Planting Vegetables & Egg Hunts!
Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been closely observing the changes to the garden and the nursery grounds now that spring has arrived. Whilst observing the bug house in the garden nature area, Margot had noticed that another tree had grown its flower buds. Calling Ellie over to have a look, she gently held the bud in her hand and said to Ellie, “This one is so pretty, I love flowers”. They went on to take a closer look at all of the trees around the garden, gathering friends along the way to see which other trees had started to bloom. Ollie saw a butterfly on one of the leaves and asked Tilly, “Do you think the butterfly has come back to see us?”. Quickly noticing Tilly was a little confused, he reminded her, “The butterflies that we had in pre school!”. Tilly smiled and said, “Oh yeah, it is pre school butterfly”. Some of the other children enjoyed getting creative at an observational drawing of daffodils activity. Whilst coming to the end of her drawing, Isla let out a little smile whilst looking at the picture she had created. She was showing it to Ethan explaining, “This is the bit where there is a beautiful flower and this is the bit that grows”.
The children have also been busy helping to start the vegetable growing process in the vegetable patches. Francis couldn’t wait to get his hands in to the mud, choosing to use his fingers to make space for the seeds, whilst Isabelle carefully used a small spade to make holes to plant her seeds in. After planting a few seeds, the watering fun started and the children helped to fill up some watering cans and went on to ensure all of the soil had been watered.
As it’s the lead up to Easter, the children had a great time helping each other on a number and letter egg hunt around the garden. Before the hunt, the children were identifying the letter that was at the beginning of or within their names and when on the hunt, were challenged to find these letters. Cooper very quickly found the C egg hidden in the sand pit and Harry found the H egg within the nature area. After the children had collected their letter eggs, they worked as a team, to do a number egg hunt, praising and clapping each other each time they found a new egg.
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!
