Santa's Grotto & Exploring Textures!

Over the last couple of weeks, the toddlers have begun their festivities with all things Christmas, from singing Christmas songs to making beautiful hand crafted decorations. They made some scented play-dough, by adding some spices, cinnamon and ginger to the mix. The toddlers then took part in our play-dough disco which involves playing with the dough in various ways along with music, all working on their motor skills. The toddlers couldn’t wait to get stuck in and all gave it a go. During the disco, Amelie used two fingers to prod the play dough, whilst she helped and encouraged her friends to do so too. Joseph just couldn’t contain his excitement and had to stand up and have a little boogie which made everyone laugh. Sadie stood up and used her hands to play the piano on the play dough, she said, “I playing piano, beautiful song” as she also had a little dance! 

Outside in the garden, the toddlers are still not fazed at all by the wet weather and use the rain water within their play. They were in the mud kitchen pouring muddy water from one container to another. As India used a spoon to scoop out her last few drops of water, she said, “Oh no, it’s all gone, we get some more!”and with that she picked up a bowl and marched on over to a big puddle in the garden. She scooped up the water into her bowl and carefully carried it back to the mud kitchen to make mud puddings and cakes; the possibilities were endless!

Over the last couple of weeks, the under twos have been doing lots of winter activities using their senses to explore paint, shredded paper, tissue paper and feathers. Excitedly, they watched as adults tore up the tissue paper and threw it into the air. Rafe copied this and picked up the paper immediately throwing to the floor whilst smiling. Megan and Max both came to investigate and began to tear the paper as Rafe then started waving pieces of paper as if he was showing it to Max, and they were both giggling at one another whilst the paper was swishing through the air.

The little ones have also enjoyed exploring different textured paint, some mixed with sand and some mixed with porridge oats. Hugo was using kitchen utensils to splatter the oaty paint all over the tray, smiling away to himself as he looked at the marks he was making on the paper. George watched on intently and then approached, using his hands to let the paint squish between his fingers and letting out a little laugh. Hugo then began to scoop it up using his spoon pretending to eat it, making George laugh even more.

Out in the garden, the babies had a play with some of the musical instruments that were set out in the builders tray. First over was Cora, quickly grabbing one of the many instruments and immediately started to wave it around, catching the attention of a few of her friends. They sat down beside her and picked a couple instruments each. In unison they started tapping, banging, shouting and waving and really laughing amongst themselves. Megan was particularly interested in the multiple shakers set out in front of her shaking each in turn, discovering their own unique sound.

The preschool children had such a lovely visit to Santa’s Grotto this week. They enjoyed hearing about all of the different elves in the Grotto and looking into each elf’s house for their hidden items and marking them off in the booklet they were given. The children were then very lucky to meet Father Christmas and discuss what they would each like for Christmas. Santa then let each of the children choose an ornament from his Christmas tree as a reward for being so good this year and being on his Nice List. It was then time to say a big goodbye and thank you to Santa and his elves!

Winter walks and Christmas Preparations!

The preschool children have been enjoying the colder weather , wrapping up warm and playing in the nursery garden and going for walks on the Imber court site grounds. The chilly temperatures have made everyone feel very Christmassy! Work has started on the decorations including the Christmas trees in each room and the Santa’s Grotto in preschool! The children have been very excited to write their wish lists and posting them in this area. Rehearsals are under way for the Christmas concert on Wednesday 13th December. Parties and Christmas dinner and lots of activities mean a very busy and fun time ahead!

We have arranged a visit to Momentum Children’s Charity Spirit of Christmas Grotto, in Bridge Road East Molesey 12.45pm-1.30pm on 8th December. We will walk the children there and back as we do with all local trips. Sadly we are unable to take children that do not attend on a Friday due to staffing and ratios, but you may wish to book a trip yourselves as a family!
The nursery will bear the cost of the trip as our donation to the charity. This is a very worthwhile cause helping seriously ill children and their families https://www.momentumcharity.org/
We are hoping that, especially at this time of year when we think of others less fortunate, that you are able to help this cause by making a donation no matter how small as all contributions will be greatly received:  https://www.momentumcharity.org/get-involved/donate/

Planting hedges & Investigating Bug Hotels!

A small group of preschool children loved having the opportunity to help plant our new hedgerow that runs along the side of the nursery car park. The group listened to Joe as he explained how to plant the saplings of Dogwood,Hazel,Hawthorne,Crab Apple & Dog Rose. The hedge will be a fantastic way of encouraging wildlife and the children will hep to ten the saplings as they grow. Rowan carefully lifted his sapling and gently placed it in a small hole that had been dug out, saying “My one is going to grow big and strong!” Once all of the saplings were in their holes, it was time to set them in the soil. Margot especially enjoyed this part; scooping soil out of the bag with her trowel. She showed one scoop to her friends and said “Look at my one! It’s so massive!” Chloe replied “It can go in this one!” as she pointed to a sapling that needed more soil. Once the hedge saplings were all planted, the group celebrated with a round of high fives before heading back into preschool for a much needed hand wash.

Over the last couple of weeks the toddlers have really shown their love of the outside by not being deterred by the drizzly weather and getting stuck into any and every activity. During a deep exploration of the back of the garden some of the toddlers took an interest in the bug hotel in the nature area. Blair and India were first to approach and stood looking at each of the different levels for a couple of seconds before Oliver joined them and said “Let Ollie see...that one where the spider live” whilst pointing and going in for a closer look. From a distance Arlo peeked over their shoulders and said “Spider! Ahhh” before squealing and running away. India spotted a cobweb in a corner and said “Oh what that” and after closer inspection Oliver said “That’s a cobweb” and Blair commented “Oooww cobweb” with interest. 
Over in the mud kitchen the toddlers were busy cooking up a storm with mixing, scooping, pouring and chopping. Sadie and Ava were very serious about their creations and didn’t take any breaks as they as they put in the work to make their food “Potato and chocolate cake”. Eva and Monty made many trips back and forth from the mud tray, scooping and collecting the collected rain water and ferrying it to their friends who were busy cooking. On one of his trips Monty spilled a bowl of water onto the floor and said ”Look! look raining!” as the water splashed into the air. Eva comforted him with a gentle hug and said “Monty, Monty have more” and led him back to the tray. 

Puddles & Spider Hunts!

Over the last couple of weeks, the pre school children have been very keen in learning which letters are in their names and have been taking part in various activities to be able to identify these letters. One of the activities that the children were very engaged in was a spider letter hunt. This activity involved a spider web covered tuff tray with hidden spiders under some crazy foam. This gave the children the opportunity to explore the texture whilst trying to free the spiders from the web. Once the spiders were released, the children then needed to give the spiders a clean in order to release the letter that was on the spiders tummy. Finley picked up a spider with the letter d on it and held it upside down and let his friends know that he had found, “It’s the letter p”. Quickly realising that he had the spider upside down, he laughed and said, “Silly me”. He turned the spider around and then said, “No, no, it’s a d, not a p”. Sadie had released the letter m and showed it to her friends, telling them, “This letter is a m and it’s for all of our mummies”. Youcef suggested, “Now we can find daddy spider too”.

Out on a walk around the nursery grounds, the children were so excited by the size of all of the puddles. As soon as the children left nursery, they were faced with big puddles in the car park and ran straight for them, making the biggest splashes that they could possibly do. Alfie jumped in to one puddle which splashed all of his friends around him. This made Alfie and his friends laugh a lot and it soon became clear that they were having a competition as to who could make the biggest splashes. The children went around to the field which after the heavy downpour, had turned in to a mini lake with even the ducks and geese going for a swim in it which amused Luna a lot. She looked at her friends once she spotted them and said, “Huh? That’s not where they are supposed to be, they’re supposed to be in the river”. Caiden responded to this, “I wonder if we will sea any seagulls”. Zack said, “No, they’re at the seaside”. Crossing paths with some of the little ones from the baby room, Luna invited them along for the rest of the walk. The little ones really giggled at the pre school children doing the biggest splashes in the puddles.

Pumpkins & Spiders!

Over the last couple of weeks, the toddlers have been taking part in a variety of autumnal and Halloween themed activities both inside and out. Inside the focus was on sensory halloween activities. The first activity the toddlers took part in was a spider hunt that was carried out in the activity tray, which had been filled with coloured sand. The toddlers began to rummage through the sand, letting it slip through their fingers and shaking it around the tray. Whilst sifting her hand through the sand Eva was the first to come across a spider. With a surprised squeal she quickly retracted her hand while looking around at her friends with her mouth open in a shocked expression. Once the realisation hit that she found a spider her hand dived straight back in and she retrieved it shouting “Spider!” to Phoebe who responded with an excited giggle and big smile. The children really got stuck in with a fine motor bat sensory bags activity. The toddlers loved exploring the textures of these and India was very happy to point out where the bats were to all of their friends ”Bat, Bat”, which made Blair giggle and approach the activity. In one of the bags was googly eyes, and whilst moving them around in the bag, Isla proudly turned to show us that she had put them on the bats face, shouting ‘Look!’ with a big smile on her face. 

In the garden the children explored pumpkins. They were supplied with wooden spoons and scoops to dig out the inside of pumpkins and investigate the strands and seeds from inside. As they approached the table Amelie saw what was on it and excitedly shouted out ‘Scoops!’ before picking one up and inspecting it. Meanwhile Oliver was not too sure about the texture of the strands and exclaimed “It’s yucky” when he scooped them up with his hands, which made Matilda giggle happily. After the toddlers had removed all the insides from the pumpkin and placed them in the bowl, they then used them to make pumpkin soup. Arlo and Harry excitedly bought the bowls of pumpkin strands and seeds over to the mud kitchen and showed their friends how to start making the soup. They transported the ingredients out of the bowls and spread them across a smaller bowls, baking trays and cake tins. Next they added some water, sprinklings of mud and stirred it all through to make the soup. Leo pretended to take a mouthful of the soup with a spoon, and said ‘Mmmm’ which made Cooper chuckle. 

Over the last few weeks the under two’s have been intrigued by all of the different texture based activities, such as using different types of pasta in numerous forms as well as exploring paint. One of the activities in the builders tray involved a mixture of different coloured cooked spaghetti in bright colours. Finley came straight over to investigate and picked up a plastic spoon and began to scoop the pasta on to it, intrigued by all of the colours. Finley saw that Cora was picking it up and eating it, he looked at Amie smiling and then decided to follow, by placing a handful of orange pasta in his mouth! Max watched Amie intently whilst she swished the pasta around the tray using a fork before joining in and creating his own movements with the array of spaghetti colours. Max was really enjoying himself with lots of laughter and a mouthful of pasta!

In the garden the little ones were able to explore big pumpkins with the insides removed. They were interested in the textures and smells, and the seeds were used to make sensory bags. Megan picked up the bag and started to wave it around, which attracted Imogen who came over instantly to the table and started to tap the bag and squish it between her hands. She was fascinated by the way the seeds moved about and began pressing them as if they were tiny buttons. Imogen began to smile as she watched Megan and joined in pressing the bag and started growling excitedly.