Bocketts Farm Trip!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been very excited on the build up to their trip to Bocketts Farm. The children have been taking part in many activities including engaging in imaginative play whilst playing with a farm animal set up. Ollie collected as many wooden blocks as he could possibly carry from one side of the garden to the other and started to build a little den for the animals. Tilly was intrigued and asked Ollie, “What are you making now Ollie?” To which Ollie went on to explain, “I have already made some houses for the horses but these animals need shelter from the hot sunshine, so I need to make a den to keep them safe”. This very quickly gained the attention of many others who all worked together to help make various home for different types of farm animals.

The children have also enjoyed a matching animal game where they were pairing the offspring to the adults. India found the piglet picture and instantly placed it with the pig, whilst Cora correctly identified that the kid was to match with the goat. When the children were satisfied that all of the animals were correctly together, they then enjoyed a phonics session, learning the first letter of all of the animals. When learning that a babies horse was called a foal and pronouncing the sound ‘F’, Francis excitedly called out, “F is for my name and Freddie and Finley!”.

On the day of the farm trip, the children were so excited about the whole day, but mostly about the tractor ride. As soon as the fun adventures of the coach were over, with many songs sung on the way, we arrived at the farm and the children were keen to see where we were going to have lunch. Gabriel straight away asked, “Is it lunch time now?” Which made his friends laugh. The tractor ride was lots of fun for the children, all of them looking around almost in amazement at everything could see around them. When getting to the pigs and piglets, Joseph said to Joshua, “They are so cute and small aren’t they!”. Jasper and Margot loved feeding the goats their animal food and each time the goat licked their hands to get the food, they were giggling away. Sienna was amazed by the baby goats, smiling at them each time they did something funny. The coach journey home was much quieter after a busy, fun packed day, with many children taking a short nap before getting back to nursery and discussing their favourite parts of the day with each other during afternoon tea.

Wet Play & Exploring Smells in the Garden!

The toddlers have been looking at the theme of ‘light and dark’ recently where they explored light play with torches and light up toys, as well as light and dark colours. The children had a range of coloured paint on the table, along with some white and black paint, brushes and plenty of paper. Maddie used her brush to swirl through all of the colours, excitedly point to her creation with her brush, “Mixing”. Elizabeth giggled at this and with a brush in each hand began splatting the different colours, as she noticed them mixing together she pointed to a large spread of paint, “It’s big pink!”. Lucy scooped up a big blob of paint and dropped it in front of her and began mixing in white and black and with a big smile commented, “It’s colours!”.

The toddlers went on a tour of the back of the garden, along the windy pathway and looking into each of the bird houses, bug hotels, habitat crates and planters. As a group of them stopped at one of the vegetable planters Tabitha leaned over for a closer look and saw something crawling beside her, she shouted “SPIDER!” while pointing to signal to her friends where it was. Sebastian replied, “Woah it is a spider…. it’s alright, I like spiders”. Clara pointed to a tomato plant at the back of the planter and asked, “What’s that?”, Jenson leaned in close and tilted his head to the side, looking at it from all angles before stating, “It’s a tree”. Further along the trail, the children pointed out the pictures of a ladybird, worm, snail and slug before ending up at the herb garden. Immediately knowing what to do Skandar, Theo and Evelyn leaned in close and took a deep breath in through their nose. Phoebe joined them and said, “I want to smell it!” as she reached her hand towards a mint leaf. She gently rubbed the leaf between her fingers before letting go and bringing her hand up to her nose to smell, “Mmm it smells yummy!”.

Over the last couple of weeks, the under 2’s have been exploring the pipe wall in the garden with a range of items including balls, water, and cars! Freya approached and picked up one of the balls, whilst Zavier observed for a short while before also approaching and letting out a little ‘Ooo’ as he curiously watched to see what would happen. Freya stretched up and dropped the ball at the top of the pipes, clapping her hands and watching intently as it began to roll down the tubes. When the ball reached a point where it got stuck, Freya gasped and nudged it forward to get it moving along the pipes again. 

The under 2’s have also loved splashing around in the water to cool off as the weather has warmed up! Lyra ran over and jumped straight in, shouting ‘Splash!’ as she did so, whilst Lydia who was already in the water giggled along with her. Calvin ran over to join in with the fun, laughing as he scooped up a handful of water and sprinkled it over his friends, which made them all laugh. Whilst out exploring the grounds, the under 2’s were very excited to see the ducks come out of the river heading towards them. Lowen clapped excitedly, and began to shout ‘Quack quack’ as they began to enjoy the duck food. Isabella let out a quiet ‘wow’ and then clapped her hands with a big smile on her face. 

Exploring Computers, Making Art & Finding Ducks!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been engaged in lots of ICT role play since developing their ICT area within the preschool room. Freddie and Isabelle sat opposite each other, both pretending to type at their keyboards. Freddie looked around his screen to see Isabelle and started to laugh, before asking, “Are you busy doing your work too?” Isabelle giggled and responded, “Nooo, I don’t do work, silly, I’m just a child, I’m finding my name!”. Isabelle was able to identify lots of the letters from her name when looking at the keyboard. Cooper approached to see what his friends were doing and instantly spotted the numbers at the top of the keyboard and excitedly called out, “That’s 3, for me and there’s my C, C for Cooper”, whilst correctly pointing at the letter c.

The children have also been getting creative and using a variety of materials to help make some wonderful creations to display on the preschool display boards. Some children chose to make a 3d patchwork elephant for the Elmer display, whilst others chose the foam to make some bee pictures to develop the summer board. Arlo particularly enjoyed an observational sunflower painting. He was looking at the colours within the picture and carefully selecting the colours he would like to use for his artwork.

Whilst exploring the nursery grounds, Gabriel had seen some ducks swimming and got the attention of Joseph and Francis, “Look, the ducks are swimming, can you see their feet in the water?”. The boys all started to laugh together and tried to copy the ducks leg motions. Tilly looked to see what they were doing and said, “But you’re not a duck, you’re a human and we swim like this”. She started to show her legs and arm motion which made everyone laugh.

Father's Day Tea Party!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been very excited on the build up to the Father’s Day tea party. The children decorated a mug for their dads and made a card. Whilst decorating his mug, Otto asked his friends, “Do you remember when it was a special day for our mummies and we made a flower for them?” Phoebe said, “Oh yes, I remember! That was so beautiful too!”. On the day of the tea party, the children were very excited to make a blueberry muffin for their dads. Esmé said, “My daddy loves cakes so I think he will like this one”. Santi cheekily laughed, “I’m going to eat my daddies one!”. When the fathers turned up to nursery, the children couldn’t wait to show them around to their favourite parts of the garden they would like to play and were giving their daddies tours of the nursery garden. The children were eager to show their dads what they had made for them, especially to give their muffin.

The toddlers were so excited for their daddies to come and play, and to have a tea party! Emily shouted “My daddy coming for party!” and  to which Jenson responded, “Yeah! We having a party!” followed by a fist pump and a “Woo!”. As the food was being set up, Cara gasped, understanding that it was nearly time for the daddies to arrive. She excitedly announced, “My daddy, my daddy, MY DADDY!” getting increasingly loud and expressive. Once the Dads started arriving, there were lots of squeals and jolly faces and, after giving their Dads the tour and settling into play, everyone was so happy. Zachary, along with his brother Ethan enjoyed lots of stories with their Daddy in the book corner. While playing in the sand, Leo giggled with glee each time his Daddy pretended to feed him some sand, holding a spoon towards him and saying, “Come on eat it”, causing them both to laugh. Henry took his place in goal and played a game of football with his Daddy, running and diving to try and save the ball. Even a couple of the Dads played football between them! Halle and her dad did laps around the garden, chasing each other round the climbing frames and tables.

The under 2’s loved welcoming their daddies to the nursery for the Father’s Day tea! Isabella quickly sat down with her plate of food and showed her daddy each sandwich and snack she had to eat, before munching away on them! Lydia proudly showed her daddy both the small and big gardens, leading him over to the footballs where she was picking them up and then kicking them across the grass! Just before Lyra’s daddy turned up, she was running around the garden shouting “My daddy, my daddy!”, whilst waiting very patiently. After all the daddy’s turned up, the under 2’s all proudly showed off their room and where to find the toys, as well as exploring the rest of the rooms and the garden!

Exploring the Ocean & Feeding Animals!

Over the last couple of weeks, the toddlers have been exploring ‘under the sea’ as one of their themes, where they have been able to make their own sea creatures and investigate what lives at the bottom of the ocean. They enjoyed exploring a foamy sea themed water tray, with the foam perfectly hiding the sea creatures underneath. When asked to see what they could find, Emily dove both hands and retrieved them, holding up what she found, excitedly commenting, “It’s a crab, a crab!”, Halle pulled out a tiger shark and began singing a low tune of “duh nun, duh nun, duh nun” as she slowly wiggled it in front of her as if it was swimming. Phoebe found a shell and held it up to her ear and gasped, “I can her the ocean”, she then held it out to show her friends and Leo reached for it holding it to his ear and saying, “Hello!”, as if he was on the phone. 

Outside, the perfectly rainy weather has only added to the theme and the children have loved searching the puddles for animals they learned about earlier in the week. Sebastian squealed while pointing, which was followed by a shout, “I SEE A JELLYFISH!” as he squatted down over a small puddle. Clara giggled at this and put both hands into the shallow water, “Tickle him! Tickle, tickle!” which caused a chorus of laughs and lots of attempts as splashing in the small puddle. Jenson picked up a seal lion to bring over to the puddle and announced its entrance, “Sea lion RAAWWR!” before bringing it down with an almighty splash!

Over the past two weeks, the children Under 2s have actively participated in lots of imaginative play. At a table where flour was used as a play material alongside toy animals, Lowen approached the table, uttering, "Wow!" as he showed clear intrigue with the setup. He picked up a couple of animals just as Freya approached. Picking up a sheep, she caught Lowen's attention, pointed the sheep's nose down to the table, and made a "Nom, nom, nom!" sound, imitating the sheep eating the flour. Following Freya's example, Lowen, Emilia, and Wilfred all began "feeding" their animals and giggled together amongst lots more “Nom, nom, nom!” sounds. 

The children were also very enthusiastic on the daily walks, during which they were able to play with toys they selected to bring and snacks. On one such day, the children selected hoops and footballs. After arriving at the field and having finished their snack, Isabella and Calvin raced to grab a hoop. Isabella placed a hoop over her head and laughed as it fell to the ground, leaving her standing inside it. As Calvin watched her, he pointed and expressed his desire to try. With a little assistance, Calvin managed to place the hoop on his head and let it fall. The children also enjoyed rolling the hoops across the field, watching them roll away or towards their friends.