Planting & Harvesting Vegetables!
Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been helping to sow some winter vegetable seeds such as onions, garlic and spring onions into the vegetable patch. Freddie, Amelie, Esmé and Isabelle were very eager to help out, asking each time a new seed was ready to be planted, “Where do these seeds need to go?” After watching a teacher use just one finger to make a line for the seeds to go in, Esmé did just the same a few centimetres over and Freddie, Isabelle and Amelie followed the same process. Once all the seeds were in place, the most fun part for the children was to get their hands as messy as they could whilst burying the seeds with the over flowing soil. Each morning the children have gone to the garden, they haven’t forgotten to water the vegetable patch and after a lot of rain, Otto suggested, “Maybe the rain water will feed our vegetables instead?”
The children also helped picking the vegetables such as tomatoes and a large marrow that they had grown over the summer. They all had turns in holding the marrow and feeling the texture. River took hold of it when it was his turn and laughed saying, “Its very heavy but I have got big muscles so it’s ok for me”. Passing it on to Izzy, she very quickly pushed it along and said, “It feels a bit funny to me”. Once the children had finished looking at the marrow, India used the measuring tape and told her friends, “It’s 11 long”. The children then enjoyed taking it to the mud kitchen, chopping it and using it to cook a “Marrow Pie”.
The letter of the week was W and the children loved engaging in a letter hunt game inside preschool and outside in the garden where they were finding hidden letters and words beginning with W. Watering can was one of the hidden words and when Sebastian found it, he recognised the letter W and ran straight over to a teacher to ask what the word said. He then moved straight on to the gardening area and was showing Joshua and Jasper he had found the word watering can and paired it with the actual watering can.
Horses and Rhymes!
Over the last week the toddlers have been busy exploring the theme of nursery rhymes, which has involved making music in a variety of ways, getting very creative with activities and of course lots of singing! Whilst exploring the play dough table Matilde, placed individual lolly and match sticks upright into her dough and began serenading her friends at the table with a rendition of one of her favourite songs ‘Happy birthday’. This then led to all of the children wanting a turn of having their name in the song and a good five minutes of singing happy birthday to everybody. In the garden Phoebe crawled over to a large pot and began banging on it with a spade, Sienna, Margaux and Evie all approached too, sitting next to other pots and pans collected from the mud kitchen and began joining in with the instrumental, all tapping at their pots with giggles and smiles and the occasional wiggle to the beat.
One morning the toddlers went for a lovely peaceful walk around the Imber Court grounds, stopping off to say hello to one of the horses. The children were completely enamoured and all watched intently as the horse slowly approached the fence and nodded its head a few times, as if greeting them all. As the children watched on a member of staff put some grass on the fence to see if the horse would take some, which it did! This set of a few excited laughs and squeals followed by a couple of neighs from Imogen. The toddlers were so content watching the horse and chatting about what they could see they didn’t want to move on! After eventually saying goodbye to the horse they carried on in search of a spot to sit and have snack, but came across a tractor instead. Finley immediately shouted “Tractor!” with a point in its direction, which caused some gasps and quick head turns to find it. As they got closer Eliza commented “wow” with a look of amazement on her face, followed by a burst of excitement in the form of a squeal. The toddlers finished up their walk with their morning snack and a run around on the field.
The under twos have been having lots of fun over the past two weeks learning about the five senses, A favourite theme throughout the week was exploring sound which involved lots of music, singing and discovering new noises and circle time was a key part in this. ‘What’s in the bag?’ proved to be excellent fun and the children were encouraged to sit on the carpet together as the activity began with the special song. At first the children were unsure of this new song, but soon Maddie and Zachary were copying the actions and tapping their legs to the beat! Inside the bag were a range of noise making toys and musical instruments which the children could reach in and pull out in. Skandar pulled out a tambourine and began shaking it around before placing it on the floor. Emily approached and knelt down next to the tambourine and used her hand to gently tap, tap, tap on top of it. Skandar looked over with joy as he had found out a whole new sound could come from this instrument and quickly joined in.
In the outdoor environment, the under twos have been enjoying spending time exploring the grounds, laden with flowers and sights to entice their senses. They have also been having lots of fun in the mud kitchen, dressing in their waterproofs and getting stuck in with some soil sensory play. The children were able to explore different textures within the wet and dry soil and could use their imagination in how they chose to play with it. Lowen collected some of the sand pit toys, two different shaped castle moulds and a spade, and took them over to the mud kitchen. He began using the dry mud, which had a texture very similar to the sand, to fill the mould so when he went to tip out his castle, it didn’t hold its shape. “Ooo” said Jack who was watching nearby, as if to say ‘Oh no’ but with a little help, Lowen was able to use the wet mud to pop out a mud castle. Whilst all of this was happened in the mud kitchen, Henry stayed put in the sand pit, picking up handfuls of sand and enjoying the sensation it created when falling through his fingers.
Fun with Bubbles & Phonics!
Over the last couple of weeks, the Pre school children have continued to practise their literacy skills including taking part in small group phonics sessions. Some of the older pre schoolers have been on an adventure to find objects in the environment beginning with the letter of the week ‘U’. Joshua had noticed an umbrella on one of the children’s pegs and excitedly called Jasper over, “Look Jasper, it’s an umbrella, u, umbrella”. Jasper and Joshua were then repeatedly going through words beginning with U. This caught the attention of Margot who quickly joined in and they were calling out words such as up, under and umbrella. Some of the younger pre schoolers have also been very keen to learn about the letter and number of the week, particularly enjoying number songs with 3 little monkeys and 5,4,3,2,1 blast off. All of the pre schoolers have also enjoyed a number hunt using the wicker hanging numbers which have been dotted in different places each day.
Outside in the garden, the children really enjoyed ball and car rolling play using the blocks and guttering. Freddie was very keen to get this going, asking around the garden, “Who wants to help me make a tall tower for the balls?”. Freddie very quickly got Edward, Arlo, Ava and Phoebe all working together to make the ramps. Freddie explained to his friends, “First we need to make the tallest tower where the ball starts” and the children collected the blocks, placing the ramped block at the top. They moved on to the next tower, Freddie instructing, “This one needs be a bit shorter”. All the way until the towers went completely down in height. Sebastian and Otto came over at this point and collected the guttering to place on top before all enjoying rolling the balls and cars down, really laughing and counting down each time they let go of the ball or car.
