Science Experiments, Mud & Space!
Over the last couple of weeks the toddlers have been busy getting involved with some science experiments. One experiment that particularly captured their attention was dropping food colouring onto salt and watching it travel the length of the salt path.
Maximilian leaned in as close as possible, bending over the table to look in the tray, whispering, “Wooow” as he watched the salt be absorbed. Leo confidently picked up the pipette and began squeezing small drops of colour into the tray, commenting “Look that’s green... going over there!”. Arlo squeezed the pipettes with a grunt to get as much colour out as possible, swapping between using all of the colours. With a satisfied look, he commented “Look the colours all mixing, I did it, I really did it!”.
Outside, the children have been showing a real interest in insects they come across during play. They had been learning about different mini beasts throughout the week and began repeating what they had learned. When Arlo and Gabriel came across a spider in the treehouse Arlo squealed in delight and pointed, making sure Gabriel could see, before squatting down and using his hand to mimic a spider crawling on the floor. Gabriel reached his hand out towards the spider and said “Want to hold it” followed by “Ahh! it’s tickling!” as it crawled onto his fingers and up his arm. Harry approached at all the commotion and after watching for a couple of seconds asked, “Has he got lots of legs? Like a little peed?” referring to a millipede the children had looked at pictures of. Ava was so excited to find a ladybird in the garden and gave the biggest smile as she held out her hands to hold it, Henrietta watched with excitement all the while waiting patiently chanting “My turn, my turn!” while Blair repeated “My go!”.
Recently, the under twos have been on a space adventure! The children had the opportunity to explore planets, singing songs and get their hands busy with space painting fun!
Inside, the children were fascinated with the space wall, with hand drawn chalk planets on every window that they excitedly used sponges to wipe the planets away. Margaux was the first to take to the wall, with a sponge in hand she gently tapped it on the window, not quite sure of what to do next. Along came Charlotte to help, swiping through stars and planets, giggling as the chalk disappeared! This excitement drew more of the children in, and soon there was a whole crew of space explorers ready to help wipe all of the planets away. Charlotte began to sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’ as she continued exploring the planets, and soon the whole room had joined in, singing a range of space songs. Leo’s favourite being ‘Zoom, Zoom’ as he pointed his arms to the sky like a rocket ship! Later in the week, the children explored the textures of planets surface with bumpy bubble wrap. They used paint rollers and their hands to spread paint over the surface and pop the bubbles, creating mini craters to fill with paint. Sebastian particularly enjoyed spreading the paint with the big roller, watching the different colours mix together and then putting it down with a splat!
In the garden, they have enjoyed exploring the new hanging pots in the mud kitchen, discovering a wonderful array of tools within them. These colourful pots attracted the attention of Cora, who chose to access a wooden spoon, taking it from the pink basket and diving straight into the soil, scooping it into the bowl to make a mud cake! Finley quickly came over to investigate and within the orange pot he found a spoon of his own, together they got baking, adding bark and leaves to make a delicious nature dish. The other children soon got involved, with Margaux accessing the measuring spoons, while Leo got hold of the tongs and began transferring the soil from the tray to the frying pan, then offered it up to his friends. The under twos are very much enjoying their new mud kitchen space and being able to access the toys independently has given them a great opportunity for exploration!
Snails, Bird Nests & Building Houses!
Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have shown a particular interest in caring for the bugs and insects that have made their homes in the nature areas of the garden. The children have spent quite some time using magnifying glasses to aid them when finding some smaller insects. Luna has taken a particular interest in wanting to care for the snails and slugs and at snack time whilst she was eating her cucumber, Luna suggested to her friends, “I have a good idea, I think we should save some cucumber for the snails and slugs” and that’s exactly what they did! Placing a couple of portions of cucumber around where the snails and slugs were, Flo, Rowan, Daniel and Luna waited patiently and were very pleased with themselves when the snails made their way over. Daniel asked, “Do snails have teeth to eat cucumber?” Rowan promptly replied, “They do have lots of teeth but we can’t see them because they are so small”. Whilst quietly concentrating to observe what the snails were doing, a couple of children could hear very small tweets close by, followed by a small bird going in to one of the bird houses which led the children on to discover that there was in fact a birds nest in one of the bird houses! Upon discovering this, Sadie instantly checked that the bird feeder was full and was relieved to find that it was, letting her friends know, “That’s a good job, the birds won’t be hungry!”.
The preschool children engaged themselves in a mark making activity this week, some children choosing to use their fingers and others using paintbrushes. Sophie used her finger to drawer a ‘S’ in the tray and then attempted to copy this using her paintbrush. After a first attempt, Sophie looked at Finley and said, “It’s a little bit more tricky using a paintbrush”. Finley reassured Sophie, “It’s ok, try again, if you keep trying it will work!”. This is exactly what Sophie did and very quickly realised after just a few attempts that she was able to draw an ‘S’ with the brush. Sophie then went on to writing her whole name with the paintbrush with Finley praising her, “Well done, Sophie, I told you you can do it!”, both of them smiling at each other and Sophie returning the praise, “Finley, you did your name too” and gave him a clap.
Outside in the garden, a group of children worked together to make a house using the wooden blocks. At first Freddie collected some of the flat blocks and placed them on the floor. Alfie observed for a moment and then suggested to Freddie, “How about we use these ones, they are bigger and taller and will hold the house together better”. Freddie thought for a moment before agreeing, “Yeah, let’s do that”. Together they collected the biggest blocks from the pile and placed them in a square shape as the base of the house before building up. By this point, they had piqued the interest of quite a few of the other children, who were all keen to help out to make a house. Once they had worked very well together to build the walls, Isaac said, “Now we need a roof, but we need to find bits that are long enough to cover the walls!”. Working their way through the block pile, Isaac found the perfect ones, telling his friends, “These ones are perfect, they are just the right size”, whilst placing them on top to finish their house.
Exploring Insects, Flowers & Herbs!
Over the last couple of weeks the toddlers have been experiencing lots of seasonal changes with both the weather getting warmer, seeing plants and leaves brightening in colour, as well as getting the chance to see more insects in their everyday environment.
Whilst on a walk around the Imber Court grounds, the children led the way to a grassy area in search of flowers. Henrietta and Rafe went straight towards the daisies and plucked them from the ground, Rafe immediately held it up so show off his success of finding a flower, “Flower!” he exclaimed for all his friends to hear. This then attracted other children to the area, one of them being Blair, who came across a dandelion. With three big huffs and puffs, Blair blew all off the seeds off the stalk and squealed with delight as she watched them get carried by the breeze, pointing to show everyone. Megan thought this was a great idea and plucked a dandelion of her own, only to misjudge how close it was and accidentally suck the dandelion fluff into her mouth. Ooops! As the children were searching the area for more dandelions, Maximilian and Santiago wondered over to a fallen tree and both bent down to have a closer look. Santiago quickly leaned back with a shout and a point, “Ahh!”. They had stumbled across a trail of ants making their way into the cracks of the tree. Maximilian commented “Spider” but then corrected himself, “Ant” as a member of staff explained what insect they were looking at. This again intrigued the other children and they too all joined in to watch the ants, occasionally saying “Shhh” to each other so as not to scare them away.
The children have been loving planting with lots of soil and cress. As the theme of that week was gardening, the toddlers gathered their tools and pots, ready to replant some cress. Arthur and Gabriel got stuck straight in, both picking up a glove to put on before picking up their choice of gardening tool. Monty grabbed a tool belt and once that was on he selected a trowel and began scooping the soil and transferring it from the tray to the pot. Arlo picked up some cress and said “What that I going to put it in my pot” before filling his pot with soil and patting it down with his gloved hand.
Over the last couple of weeks, the under two’s have really shown their love of the outside, enjoying the sunshine and exploring our brand new herb garden. This includes, rosemary, thyme, lemon variegated thyme and curry plant. Whilst looking at some of the very beautiful plants, the children have been testing their sense of smell. Finley picked up a piece of rosemary and showed an adult. Finley was asked, “What does it smell like Finley?”. Finley put the rosemary carefully to his nose and said, “Mmmm nice”. Finley and his friends continued to pick small pieces of each herb in order to see what each of them smelt like.
Inside, the under two’s particularly enjoyed an activity related to our book of the month, ‘Dear Zoo’. The activity involved discovering the zoo animals, hidden by pieces of paper. Leo approached this activity straight away and really showed off his love of animals by being able to name almost every one. Leo would lift up each ‘door’ to reveal the animal and say either the name of the animal or the sound. Phoebe wanted to see what was going on, so pulled herself up from the floor and stood next to her friends. After watching and working out what to do, she began searching for animals. Sienna then approached the activity after seeing how much fun her friends were having and began lifting the doors to see what animals she could find. When finding the lion, she gasped and said, “Rahhh!”, as loud as she could, making her friends giggle.
