Building Houses!
Over the last couple of weeks, the pre-school children have really engaged themselves in imaginative construction play and have spent a lot of time playing in their new construction area where they have the opportunity to dress up as builders and have their own tool sets to aid their play and build on their imagination. One of their favourite tasks is fixing the tree house. Otto and Sebastian offered tools out to their friends, with Otto offering the drill to Oliver whilst Sebastian shared his saw. Otto gathered his friends, “Come on guys, we need to fix the tree house, it’s fallen down again!”. Together the children worked hard to hammer, drill, saw and even used the rulers to make sure everything was at the right height. After measuring up, Tom suggested, “Maybe it needs to be a bit taller? Or shorter?” Otto laughed and replied, “Definitely taller, it needs to be 100 taller”. Oliver giggled and replied, “That’s too tall for me!”.
Following up from this, the children have also enjoyed designing and building their own houses using the wooden blocks. Sophie and India gathered all the blocks that they would need and Flo got going by putting the bottom base down, telling her friends, “We need to make the bottom bit strong so it can hold the house together”. Sophie reassured Flo, “That’s a good idea!”. Once they had the base down, the children all worked very well together to build up and once satisfied the house was tall enough, it was time to put the roof on. Finley, Margot and Sadie helped each other unravel the blanket to cover to whole house. The children collected some cushions and stories and took it in turns to read to their friends.
Exploring New Tastes, the Ocean & Construction!
Over the last couple of weeks, the toddlers have been focused on the book of the month, Handa’s Surprise, whilst also exploring all things construction. Inside, the children have really enjoyed reading our book of the month and were very excited to try some of the fruits from the story during a food tasting session. Arlo chose the grapefruit to try first, putting it to his mouth and immediately scrunching up his nose, “It so sour!”. Max was really enjoying his grapefruit, letting out a big “MMMM!”. Meanwhile, Megan was carefully exploring her plate; she put the avocado in her mouth and took it straight back out again whilst sticking out her tongue. Ethan picked up a chunk of pineapple and put it in his mouth; with a big smile he said “It’s juicy!”. Henrietta agreed, licking the juice from her pineapple and repeating “Yum!” after each lick. Gabriel tried everything on his plate, commenting “I like avocado!”. Finley and Cooper were giggling, dipping their fingers into the passion fruit and putting in their mouths. Cooper shouted “Like it!”.
Outside, the toddlers did yoga on the decking with Sam. Rafe really enjoyed pretending to be a tree, swaying his arms back and forth with a big smile on his face. Arthur was able to copy all of the different poses even encouraging his friends to join in by shouting “Come on!” while Emily was very happy observing from the side with a smile. The children were each given a beautifully coloured scarf to use and Matilde copied Sam’s movements, scrunching it into a little ball then opening her hands and watching it open up like a beautiful flower. Matilde watched on with a look of amazement on her face before trying it for herself. Arlo decided to put his scarf on his head and while putting his hat back on and shouted “Look, I’m purple!”.
Over the last couple of weeks, the under two’s have been on an adventure under the sea, exploring everything it has to offer, from the sea life, to the amazing colours, textures and sounds. They have also been focusing on their book of the month, Handa’s Surprise. Inside, the children took part in a sea creature rescue mission by saving the sea animals from the blue netted material. Charlotte, Evelyn and Phoebe were the first ones to approach and began to investigate. Charlotte bent down and could see something beneath the blue net and gasped, “oh wow, crab!”. With that, she found the edge of the netting and began searching beneath to get to the crab. Whilst rescuing the crab, she discovered more creatures further underneath and encouraged her friends Evelyn and Phoebe to help her. She pointed under the netting towards the sea creatures and said, “Look, look!”, again pointing towards them. Eventually all of the sea creatures were saved by our very brave under twos!
Outside in the garden, the children have had so much fun in the warm weather, taking part in water play and building sand castles. One activity they all took a lot of interest in was our chalk board drawing and cleaning activity. Using the chalk to draw and the baby mops dipped in water to clean, the children had never ending fun, drawing on and cleaning the chalk board. Sienna walked over and began to draw whilst Leonardo approach and picked up the little mop. Leonardo was unsure what to do at first, so he plopped the mop back into the water. As he did this, the mop caught the chalk board, leaving very interesting marks which caught Leonardo’s attention. He pointed and said, “Oh wow!”. Leonardo dipped the mop in more water and moved it all around the chalk board in every motion he could come up with, creating such beautiful marks on the board.
Races & Games at Sports Day!
The children had such a good time at their sports day this week, joining in with many activities including running races, toss the bean bag, balancing games even challenging each other to a game of tennis! Sadie collected all of her friends together along the start line and explained to them all, “First you need to pick up a bean bag and then you need to choose a hoop, when I say go, you have to throw and aim for a hoop”. Checking that all of her friends understood the rules of the game, she counted down, “3, 2, 1, Go!”. Once the children were satisfied with their throwing skills, Alfie instigated a new game of “balance the bean bag on our heads race”. Alfie guided his friends with balancing a bean bag on top of their heads and then guided them to where the race would start. He went on to instruct his friends, “On your marks, get set, GO!”. The children found this race very amusing, Oliver, Tilly and Ollie went straight in for the run, finding it even more amusing that their bean bag fell straight off, whilst Olivia and Tom went in with a careful approach, taking small, slow steps, ensuring they made it to the finish line with the bean bag still on their heads. Well done all!
Whilst the races were going ahead, Isaac and Max challenged each other to a game of tennis at the makeshift tennis courts. They each picked up a bat and stood either side of the net. Isaac gave Max the go ahead for him to hit the ball first and laughed, telling him, “I bet I can get to the ball first”. Max giggled and challenged him back, “I bet you can’t”. Ada loved a game of football with her friends, insisting that she would save all of the balls from going in to the goal. After running side to side to save the balls, Ada sat on the mat with a big smile on her face and a drink of water in hand and said, “That was so much fun but now I need a drink!”.
To finish of the sports day activities, the children took part in races including skipping, running, side stepping and crawling races and all received their very own medal for taking part in all of the activities throughout the morning. The little ones couldn’t wait to show them to their families and even brought them back to nursery the following day to show each other again as they were still so proud of themselves!
