Campfires & Ice!
Over the last couple of weeks, the pre school children have really engaged themselves in camping imaginative play. A group of children had been for a walk around the nursery grounds and worked very well together to collect as many sticks as they could possibly hold on to. They were so excited to get back to nursery and show their friends how well they had done with their stick collection. Youcef suggested to his friends, “How about we put them in the camp fire” and guided his friends straight over to our campfire area in the garden. They threw all of the sticks in to the middle and then took a seat around the edge and just waited for a moment, in silence, smiling at each other. Sadie then laughed and asked, “What are we waiting for now?” Flo then explained, “First we need to wait for the fire to heat up and then maybe we can toast some marshmallows”. A several more seconds went past and Rowan instigated the children all collecting a stick and pretending to place the end of the stick over the camp fire area. Isabelle very sensibly reminded her friends that, “The sticks might be hot, don’t touch them just yet’. Once the children had pretended to eat their marshmallows, Margot said to her friends, “Shall we go for a little walk now before it’s our bed time?” This seemed like a good idea and all of the children set off on a little walk around the garden before heading to the tree house to settle down. Once they got there, Lana said, “Come on everyone, it’s time for a sleep”. They all covered themselves with the blankets, getting cosy together and Sadie read them a bed time story.
One frosty morning, Alfie had noticed that there was ice formed on the surface of one of the tuff trays. He at first used a spatula with an attempt to make lines in the ice. He was enjoying this until he noticed that Madan was using his fingers and it was more noticeable to see the lines. Using his finger, Alfie asked, “Can you do my name?” When a teacher wrote down Alfie’s name for him to try and copy, Alfie then successfully wrote his name with his finger along the ice. This caught the attention of many other friends who were all enjoying making their own pictures and name writing in the ice. Tom laughed after a few moments and said, “It’s too cold on my fingers, now we need some gloves”. The children then went around the garden, finding more places to do some mark making.
Ducks & Frozen Ponds!
Over the last couple of weeks, the toddlers have been learning about winter and what it involves. They discovered how cold their hands get when exploring a frozen sensory tray filled with colourful ice cubes and objects that encourage the use of motor skills. As Blair picked up a piece of ice, she laughed aloud and said, “Wow, cold!”, placing it back into the tray and choosing a scoop as her next choice of tool. Whilst playing with the ice, Harry realised that it slid very well across the bottom of the tray shouting, “Zoom, zoom, so fast!”. Continuing their motor skills practise, the toddlers have been taking part in the new daily play dough disco. This allows the toddlers to work on their fine motor skills by moulding dough in time to music and performing different actions such as rolling it, squeezing it, pinching it and squashing it. The toddlers can’t get enough of it and often break out in dance too. Edward said, “Flat like a pancake!”,whilst flattening the dough, whilst Arlo rolled it out and made a “Wiggly worm”.
Despite the chilly weather, the toddlers have still very much enjoyed their time outside and in particular our walks out and about. During a walk to the ponds to feed the ducks, they came across the pond completely frozen over and the ducks sliding about all over the place! Whilst feeding the ducks, the toddlers were fixated on how the ducks were walking and sliding across the ice to get their bread. Ava was in constant fits of giggles whilst Gabriel told his friends, “Look, the ducks slipping on the ice!”.
Over the last couple of weeks the under two’s have been discovering their senses in many different ways and investigating different textures through a variety of activities. When exploring a baked bean activity, Finley quickly took hold of the spoon and began to scoop up the beans with a very big smile on his face. George watched intently as the beans fell from Finley’s spoon which clearly appeared to intrigue George as he watched Finley for a few more moments before picking up the cup and squashing it down onto some beans. They lifted up the beans between their fingers and let them fall, and as they hit the table they made a splatter sound which really got the full engagement of the little ones and they couldn’t wait to join in. Margaux repeatedly said “Uh oh” as they fell onto the table.
The children had a variety of textures to explore including play dough. Imogen used her fingers and sunk them into the dough, looking up with a curious look when the dough was completely filling her hand. Matilde was sinking cutters into the mix until she spotted a roller cutter. Matilde then began pressing it into her play-dough making lots of track marks, smiling as she was doing so. Imogen continued to squash and squeeze it babbling away as if telling everyone what she was doing.
Outside in the garden, some of the children have been busy making mud pies using a selection of different kitchen utensils. Margaux climbed into the mud kitchen and started to use the scoop to lift the mud, laughing as it fell back onto the ground. She spotted the herbs at the back of the mud garden and made her way over to them to smell them and Matilde and Billy very quickly followed suit.
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.
