Spring Nature Walks & Exploring Colours!
The toddlers went for such a lovely nature walk around the Imber court grounds one afternoon. After packing their explorer bags with paper, clipboards, crayons, paintbrushes and water colour paints, the children set off, hand in hand excited to see what awaited them. The first thing that caught their eye was the big willow tree! They were very interested in the long dangly branches and both reached out to grab them with both hands, giggling as the wind blew them away slightly and they had to chase after them a little. Emily was more interested in the tree trunk and wrapped her arms around it in a big cuddle with a little ‘Ahhh’. This then led on to the children doing some bark rubbing by holding their piece of paper against the tree and rubbing a crayon across it. Evelyn laughed and said “It’s all bumpy” as she moved her hand up and down over the ridges. After this, the toddlers made their way to the field, meandering along the path and taking in the sights along the way, Jenson shouted “Ah, aeroplane!” while pointing to the sky to direct his friends on where to look. This then echoed a chorus of ‘wow’s, ‘aeroplane’s and smiles. For the next stop the toddlers decided on a bench to sit on and retrieved their paint brushes and helped to gather some soil to paint with. Skandar pulled out a big piece of card to paint on and began banging his soil covered brush all over it, causing little bits to fly all around with him, causing lots of laughs. Madeline was more interested in the watercolour painting and very intently painted her paper with lots of colours, pausing every few seconds to say either “Wow” or “look” while moving her hand in circles to show off her whole painting. As the children were sat on the grass painting a few birds flew over and Evelyn commented “It’s a parrot”!
Over the last couple of weeks, the under 2’s have loved getting out and enjoying the weather as it is starting to get warmer and sunnier! The children have taken the opportunity to spend as much time as possible out in the garden and also out on walks and on the field. Whilst out on the fields, the children have loved playing with a range of balls that were brought along, and Lowen happily shouted “Ball!” as he saw them getting pulled out of the buggies. Calvin ran straight towards his favourite orange ball, scooped it up and took it towards the goal. He looked around to make sure his friends were watching, before throwing the ball into the goal. Lydia watched on and clapped her hands to congratulate Calvin for scoring such a great goal!
Whilst inside and in the garden, the children have been taking part in lots of bright and colourful activities involving rice scooping and pouring and tissue paper play. Zakariya fully engaged himself in the tissue paper activity by opening up each piece of scrunched paper and shouting it’s colour. “Blue! Pink! Orange!”, he announced in excitement. This made his friends giggle and so Zakariya got louder and louder, until Isabella and Freya began copying the words Zakariya was using. Together they identified the colours blue, orange and pink and all gave it their best shot at saying the words.
Mother's Day Tea Party!
The preschool children have been very excited on the build up to our annual Mother’s Day Tea Party event and have been busy preparing gifts and cards to give to their mummies! After Francis had finished decorating his plant pot, he picked it up, held it in front of him, let out a little smile and said, “My mummy will like this I think”. Cooper and Isla were eager to get their cards on the drying rack, ready to give to their mums, whilst Marlow loved getting his hands deep in to the compost to fill up the pot with some flower seeds. Otto was so excited to see the bunting be put up in preschool and asked, “Does that mean the party is today?”. This followed by a great big smile and clap when the answer was a yes. He couldn’t wait to get back outside to the garden to tell his friends it was party day.
As usual, the children love to show their parents where their favourite place to play is, and they did just this when all the mums to started to arrive. Isla was so excited to finally be able to gift her mummy a card, a present and even a cupcake that the children had made that morning. Some of the other children ventured straight to the garden to show their mummies around and some of them got stuck straight in to the sandwiches and sat together around the tables, with lots of happy conversations going ahead.
The toddlers were so excited in the lead up to the tea party, with lots of chatter about their mummies coming to play! Sebastian commented, “My mummy’s coming and we going to play in toddlers…. And have sandwiches!”. As the Mums arrived the children’s faces were beaming and lots of excited cuddles were had. Just as Clara was tucking into a sandwich her mummy turned up; she quickly put it to the side for a big, big cuddle before taking her plate to eat with her in the garden! Henry showed his Mummy all around the toddler room, spending time reading stories together in the book corner and Henry showed off his favourite cat puppet, with a small, “Meow”. Sienna enjoyed showing her mummy the different areas of the garden, spending lots of time doing one of her favourite things, playing in the mud kitchen! Clara and Emily had only seen each other five minutes before their mum’s arrived but were so excited to be reunited by the sand pit with them present, and shouted each others names as they ran together for a big cuddle.
The Under 2’s loved welcoming their mummies to the nursery at the Mother’s Day Tea Party and were really keen to show off their room! As Zakariya’s mum arrived, he smiled happily and looked up with a beaming smile, excited at the chance to give her a tour around the garden and room! After Emilia turned up with her mum, she indicated that she would like to go over to the sandpit and proudly showed off how she plays in it to all the mothers around! Lowen, Lyra and Lydia all happily ventured out into the big garden to show off their football skills to their mums, and played really nicely together, proudly exhibiting their excellent sharing skills!
Caterpillar Visitors & Weighing Scales!
Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been very excited to be able to track the life cycle of a butterfly. When the caterpillars arrived, Margot was eager to take a look at what they looked like, asking, “Are they spiky, or are they hairy and fluffy?”. When taking a closer look, Francis picked up one of the magnifying glasses and, after taking a close look, offered a turn to Margot and said, “If you look closely, their legs are so small!” and started to count them alongside his friends. Once the caterpillars were all placed safely in their individual pots, Ollie asked, “What is that brown stuff on the bottom?” Sadie correctly answered, “That’s their dinner, they can eat that when they are hungry”. Phoebe laughed and said, “Ewww, that wouldn’t taste nice!”.
The children were engaged in many activities throughout the week with the focus of caterpillars and butterflies including sculpting their own eggs, caterpillars, cocoons and butterflies using play dough. Gabriel rolled play dough out using his hand and when it was too long for his hand to control any more, he started to laugh and said, “It’s too tickly!”. He then showed his friends, “Look, I made a caterpillar”. Some of the preschool children also enjoyed making their own version of the story book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They each drew their favourite parts of the story and then gathered the pictures together to make their own version of the story.
Outside in the garden, the children have loved exploring the new weighing scales. Collecting sand to fill up the buckets, Otto and Sebastian lifted one each, Otto very quickly placing his back down and said, “I think this one is too heavy for me” to which Sebastian replied, “That’s ok, I can help you with my big muscles”. Working together to lift the bucket on to the end of one side of the scales, Ethan and Arlo lifted the other bucket and placed it on the other end. Leo quizzed them, “So which one do you think is the heaviest?” He praised the children when they selected the bucked that was closest to the floor. Freddie reassured them, “I know we are right because that one is lower down”. Harry quickly got to work collecting more sand for the lightest bucket and slowed down when he saw they were almost matching.
The toddlers have loved watching the caterpillars as they’ve been slowly growing over the last couple of weeks, especially now as they’ve started to make their way up onto the lid of their pots to cocoon themselves. The children have been learning all about how a caterpillar transitions into a butterfly by looking at the story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Sebastian joined in with nearly every word of the book, “He ate through four strawberries… was STILL HUNGRY!”. This made Tabitha laugh and repeat the word, “Strawberry”. Once the story was finished, the toddlers had a look at some of the caterpillars in their pots, Jenson patted his hands on his knees and said “Hands in lap”, showing that he was ready to look at the caterpillars and wasn’t going to touch them. Henry squealed as the caterpillars were brought closer to him and leaned in as close as he could with a beaming smile. Arlo pointed his finger at a particularly wiggly caterpillar and smiled, giving a little “Oh” as it gave a particularly big wiggle. The children are all so excited to see them turn into butterflies!
Over the last couple of weeks, the under 2’s have been full of excitement watching the caterpillars fill up their tummies and grow bigger and bigger each day! When the caterpillars first arrived, the children inspected the tiny little creatures. Sophia, Lydia and Calvin were the first to inspect and came for a very close look. Lydia pointed at the caterpillars and smiled as she looked around, intrigued by the wriggly creatures inside. Sophia also let out loads of giggles alongside Lydia, as she knelt down and looked closer into the jar. Her imagination sparked trying to see what could possibly be making all of those funny wriggly moves. Lowen and Calvin were spotted pointing in fascination at the tiny jars on the table, making lots of ‘Oooh!’ sounds, as this might’ve been the first time seeing such big, hungry caterpillars in person! While a little reluctant to investigate at first, Freya soon warmed up to the idea of the caterpillars, especially after seeing how interested Lowen and Calvin were. She showed everybody how brave she was by moving herself closer to the jars, admiring how amazing the caterpillars truly were. Zakariya showed everyone how excited he was to see caterpillars for the first time too, by saying ‘caterpillar’ while having a big smile beaming across his face.
