A Visit to the Train Station!

Over the last couple of weeks, the toddlers have been learning about different types of transport. They have been exploring them through different means, one of which being through mark making. Whilst taking part in a car rolling activity, Harry dipped his car into the paint pot and began rolling it along the paper. He pointed at the tracks left behind, saying “I left lines on the paper like that cos it was going really fast!”. Ethan chose to have a car in each hand and rolled them over the same area so the lines overlapped, “Look that!” he exclaimed while tracing the marks left behind with his finger, laughing when realising he had covered his hands in paint. This then led to finger painting! Max joined in straight away and dipped his whole hands and in making hand prints on top of the tracks. 

A group of toddlers, along with some babies and preschoolers, went on a small journey to Esher station to see some trains. As they got snuggled into the buggies there was a buzz of excitement and lots of talk of “Choo choo trains!” continuing on as they started their adventure. Along the way, the toddlers saw plenty of cars and even more excitingly… buses! Blair shouted “Bus!” as one sped past with another passing a few minutes later causing Arlo to point and say “‘Nother bus! nother bus!”. Unfortunately, after reaching the station the toddlers saw that there were train cancellations, but not to worry, they then made the most of spotting other forms of transport. Joseph pointed to the sky and notified everyone “Aeroplane up there!”, leading everyone to look to the sky and watch it fly by. On the walk back to nursery gong through the golf course Emily was very excited to hear a ‘tweet tweet’ and gasped while pointing out to everyone the bird in the trees.

Over the last two weeks, the under twos have been exploring their taste buds and trying lots of new and different foods from around the world. Whilst celebrating Chinese New Year, the children had a delicious plate of noodles, egg fried rice, pineapple and even tried a small amount of lychee juice. Billy held the noodles in the air and said, “Hiya, haha!”. Later on in the week, we celebrated Shrove Tuesday and we all know what this means… Pancakes! The children were served freshly made pancakes with their choice of, fresh fruit, lemon and sauces. Margot dipped her finger into the strawberry sauce and smiled, then moving onto the lemon. She picked it up, put it to her mouth and pulled a very sour face whilst laughing with her friends. 

Outside, the under twos have been using nature to create marks. The children have helped collect mud, sticks, leaves and other resources and put them in our nature basket. Using the mud mixed with food colouring and the sticks and leaves as tools, the children created some fantastic marks on paper. Charlotte got some paint on her hand whilst dipping a leaf and said, “Uh oh!” whilst trying to brush it off, eventually choosing to create a hand print on her paper. Matilde decided to take it upon herself to make this a finger painting activity by placing her stick to one side and dipping in each finger. Each time she dipped, she looked at her hand and said, “Oh wow!”, turning it round to show her friends. After watching his friends, Finley bucked up the courage to join in and excitedly dipped both hands into the pots of muddy paint. 

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.

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.