Nature explorers!
The pre school children have continued to explore the nursery grounds over the last couple of weeks, using individual nature explorer bags which give the children the opportunity to investigate and record all the things they find whilst out on a walk together. On one of the walks, Rowan suggested, “I know what we can look for today”, and very quickly realising that he had gained the attention of the other children, he excitedly suggested, “How about some real bugs and insects in the trees and bushes and grass?” His idea went down very well with the other children agreeing, “That’s a good idea” and some of them clapping and smiling. The children each took responsibility of their own bag which consisted of many things including a magnifying glass, some string and some writing tools.
As the children crossed the bridge, it didn’t take them long at all to find a spot to explore. Olivia encouraged her friends to sit with her, letting them know, “I know we will find some bugs here because they love the grass”. Sophie and Oliver set themselves up with their magnifying glasses, looking at the grass closely and when Oliver very quickly found an ant on the ground, Sophie put her hand on his back and said, “Yes, well done Oliver, you found one”, which made Oliver feel very proud. When moving along a little to find a new spot to explore, Caiden, Alfie, Finley and Lana found a comfortable spot on the grass and sat themselves down with their nature fact sheets. Whilst looking through the sheet of what they could possibly find whilst out and about, Finley was very quick to prompt his friends to tick the things they had already seen including a horse, some trees and some ducks. He then looked down the list and said, “Next we just need to find some sticks to make some more photo frames”.
In the warmer weather, the vegetables that the children helped to plant the seeds of, have rapidly grown and this hasn’t gone unnoticed. After a weekend away from nursery, Florence, Sadie and Madan were admiring the vegetable leaves with Madan gasping and running off to find Caiden to show him the vegetables. Sadie put her arms out to the side of her and laughed, telling her friends, “They are this big now, they are nearly as big as me”. Tom looked deeper down the stalk of the plants and noticed, “There’s something red at the bottom here like a tomato”. After a closer inspection, Tom was right, but it was radish that had started to be visible. The children couldn’t wait to investigate all of the plants and also discovered some sugar snap peas had started to grow.
Insect Walks & Under Sea Exploration!
The toddlers have been absolutely loving their Thursday sessions of interactive singing and story telling with the entertainer, Ellie. As soon as tidy up time is called and the children notice tables being moved to make space the excitement begins. Harry asked “Is the bubble lady coming?”, remembering the bubble machine from last time. Once Ellie arrived and began setting up, all of the toddlers gathered into the big space and with a little guidance sat in a perfect circle with their listening ears switched on. Once the ‘hellos’ began and the first song started to play, Rafe held up both index fingers and began swishing them from side to side, doing the sign for music. Henrietta smiled as she stomped her feet to the music and Ethan wiggled his head from side to side as he smiled happily. Arlo found it absolutely hilarious to shout along to the funny noises as they squeezed their toes, giggling away as he said “Boop Boop” and “Beep Beep”. Emily loved the musical instrument section and dived in straight away to gather some instruments to play. Once the shaking, tapping and banging had finished she helped to tidy them all away. The session was ended with a goodbye song and each child was given a ‘star’ on their hand for all of their participation.
The children were so excited to go for a walk, each with their own explorer bag containing a clipboard, pen, insect checklist, a magnifying glass and pair of binoculars. As they set off around the Imber Court grounds holding their little bags, Leo commented, “Got Leo’s bag.. got lots stuff in it” while holding it out for everyone to see. At the first stop the children all placed their bags on the floor to remove either their magnifying glass or binoculars to investigate some flowers. Arlo retrieved his magnifying glass and held it right up to his face, looked at the nearest member of staff and said “Oh hello Alice, nice to see you!” before redirecting his gaze into the sky and shouting “AEROPLANE!”. Maximilian then shouted “HELP!” as he struggled to pull his binoculars out of his bag in a rush to see the aeroplane, once assisted he held them up to one eye and commented, “LOOK!…Big one up there!”. Megan’s attention was elsewhere as she noticed a small grasshopper had jumped onto a staff members leg, after looking at it closely with Joseph they both squealed as it jumped back into the grass to hide. Joseph explained to Megan as she began searching the grass “Oh no it gone now, hiding in the grass.. bye bye hopper”. Ava pulled out her clipboard and pen which influenced the others to do the same. As she began drawing on her checklist along with her friends she paused, shouting “Ah!” and pointing to the spider picture “It’s a spider!” and Joseph reassured her “It not scary”.
In recent weeks the under twos have had an amazing time exploring the book of the month ‘Elmer’ and all things under the sea! One activity that the under twos were particularly interested in was the ‘under the sea’ sensory bags! Each bag was filled with a different sea related malleable material, such as string and water creating a look of seaweed! Charlotte was particularly intrigued by this one, pushing both hands and hard as she could into the bag, watching as the ‘seaweed’ wiggled and squished out of the way. She giggled as the green and blue string moved beneath her hands, and this caught the attention of some of the other children. Leo was curiously observing all of the sensory fun, whilst Cora had discovered the bag filled with blue water and oil, creating bubbles and ripples in the bag as she poked and prodded it. ‘Oooh’ she expressed, quickly followed by a clap! In the other two bags was green sand, and little toy fish, which Evie enjoyed chasing around the bag with her fingers! Later in the day these under water sensory bags were hung outside, to create a whole new way to explore them.
In the garden the children explored all things ‘Elmer’ by digging for elephants in the sand pit and then cleaning them with crazy foam. One of the most exciting Elmer themed activities was the rainbow pom pom chutes! Attached to the chalk board was a variety of tubes of different lengths and sizes, all aiming at different angles. The under twos practiced their pincer grasp, carefully choosing which pom pom they wanted to use. Margaux was a tad unsure at first as to what to do next but after a demonstration of how to post the pom poms down the chutes and collect them from the bottom, she excitedly took a handful of them and began quickly posting as many as she could! Cora and Sebastian followed suit and copied Margaux’s actions, all of them eagerly watching as the pom poms vanished from the top and miraculously shot out of the bottom. All of this fun quickly drew the gaze of the other children and soon there was a whole group of children excitedly laughing and babbling to one another as they played! During this activity the children were helped with attempting to say the colour names as they selected their pom pom, listening and repeating it back! Margaux repeating back “blue” as she investigated the texture of the pom pom, and Sebastian “white!”.
Father's Day Tea Party!
What a lovely turn out for the Father’s Day tea party. The preschool children were so excited for party day and, on the days leading up to the tea party, Sadie and Lana were on the count down. On Wednesday, Sadie reminded Lana, “Only one more day and then our daddies are coming to the party!”. When it was time for the daddies to come and play, Joshua suggested to Jasper, “Jasper, let’s go and play and our daddies will find us in the tree house!”. Sebastian and Otto saved themselves a space at the food table, leaving a space for both of their dads and whilst Sebastian served himself a sandwich and a cup cake, Otto got himself a plate and said to Sebastian, “I’m going to wait for my daddy and share my cake with him.” and that’s exactly what he did. Ollie was very excited to take his daddy to the baby room where his little sister Maddie has just started. He loved spending time playing with his little sister in her new room and was joined by a few more of the preschool children. Outside in the garden, some of the children really enjoyed showing their daddies where they like to play and really enjoyed getting involved with some car rolling using the blocks and some guttering.
The toddlers were so excited on the lead up to tea party and were overjoyed to finally see their daddies walking through the door on the afternoon of the party. Amongst their playing, the children had been decorating a beautiful mug and card to take home for Sunday. Emily was so careful whilst painting her mug, slowly sponging on the paint and looking for white spaces to fill with colour, while George went for the more excitable approach and dabbed on as much colour covering as much of the mug as he could. When the party started, Ethan took his Dad straight to the garden to explore before heading to the cafe set up in preschool room, in search of cake! Arlo and his Grandad had a wail of a time in the book corner, reading stories and laughing together as well as serving up “meals on wheels” by rolling a cupcake back and forth in a toy train which had both Arlo and Maximilian in fits of giggles! Inside, Cooper and his Dad role played in the home corner, making and drinking cups of tea together. Meanwhile outside, Santiago and his Dad weren’t put off by the rain as they did laps of the obstacle course whilst Joseph along with his Dad and sister explored baby garden.
Over the last week the under twos have been super busy in preparation for our Father’s Day tea party. The children have created such beautiful crafts that have been used to decorate the room and have painted their very own ‘Dad’ fridge magnet and ‘No.1 Dad’ awards. As the weather was lovely out, the under two’s decorated their dad awards outside in the garden. Margaux came marching straight over to begin her crafting and had attracted an audience of preschoolers. As they approached, Margaux said, “Hiya”, as she waved and showed them each of the items she stuck down. Leo said, “Wow” as he pointed and Sienna, “Nice” and leaned in to give Margaux a hug!
The children were so pleased to have so many Dads join the tea party on Thursday, excitedly waving and saying hello to everybody who arrived. Phoebe and Cara were busy showing their daddies all around the nursery, pointing to different areas like the garden, the sensory sleep room and their favourite toys! Meanwhile, Sebastian and Cora were hunting through the shredded paper to find pictures of their families. Cora was elated when she saw one of her and her parents, and held it in the air, shouting “Oooh!” showing it to the others. Freddie and Sienna also brought their dad to visit the baby room, showing off the nursery toys and leading him around the garden, especially enjoying getting messy in the sand pit, transporting the sand to the carts and pushing them around!
