Winter Walks & Library Trip!

The preschoolers have had a lovely couple of weeks exploring the icy conditions in the nursery garden and around Imber Court grounds. In the garden, Rowan had discovered that there was lots of frost on the bark where the sun hadn’t quite thawed it out yet. He called his friends over after placing a few bits of the bark on to the table in the direct sun. When he got the attention of Luna and Chloe, they were all very amazed, watching the ice melt and then he suggested to them, “Why don’t we stay here and watch it, you can see the sun is making the ice melt!”. Luna watched for a moment and then pointed closer and showed her friends, “If you look even closer, it looks like a snowflake”. By this time, Florence had come over with enough magnifying glasses for them all and said, “Now we can see them even better and closer”.  They all stood there for a good few minutes just quietly watching as the sun melted the ice. Once these had all melted, there was quite a lot of children now gathered around to see what was happening and soon enough there were several preschool children placing the bark in the sunlight all around the garden and having a race as to whose ice would melt first.

The pre school children have also been very interested in lots of mark making activities in the literacy area. Alfie challenged himself to trace out every pattern with his finger and laughed when he got to the circles. When Madan looked at him, intrigued what he was laughing at, Alfie laughed again and said, “My finger is getting dizzy!”. They have also been focusing on the letter of the week, which this week was “B”. When tidying up in the garden, Sadie reminded her friends, “Remember we need to find all of the things with the letter B”. Tom ran straight over to a ball and called out, “I have a B for ball”, whilst Isaac collected some bats from the floor and said, “I have all of the bats”. Whilst putting some rubbish away, Ada excitedly showed her friends, “Look the bin is B too”.

A group of the preschool children visited the library this week where they had a small story and rhyme time with Jeremy who works there. They listened intently to the monkey puzzle story and Daniel was keen to tell Jeremy that he knew that Julia Donaldson wrote the story, before naming other Julia Donaldson story books including The Gruffalo, Room on the Broom and Tabby McTat. Isaac then challenged Daniel, “Do you know who the illustrator is?” Daniel said no which made Isaac chuckle and say, “No, me either”. They all then listened to some stories, joined in with a few nursery rhymes and learned a new one: ‘A sailor went to sea sea sea’ which was one of the favourites and sung the whole way back to nursery! Alfie couldn’t wait to sing it to his friends as soon as they returned. The children then had the opportunity to individually select a couple of story books to have a look through. Ada recognised a couple of the story books and pointed out whether either she has them at home or preschool has them. Amelie, Iris and Phoebe sat down together to share the same story whilst India loved flicking through all of the books, smiling at each one as she looked at the pictures.

Keeping Warm, Healthy Eating & New Textures!

Since returning to nursery after the Christmas break, the toddlers have been busy talking about how to keep our bodies healthy in the cold weather which includes wrapping up warm and making sure to eat healthy foods. Harry said “I got my gloves and my hat” during a discussion about what they were going to wear in the garden and Sadie said “I got my hat too, that’s funny Harry!”. Whilst exploring with fruit peelings in the sensory tray, Emily used a toy spoon and fork to scoop the fruits into her bowl, holding up each piece for everyone to see and squealing when they plopped back down into the tray.

Despite the chilly weather, the children loved being outside on their daily explorations, even being lucky enough to see the first few snowflakes of the year! Over in the mud kitchen, some of the children collaborated during a group cooking session with Isla, Phoebe and Joseph mixing at the table, while Blair ferried the mud to and from the tray to the table and Ava poured the leftovers into a pot on the floor. Phoebe announced, “We making biscuits!” and began stirring with her stick while Isla and Joseph repeated the sentiment as they too mixed and chopped with their tool of choice. A couple of the toddlers had fun racing balls with different sized ramps and guttering. Henrietta lined up her red ball and Edward with his blue one and they began rolling them down the guttering, Edward exclaimed, “Whee! So fast!” where as Henrietta watched on quietly before running after both balls. Edward then explained the aim of the game to Henrietta when she returned with the ball “It goes down here” while showing her where to put it.

Over the last week, the under twos have been exploring various textures. Max and Rafe were very inquisitive as they watched Kelly gather the materials for the activity. Max got stuck into squishing and squeezing some cornflakes using his hands, all the while enjoying the crunchy sounds. He was bringing his hands closer to his ear each time he was squeezing the flakes. Leo then picked up a spoon and was trying to cut up the Weetabix with it. This made the cereal spill on to the floor which made Max laugh and start to babbling at Kelly as if he was telling her what had happened. Imogen carefully used her fingers to press the cornflakes onto the table top between picking up handfuls and eating them. Rafe, after seeing what Imogen was doing, took his Weetabix, giving a big, cheeky smile as he put it into his mouth. Billy was watching from the sidelines but was very quickly tempted to join in and was soon enough getting involved with picking up a handful of cereal and eating it, and as he did giving a big smile.

The babies also explored textures through paint. Matilde got stuck in by putting her hands in the sandy paint. She initially had a bit of a confused look on her face but she looked at Callie as if questioning why the paint had a strange texture to it but was keen to carry on and particularly enjoyed making marks on the paper with her hands. George watched on to start, but after some encouragement he began to explore the different pots. He was dipping his hands one after the other, watching the paint in amazement as it was spilling out of the pots, before then tapping his hands on his paper. Cora’s favourite was clearly the blue paint with risotto in it. She spent most of the activity feeling around the paint, taking hold of handfuls of the risotto and showing her peers before splatting her hands down onto her piece of paper.

Christmas Parties & Concert!

What an amazing week we have all had at nursery, with Christmas Parties, roast turkey dinners and the preschool Christmas concert! The children were brilliant and thank you for all the parents for providing their wonderful costumes and coming along to support the children!

We’d like to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of you a very merry Christmas and a happy and healthy 2024. We look forward to welcoming you and the children back on January 2nd!

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/