Our New Chicks!
What an exciting couple of weeks at nursery with the arrival of the chick eggs! The pre school children have been doing lots of chick themed activities, as well as learning about life cycles of frogs and continuing to observe the passing butterflies in the garden. A group of the pre school children participated in an activity where they had the opportunity to draw their own chicks and particularly enjoyed sticking on their feathers, before going off to hide their chicks around the garden for their friends to find at garden time. Rowan hid his chicks amongst some sand, telling his friends, “You will never be able to find my chick, he’s hidden too good!”. Whilst Ada chose to hide hers in the nature crates, telling her friends, “My chick is somewhere nice and cosy!”, giving them clues as to where they could find her chick.
Over the past week, the children have closely observed the chick eggs transform from being eggs safely placed in their warm incubator, to hatching and becoming, as Sadie called them, “Beautiful fluffy chicks!”. Whilst visiting the chicks still in their eggs, Daniel asked, “But when the chicks come out from their shell, what will they eat and drink?” Finley suggested to him, “I think they will drink water?”. Olivia followed up, “But will they eat the same food as us? Which made Alfie laugh and said, “No, of course not, they can’t eat pasta or chicken curry”, which made all of their friends laugh. When being showed the chicks food, Madan correctly pointed out, “That looks like the food that we feed the birds in the garden”.
Once six fluffy chicks hatched from their eggs, with some of the children being able to observe this happen, they couldn’t wait to be able to hold them. Each morning the first question often was, “Can we go and see the chicks?” The children were all so gentle whilst holding the chicks. Chloe reminded her friends on several occasions, “They only have very small bones so we have to be very careful, just like when I hold my baby at home!”. What a wonderful experience this has been for the children.
The under twos have loved meeting the chicks over the last two weeks! As eggs, the children got to see them in the incubator, waiting to come out! They sang songs like ‘Humpty Dumpty’ to learn about the eggs and watch out for cracks. Once the chicks had hatched, the under twos built a pen in the classroom for them to come and visit. All of the children sat excitedly waiting to see the fluffy chicks, and began giggling and clapping their hands together when the six chicks were placed in the pen. Sebby told his friends they were “Chickens” and flapped his arms at his sides! The under twos enjoyed singing “Old MacDonald” and “Chick chick chicken” whilst having the opportunity to hold the chicks carefully in their hands and stroke their feathers!
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”.
