Space Exploration & Seasonal Ingredients!
Over the last two weeks, the toddlers have been getting stuck into all things Autumn. As the weather transitions, the toddlers have been able to watch the leaves turn orange and begin falling to the ground and have collected lots of leaves, conkers, pine cones, twigs etc for their artwork. In the garden, the children really enjoyed an activity where they used a mix of their imagination and real items to create soup. The children were given small root vegetables and collected the garden material themselves. Using pots, pans and water gathered from the mud kitchen, they began combining the ingredients to make their soup. India poured water into a pot and said, “I use carrot, mix it, mix it”, and then went onto using a parsnip. After the soup was cooked and cooled, Blair picked up a serving spoon and began offering it out for others to try. She held the spoon out and said, “Eat, eat” and “Yum!”.
Inside, the children have been exploring outer space and engaging in exciting sensory experiences, including zooming into outer space. With the children’s help we had set up a sensory corner using blankets, netting and lots of glow up toys and lights. The children entered, sat down and we shot up to space! The children sang the song ‘Zoom Zoom’ as they flew about, looking at the lights and listening to outer space sounds and music. Oliver said, “Shhh! Listen how quiet”, as he calmed his friends down to listen to the space sounds.
The last few weeks in the under twos room have been filled with lots of different art activities. The children especially enjoyed taking part in some berry painting. Finley loved squashing the berries in his hands and spreading the juices around his piece of paper; and even snuck a little taste of the berries with a big smile on his face. Santiago looked at the berries with a puzzled look, unsure what to do. The adults demonstrated squeezing the berries as Santiago he began to use his hands to make splotches on his paper. Rafe enjoyed squeezing the berries in his hand and watching as the bits squeezed out between his fingers and dropped onto the table.
Outside, the children had lots of fun with a scooping activity in the tough tray with pasta, cups and spoons. Max watched and listened as the pasta was poured into the tray and smiled when they crashed and crunched as they landed. Margaux had fun trying to catch the pasta as it was poured from a cup, babbling away as she did so. Sienna, however, enjoyed using a spoon to mix around the pasta in the tray and using it to bump the pasta; listening to the noises as the pasta cracked and smashed.
Autumn Gathering!
It was fantastic to see such a big turnout for this years Autumn parent get together. We hope you all enjoyed the chance to come in to the nursery and meet and chat with each other. The preschool room was very busy, with lots of activities on offer inside and out for children and parents alike. It was wonderful to see the children showing off their nursery to their parents and taking them to play with what was on offer. Margot had lots of fun playing with the play dough with her mummy, using the cutters to make many different shapes, whilst Sadie enjoyed sharing stories with her Mummy and baby brother in the book corner. Outside; Finley A had lots of fun taking his Mummy on a bear hunt along the nature trail at the back of the garden.
The toddler room was rather busy with the toddlers being very excited to show their Mummies and Daddies where they spend their day as well as all of their favourite toys. Monty and Blair impressed their Mums by showing them how they independently washed their hands after getting covered in play dough. The room was also filled with children who are no longer toddlers, wanting to take a trip down memory lane and explore their old room! The majority of the children were more interested in playing in the garden, taking their parents on a tour and of course, investigating the food table! Phoebe was very keen to show her Mum where the cake table was and indulged in what seemed to be her favourite treat!
The Autumn Social is a very exciting time for the Under 2s as they use the free flow to their advantage and explore the other rooms! Max, Santiago and George all swiftly made their way into the toddlers room, pulling themselves up onto the climbing frame amazed at the size of it. George proudly showed his climbing skills on the frame as well as pointing over at each of his friends who were dotted around the room. Children and parents from the other rooms entered to come and play too. Florence quickly spotted her younger brother Finley, and took his hand and led him all the way through to Preschool so she could show him where she plays all day. It was wonderful to see the under 2s playing with their parents and exploring the big garden; Santiago enjoyed running around with his Mummy following close behind as he explored more of the garden.
Imaginative Outside Play!
The preschool children have really engaged themselves in some imaginative play this week. They worked very well together outside in the garden to build a house with the large wooden blocks. This was instigated after the children had a group story time with the book ‘Room on the broom’. Finley had gathered some of his friends around on the decking area, asking them, “Would anyone like to help me build a house for the dragon?”. This instantly piqued the interest of quite a few of his friends who rushed over to help. Alfie collected some of the larger blocks and explained, “These blocks can be the bottom of the house so it doesn’t wobble too much”. His friends clearly agreed with this idea as they started to place the largest blocks around the bottom of their house. Rowan had carefully filled up a spade, which he brought over and placed on top of one of the blocks. When he noticed that Finley was looking at him inquisitively but Rowan reassured him, “It’s the cement so the blocks can stick together”. Once the children were happy that their house was built high enough so that, “The dragon couldn’t escape” as Tom suggested, they went on to place some logs inside their house and Alfie said, “I know! We can have a camp fire”.
Zack used the new guttering to collect and place them all on top of the house. After positioning them all in place, he then found a ball and tried to place it through the end of the guttering. He very quickly realised that the ball was too big to fit so went off to find a smaller ball. He brought back 3 different sized balls and him and Ellie set to work finding out which ball could fit through each tube. Max came over to join in with their play, asking, “What are you playing?”. When the balls were rolling out of the guttering and away from their house, the children were really laughing together and cheering each other on to collect the balls again.
