Chinese New Year!
The pre school children recently have been learning all about Chinese New Year and the celebrations that take place at this time of year. When Alfie came in to nursery in the morning and had seen that all of the decorations had been put up all around the nursery, including a large scale dragon, he was so excited to show all of his friends as they arrived.
At group times, the children have intently listened and engaged in conversations around the celebration and particularly enjoyed listening to ‘The Great River Race’ story. Youcef was extremely amazed to see that a dragon was flying through the sky and Flo was keen to share with her friends, “Remember it is the year of the dragon this year”.
The children took part in many activities throughout the week including food tasting egg fried rice, noodles and lychee juice which was very well received! They also very much enjoyed sensory play with rice and noodles in the home corner where the children used their imaginations to engage in role play with Chinese patterned bowls and plates and attempt to use the chopsticks to pick up the rice! India was very keen to serve all of her friends some rice, insisting that everyone should try some, rubbing her tummy and saying, “Mmmm”.
Another activity that the children enjoyed was writing in Chinese. Sadie chose to try and write Ox whilst Lana chose a rat. They both concentrated really hard when copying the Chinese word on to their own paper and Sadie even praised Lana, “Wow Lana, that’s a very good job” which made Lana smile.
The children took part in a Chinese dragon dance and party on Friday where they had the chance to listen and dance to some Chinese music whilst wearing Chinese style outfits and dressed in the cardboard dragon that they had all worked so hard throughout the week to make. Sophie thought this was extremely funny when she saw Madan dressed as the dragon head and told him, “You look funny”. At the end of the dancing, the children all gave a Chinese red envelope to each other which Jasper remembered, “It has some money inside it”.
Exploring Our Senses!
Over the last few weeks the toddlers have been using their senses to explore a variety of activities revolving around the five senses. To start with the children had the opportunity to walk barefoot through three trays of different textures. Harry stepped straight into the tray of flour and wiggled his toes around giggling “It tickles my toes!”, before stepping through to the weetabix tray exclaiming “Oh, this one’s crunchy! STOMP STOMP!” as he marched on the spot. Cooper was next up and went full force stepping from one tray to the next before making his way back down and stopping to sit and play in each tray. He spent most of his time going backwards and forwards between the weetabix and cornflour tray, saying “Oh look!” each time as he noticed his footprints of weetabix left in the cornflour. Henrietta was very keen to step into the trays but had a different reaction to the cornflour and after dipping her toe into the gloop she quickly retreated, sticking her tongue out and a “Ugh!”.
In the garden, the children have been loving playing in the den in the treehouse. Arlo T said “Look! We hiding up here!” while pulling the blanket down to conceal the children’s hiding spot. Blair giggled and held up the story she was reading, “Look Arlo!” and patted the space next to her for him to join her. Ava and Rafe took this time in the den to do some quiet drawings with their clipboards and pencils. On the other side of the garden, Joseph and Monty were building with the large blocks. Joseph began stacking the smaller blocks and Monty added the larger ones while saying “So heavy! Ugh!” followed by “So strong!”.
Over the last couple of weeks, the under two’s have been busy exploring a variety of cooked foods to stimulate their senses. They have particularly enjoyed engaging themselves in pasta play and mixing together some ingredients. By doing so, they have been able to get to grips with what foods, smell, look and feel like. The children were given their own portion of flour, along with spoons and a bowl, allowing them to investigate the flour. Margot got stuck straight in by picking up both spoons and banging them together excitedly, whilst Cora took a more laid back approach and took in what everybody else did first. To further explore, water was added to the flour and the little ones mixed it all in. Billy picked up the bowl, turned it upside down and dipped it in the mix and watched as it dropped off onto the table with a huge smile on his face!
When on a walk around the nursery grounds, they were very excited when they came across a big, green tractor. Matilde pointed and said, “Wow!” as they went went by and waved bye bye to the tractor as the walk continued. In the garden, the children have been so keen to explore the natural resources set out. A tray included leaves, bark, small and large pieces of wood in different shapes, and small toy creatures including spiders, ants and other insects hidden at the bottom. Sebby approached, sat next to the tray and picked up a piece of wood. He held it right up in the air with a very pleased look on his face. Leo dug a bit deeper into the tray and came across some toy ants. He looked over at his friend in excitement as they had found a spider!
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.
