Butterflies, Spring & Growing!
The preschool children have really enjoyed taking on the challenge of growing their own fruit and vegetables over the past couple of weeks. They’ve been helping to sow some seeds, water the vegetable patches and have been drawing their own pictures of various types of fruits and vegetables. Each morning, Ada has reminded her friends, “Remember we need to do some watering again today guys!”. Margot has taken a very keen interest in the strawberry hanging baskets and will make sure they are not missed out of the watering cycle. She told her friends, “Strawberries are my favourite, I like them on pancakes”. Daniel and Alfie have been making sure to show their friends the new herb patch outside in the garden, in particular loving the smell of the mint plants. Daniel rubbed his fingers along one of the leaves and seemed in surprise at how much he could smell the mint, calling his friends over, “This smells so lovely”. This piqued the interest of a lot of his friends, all of them investigating the individual smells of all of the new herbs!
Over the last couple of weeks the toddlers have really been delving into the theme of spring and making the most of the occasional sunny weather and everything that goes with it. In the garden Harry pointed to a recently bare tree with wide eyes, “It go more leaves and little things on it” while showing how little they were with his hands pressed really close together. Once Harry was informed they were blossom petals that will sometimes blow all around the garden in the wind, he rallied some friends to chase them, with a “Let’s go chase them!” while getting into his running pose.
The toddlers have been loving watching the process of the nursery caterpillars transitioning into butterflies and were so excited to watch them be released. Ethan was so ecstatic he couldn’t stay seated and shouted, “Butterflies coming out!” followed by a shout of excitement. As a butterfly was held out to show the children a lot of them leaned in with interest, and Rafe commented “Ooooo!” before placing his hands over his mouth to giggle. Gabriel asked, “I hold it?” and just as he placed a gentle finger out to see if the butterfly would crawl on his hand it flew away. Gabriel wasn’t disappointed at all and watch in wonder, “Wow!” as he followed the butterfly with his eyes. Blair squealed with delight at this and pointed in the butterflies direction “There, there!”.
Continuing on with making the most of the lovely weather the toddlers spent a beautiful sunny Friday dining alfresco. They joined together with preschool to have a picnic lunch of fish fingers, sweet potatoes and peas and following a nap, had a picnic snack on the field with the babies. Max and Arlo came across some ducks that approached the field to say hello. They both got into a squat position to be close to the ducks and Arlo reached a hand out and flicked his wrist, “Hello duck! Quack quack!” which made Max chuckle and, “Quack quack” too.
The children are all very excited for the arrival of chick eggs this week and cannot wait until they hatch and get to play with their new chick friends!
Over the last two weeks the under twos have been focussing on transport and learning all about mini beasts and the different homes they live in.
Inside, the children had lots of fun exploring boats made using the coracles (wooden sleep spaces) . Lottie came straight over and jumped into a boat and rocked back forth whilst we sang Row, Row, Row your Boat, that was until she rocked too hard and tipped backwards into the boat. This made Lottie and her friends laugh and encouraged more of the children to come and explore the boats. Set up around the boat were some sea creatures which Matilde really took a liking to. She sat down, directly in the middle of the boats and examined each sea creature she could find. She picked up the lobster and said, “Pinch pinch!” and “Crab!” as she imitated the pinching motion. Eventually, almost all of the children came and sat down together in the boats and together we had a lovely group sing song of Row, Row again.
Outside, the under twos have been out and about in the buggies, spotting all kinds of transport. On our walks, the children have spotted cars, bikes, planes and trains and even some boats on our walk to Hampton Court. During that walk, we came across and level crossing which caught Sebby’s eye. Sebby shouted, “Choo, Choo!”, as he pointed towards the tracks. Together we waited for a train to come along, we sang songs and waved ‘hello’ to the everybody on the train. In the garden, the under twos got to help out with releasing the butterflies they’ve been looking after. They have seen them right from the beginning as caterpillars, all the way through to becoming butterflies. After having a little look at each pretty butterfly, the children helped place them onto leaves and watched them flutter away.
People Who Help Us!
Following up from the fire engine visit to nursery, the pre school children have been learning all about ‘People who help us’. Some of these professions have included police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses and dentists. Some of the children really engaged an activity that gave them the opportunity to be a doctor, looking after the poorly baby dolls. Chloe wrapped one of the babies legs in a bandage and suggested to her friends, “This baby looks like the hospital dog doesn’t she? She has a poorly leg just the same”. Lana agreed, “Yes, you’re right, but she isn’t a dog, it’s a person”, which made everyone laugh. Daniel then informed his friends, “But if you are an animal, you have to go to the vets and if you’re a human you can go to the doctors or the hospital”. With the hospital dog story in mind, the conversation quickly went on to road safety and what should we do when crossing the road. Tom reminded everyone, “We should always look both ways”, which Ada followed up with, “We must always look and listen to make sure that it is safe”. When asked if the children knew what else they could do when crossing the road, Sophie very promptly said, “We should cross at the traffic lights and wait for the green man”.
The children also really loved to be firefighters in the garden, using the hose to put out some paint and chalk drawn fires. Once Isaac was satisfied that the fire had been put out, the fun then really started with the children aiming for each other with the hose. This triggered lots of laughter amongst the children. After reassuring each other that the fires had been put out and Sadie letting them know, “It’s not hot any more, we can touch the board”, the children went around the garden just to double check that there was no more danger of fire. Remembering a conversation from group time, Florence and Chloe were pretending that there was a cat stuck in a tree and that they were the firefighters, rescuing the cat. Florence called out, “Quick, we need to get a ladder but be careful not to hurt yourself”. Pretending to climb a ladder and stretch up to get the cat, Chloe praised Florence, “Well done, we did it, that was good teamwork”.
Woodland Walks & Muddy Animals!
Over the last few weeks, the toddlers have been learning all about the ‘healthy body, happy me’ campaign which has involved them learning about how to make the right choices for their bodies and each other. As part of this, the children have been talking about the needs of others and what they can do to help them. Whilst taking on the roles of doctors with the supplies from the home corner, Gabriel and Harry tended to a poorly dinosaur. As Harry thought on the diagnosis he put the stethoscope on his ears, held one end to the dinosaurs body and exclaimed, “He got poorly head!”. Gabriel then chimed in with “Cold compress” as his treatment plan whilst pulling out his own stethoscope. The boys then held the stethoscopes up to each other’s chests, listening to their heartbeats. Harry commented on this “It goes boom boom boom!” which made Gabriel smile.
The toddlers have also been working as a team on a multitude of activities, including collaborating with a handful preschoolers to fill a giant bucket with sand. Rafe grunted with each mound of sand he added to the bucket, really showing off his exertion! Hugo pointed and stood over the bucket whilst exclaiming, “Wow!” as he looked down on the slowly growing pile of sand. One morning, the toddlers went for a walk in the buggies to Esher woods in search of some large sticks, but instead came across a millipede. The journey started off with a challenge as they had to scale a fallen tree to get to their chosen area to hunt for sticks. Once they came across the millipede, it caused all sorts of excitement and squealing with Joseph doing just that before turning serious asking, “Ahh! What that!” with a frown. Arlo T and Arlo W stared with fascination as they watched the millipede crawl around the leaf, jumping back in sync with an, “Oh Oh!” as is crawled in their direction.
The under twos have been having lots of fun over the past two weeks getting involved with circle times, a great opportunity for the children to sit together and engage in a short group activity. ‘What’s in the bag?’ proved to be excellent fun, as the children were encouraged to sit on the carpet together and began with the special song. At first, the children were unsure of this new song, but soon Cora and Finley were copying the actions and tapping their legs to the beat! Inside the bag are a range of highly engaging sensory toys, that are not usually available during play, creating a sense of excitement and surprise when these new toys are pulled from the bag. The first toy to appear was a stretchy pop tube, cracking and popping as it’s pulled open. Margaux and Leo began to giggle at the loud noises the tube was making, reaching their hands out to touch it, but before they could it was squashed back down ready to go again. The under twos have been learning many non-verbal signs over the last few months and they were encouraged to use these to ask for ‘more’ or show us they were ‘all done’. Sebby quickly tapped his hands together, demonstrating that he wanted more of the stretchy tube, so pop and crack it went again as it was pulled open. Captivated by this new activity the under twos continued asking for ‘more’ and were introduced to a slinky spring, a hand spun fan, and a sloshy water toy!
In the outdoor environment, the under twos have been enjoying spending time exploring the new growing area, laden with flowers and herbs to entice their senses. They have also been having lots of fun in the mud kitchen, dressing in their waterproofs and getting stuck in with some muddy animals. Using lots of brushes, water and towels, the young farmers were encouraged to take their animal for a bath and scrub it until it was nice and clean! Matilde was the first to pick up a very mucky horse, taking it to the water and throwing it in with a splash, she quickly got to work dunking the horse into the water and washing away the soil! ‘All done’ she informed her friends, using her hands to show them the sign, and taking the clean horse out of the water. During this Leo was ensuring that the bath was worth it, covering his animal is as much mud as possible, pushing it deep into the soil and covering it over, before pulling it back out and admiring how dirty it was. Soon all of the children were having a splash around in the water, cleaning all of their mucky animals and enjoying watching the mud disappear!
