Exercise and helping others!
Over the last couple of weeks, the pre school children have been learning about their bodies including foods that are healthy for the body and all about the effects of exercising our bodies. The children have been taking part in yoga classes and doing their own yoga in smaller groups. Whilst out on a walk, Alfie suggested to his friends, “This is a good place to run, there is so much big space and we can do some fast running and exercising”. Getting ready on the start line, Tilly organised the line before asking, “Are you ready?” When the countdown started, the children all waited for go and started to run as fast as they could whilst really giggling and looking intently at each other as the competition was on. When they got to the end, Jasper fell to the floor and took a big gasp. As the children had been learning about heart rates after exercising, they all got going feeling each others chest to see how fast their heart was beating. Alfie then reminded his friends, “Now we need to take slower breaths to slow our hearts down”. After a little rest, roly polies took place which really made the children giggle.
The pre school children also welcomed their toddler friends to pre school over the last couple of weeks and have been helping to settle them in including helping the little ones to find their named drawers to put their art work away. Ollie asked a teacher, “What does Emmy’s name begin with?” When prompting Ollie to sound out the name, Ollie thought for a moment and excitedly called out “I know, E”. Ollie then very helpfully guided Emmy to her drawer for her to put her drawing away. At lunch time, Phoebe was very patiently helping Ethan to self serve his lunch. She explained to him, “First you need two scoops of rice and then two scoops of curry”. Once he had done this process, she guided him where to find the water jug and explained, “Just fill half of your cup so you don’t spill it and then use two hands”. The children have done a very good job at helping to settle the little ones in to their new room.
Story Sacks & Colourful Adventures!
The toddlers have been thoroughly enjoying looking at story sacks recently, in particular the ‘Gruffalo’ and ‘Night Monkey, Day Monkey’. When given the choice of all of the story sacks, Maximilian immediately shouted out “GRUFFALO!” and picked up the Gruffalo character from out of the bag. As the story began, each of the children held the character of their choice in their lap, with Maximilian holding up his Gruffalo again as it made an appearance in the story. Margaux looked through some of the other characters and began making animal sounds, with a “Twoooo” as she held up the owl and a “Ssssss” as she pointed to the snake, even repeating some of their names. The next story chosen was ‘Night Monkey, Day Monkey’ and this story sack was a little bit different, as the children were able to add each of the characters to a story board as they made an appearance. To start with, Sienna asked to put the first monkey character on and after carefully taking her time to place it on she leaned in, pressing her cheek against the monkey while saying “Cuddle”. Cora was up next and attached the bats with a proud smile, while Leo attached the ‘banana shaped moon’ with the comment “Banana in the sky!”.
Outside, the children have been loving the construction area and have enjoyed using the tools throughout the garden. Joseph packed up his tool box and took it to the sand pit where he grabbed a digger which he used to scoop up sand, “I building a house for my friends!”. Leo then began using a truck to do the same thing, digging a big hole to the bottom of the sand pit. Rafe and Arlo used the tools over at one of the tables to build aeroplanes, Arlo commented “I making a big big aeroplane like the one I flied in the sky” referencing paper airplanes he had played with earlier.
Over the last couple of weeks, the under twos have had a wonderful time exploring lots of bright and colourful activities and even learning some colours themselves. They have also been on a trip around the world, from the Arctic to the sunny desert, to see what animals they could find. Inside, the children took part in a sensory activity that included animals in shredded paper. The children took a huge interest right away and began to investigate the shredded paper. Leonardo began picking up huge handfuls of the paper and dropping it on his head, laughing with excitement, whilst Zachary sat himself down, right in the middle of the activity and played with the animals. Although the paper was I intended to be hay, the children began lifting handfuls of it and sprinkling it down onto the floor. Phoebe gasped and said, “Wow, snow!”. With that, she laid herself down, spread out her arms and legs and began making a ‘snow angel’. Her friends found this very funny and all joined in.
Whilst out and about on daily walks, the children have thoroughly enjoyed their trips around the Imber court grounds on their own little adventures, whether that be playing peekaboo in the play house of the playground or exploring nature in the fields. During one trip to the park, Sienna, Cara and Charlotte all head to the play house and ran inside. Each of them found a window, poked out their heads and began saying, “Hiya! Hiya! Hiya!”, as they waved their hands about. As they were saying a kind hello to everybody that walked by, Evelyn drove past in her Little Tikes car, “Beep, beep, beep!”, she said, as she waved back at her friends.
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.
