Garden Explorers, Tea Parties & Tracking!

Recently the toddlers have been delving into role play and hosting many a tea party for themselves and their friends, as well as for the dolls. A few children approached a beautiful table set up with a table cloth, napkins, plates, bowls, cups, cutlery and food, and sat themselves on the surrounding cushions before taking on their hosting duties. When one of the children brought over an armful of dolls and placed them at each of the plates the other children began feeding them. There were lots of sounds of, “Num num num” and “Mmm!” as they began emulating eating noises whilst holding food up to the dolls mouths. After food time, it was nap time, and the dolls were lowered to the cushions and gently patted to sleep by the toddlers. The children have also loved their new cosy hiding nook with many of them pairing up to venture inside and hide behind the curtain with a story or a few toys. Two children took some dolls inside along with some of the doctor’s kits and made themselves comfortable, pulling out the thermometer and stethoscope, saying “We being doctors”. It’s also been an excellent place for some of the children to play peek-a-boo, as they hide behind the curtain and pop out with a roar, or peek through the small hole on the side and surprise their friends with a giggle! 

One of the sounds the toddlers have been looking at recently is the ‘T’ sound, with one of the activities that this led to was to search the Imber Court grounds for tracks in the grass. A group of children set off for the field and were amazed to find some rather large tracks, big enough to have puddles in! This triggered instant shouts and points of, “Tractor tractor!” as some of the children worked out what had left the large tracks, while another child suggested it was a “Little car”. After bending down and taking a closer look in the grooves and waving to their reflections in the small puddles, they began walking along the lengths of the grooves of the track, stepping through the squishy mud and splashing in the puddles. There were comments of “So squishy!” and “Squelchy!” as the children stepped through the track, as well as a few shouts of, “Stuck” or “Help!” as the occasional welly got stuck in the mud!

Over the last couple of weeks, the children in the under two’s room have been exploring their bigger home corner and it’s new additions. After breakfast one morning, a few children spotted some familiar faces in the home corner. Each child now has their own portrait, framed and up on the wall inside their own little home. A small group of children began to point and name the children in the photos, along with spotting their own photo. As they’re attached to the wall with Velcro, the children are able to take them down and examine them closer, as well as moving them around on the wall. The children have also been eager to take part in our daily messy activity, including making a gooey pancake batter using flour and water, as well as a chia seed slime using chia seeds mixed with water. A child spotted the chia seed slime in the tray from across the room and shouted, “Look!”, as they approached. This sparked the attention of the other children who also came over for a look. At first the children used the scoops and spoons to explore the slime, whilst others went straight in with their hands, feeling the interesting texture. A child looked at their friend and said, “Cold, cold!” as they pushed their hand down into the slime further. Once they had pulled their hand out, it was covered in chia seeds. They held their hand in the air to show everyone and said, “Wow! Monster!” and giggled waving their hands around. 

Whilst out and about, we have also noticed the children wanting to explore things further as their minds develop with curiosity. One morning, a few children showed signs of wanting to explore the toddler and preschool garden by pointing over the fence. Since it was a very quiet morning, the gates were opened and off they went into this big, exciting space. Excitement took over as they ran to see what they could find, some choosing the tree house and some heading straight over to the giant sand pit. The route to the tree house involves a path way through an archway covered in greenery, which must have seemed like a jungle for our little under twos! A few of the children began their journey through the jungle and made their way to the tree house, taking one step at a time and smiling with friends. As they got to the bottom of the tree house steps, they were given a helping hand up by a teacher and cheered together, smiling and waving from the top. To celebrate their huge achievement, the children took part in a circle time sing-along involving their favourite song, Hammer Hammer. 

Chinese New Year & Pancake Day!

The preschool children have had the opportunity to engage in many activities throughout the week to celebrate Chinese New Year. The children were admiring the Chinese New Year lanterns and dragon decorations when coming in to nursery and were very keen to paint many materials to help put together their own 3D dragon ready for the group dragon dance. The children have taken a large interest in the story ‘The Great River Race’ at group times, and have been very intrigued to find out which animal represented their year of birth. Some of the preschool children enjoyed a literacy activity, discussing and comparing how different the writing was for Happy New Year in English and in Chinese, with some children challenging themselves to copy the Chinese writing. In the home corner, a group of children enjoyed dressing up in traditional Chinese themed outfits as well as dressing up the dolls in the same clothes and sitting them at the table too, whilst others concentrated to use some chopsticks to attempt to pick up some noodles to aid their imaginative play. The children took part in food tasting at tea time, whilst listening to the calming effects of Chinese music playing in the background. 

The children have also been celebrating pancake day and as a part of the weekly cooking activity. A group of the children went on a visit to the local co-op to buy the pancake ingredients, before brining them back to the nursery for everyone to take part in a weighing activity and mixing the eggs in to the mix. The cracking of the eggs was very amusing for several children, laughing together at the anticipation of the eggs cracking. The children also enjoyed a play-dough pancake flipping game outside in the garden using small frying pans. They were so proud of themselves and each other each time they caught the pancake in the pan, cheering each other on as they took it in turns to watch each other. Another group of children chose to use the playdough in the mud kitchen, using the rolling pins to flatten out the dough and then collected some bark, mud and fallen leaves to decorate their pancakes with various toppings. 

Reading, Cooking & Exploring!

The toddlers have been looking at February’s book of the month, Owl Babies, where they not only read the story lots of times, but explored the story sack which contains different related props. A couple of the children carefully stroked the larger owl, while two other children huddled together with the three baby owls and spoke to them gently with a higher pitched tone, “Ahh… the little babies!” and carefully ran their fingers over their beaks and eyes. As we read the story together, some of the children showed lots of empathy through their ‘aww’ sounds when the babies were looking for the mummy owl, before let our a cheer when they were reunited at the end! The children then had the chance to try and act out the story as the props were added to a nature woodland scene. The owls were flown from a nest made of sticks and leaves to a tree stump, where the owls sat perched as some of the children began feeding them food from the home corner.

Whilst on a walk around the Imber Court grounds, the toddlers made their way to one of the fields where they ran as fast as their legs could carry them, circling the large area and twirling with their arms open wide. As they did this, a large flock of birds flew over, causing all of the children to pause and watch as they flew overhead. This then lead onto some of the children pretending to fly like a bird, flapping their arms by their sides as they moved around the grass. They then moved onto pretending to be owls like in the owl story and they began hooting and shouting “Twit-twoo!” as they ran. The toddlers ended their walk with a pit stop to splash in some puddles, give a quick hello to the ducks and horses and stop off for a snack on the picnic blanket and returning to nursery to tell their friends of their journey.

Over the last couple of weeks the Under Two’s have been showing a lot of interest in the home corner whether it be cooking, cleaning or playing with the dolls. One morning during free play, one of the children picked up the whole box of toy food and transported it over to the home corner kitchen. After placing it down, a few others took an interest and approached. They began taking out the food, one piece at a time and placed it onto the side. Another child reached under into the cupboard and took out some pots and pans. As the children looked around, a child said, “Cook, cook” as they pointed at the pans. They began placing food items into various pots and pans and continued chatting together saying, “Oh hot, blow, blow!”, as they stirred and cooked the delicious food together. The children were even able to begin learning some new words such as ‘stir’ ‘yum’ and ‘mix’. 

Outside in the garden, there has been a lot of exploration with new things such as the rolling wall. The children began by interacting with the wall how they usually would, which is rolling small colourful balls from top to bottom. As a small group of them did this, another child walked around the garden as if looking for something. He looked high and low and eventually came across a pine cone, picking up a few as he found them. He then walked back over to the rolling wall and set a pine cone rolling down from the top. As the pine cone rolled down, it wobbled about and half way down jumped over the edge. Everyone let out a little scream and a giggle as it made them jump and that was the new game from then on. Some children even continued to explore and find other objects that would roll down the wall differently to the balls.