look here, the leaves are lots of different colours”. Daniel was very intrigued and picked up one of the leaves that had already fallen and pulled it closer to his face so he could observe the leaf with a bit more detail before telling his friends, “It’s brown and green and even orange!”.
Some of the children had collected some fallen leaves and placed them in their pockets to take back to nursery and once they were back at nursery, they found a box to put all of their leaf collections in. Some of the children used the leaves alongside some other natural resources including logs, bark and grass patches. Sadie had added some magnifying glasses and was explaining to Florence, “If you put your eye close to here, and put the magnifying glass close to the leaf, you can see some lines”. Florence examined the leaf before telling Sadie, “Its very beautiful isn’t it!”.
The rest of the leaves were used in an arts and crafts activity. The children had cut the leaves in half, stuck them on to some paper and then used some mark making materials to try and make the same pattern and make it symmetrical. Luna was very proud of her work and seeing that it looked very similar to the actual leaf, she told her little brother, River, that they could take it home to show their mummy and daddy.
The children have new natural resource logs at nursery to include in their play in the garden. Sebastian and Otto had collected some of the larger logs and moved them over towards the tree house and piled them up. Once they were satisfied with their pile of logs and had gained the attention of a few more friends including Ada and Alfie, they went on to find the insect toys to add to their play. They were burying the insects deep in to their log pile and were challenging each other to find them, finding it funny if it was a little tricker to find the insect. Ada laughed and said, “It’s not in there, it’s too big for that gap!”. Otto had hidden one of the insects under the tree house and encouraged Sebastian to find it, “Look closely Basti”, whilst giving him eye contact as to where it was hidden. He let out a big cheer when Sebastian had found it.
Storytime with Yoga and Cosy Dens!
Over the last few weeks, the toddlers have been focusing on our book of the month ‘The Very Busy Spider’. By reading the book almost every day, the toddlers are becoming more familiar with the story. Everyone loved joining in, making the sounds of the farm animals that visit the spider as she makes her web. Whilst playing with farmyard animals, the toddlers enjoyed recreating parts of the story with the animals, with Isabelle asking others if their animals “Want to go for a ride?” with her horse. Before long, several animals were having a wonderful run around the farmyard together, with the children laughing and smiling as they played together!
Inside the toddlers had the opportunity to take part in a yoga class, where a teacher comes in and teaches them simple yoga poses using a story. The story began with a tree and so the toddlers stretched up high towards the sky, just like a tree and swayed back and forth when it got windy. Eloise encouraged her friends but showing how high she could reach, “Look how high I reaching”, she said. Gradually, the story moved onto animals and the toddlers got very excited, making their noises and attempting to walk like that animal. One animal was a tiger, India shouted, “ROAR!”, which made her friends jump and giggle.
Outside the toddlers have been using their imaginations and making boats using our stepping stones. They used team work to turn them over and hopped inside making sure they were singing ‘Row, row row your boat’ throughout. Isla shouted to her friends “Quick, you in the water now!”. The other toddlers responded, “Aa ha! Splash splash splash”.
Over the last couple of weeks the under 2’s have been focusing on animals as their main theme.
A popular activity was a sensory dig tray. Billy went straight over and found a toy horse instantly. Proud of himself he held the horse in the air laughing loudly, this caught his friends attention and they made their way over to see what the fuss was all about. Max started digging around seeing how many animals he could find while on the other hand Margaux was more interested in trying get to as much straw as possible out of the builders tray. More and more babies started to show interest in the digging, but Sienna found it much more fun to sit in the middle of the tray moving their legs around causing the straw to make a funny noise which massively entertained them.
In spirit of the book ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt’, the babies also enjoyed exploring a “bear cave” that was made outside. They quickly crawled inside, looking up at the blankets draping above their heads as well as flopping down on the multiple cushions set up inside. Henrietta found a little passage in between the sheets which meant she could easily get in and out of the cave. This entertained her greatly and she repeated going through the passage multiple times getting her friends to follow her round the loop she found. Megan was most confused when she realised her hair was sticking up and getting stuck to the top of the cave!!
Inside the babies engaged in a ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ inspired sensory tray. They loved the little cut out characters, Hugo in particular loved the little bowls of porridge and pretended to eat them. Max very intently scooped some of the oats into one of the bowls and mixed them around to make “Porridge”. Meanwhile Finley and Henrietta were more intrigued by the oats being poured out from a height; delighted at the noise they made as they flooded back into the tray as they gestured for it to be repeated again and again even trying to do it themselves.
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!
