Fresh Smells & Outside Adventures!

With the arrival of spring, the toddlers have been really enjoying the outside spaces! Many children have been making comments about the weather, “It’s a lovely sunny day”, “It’s so nice outside”, “The suns come out” and showing off their sun hats and sunglasses. As all of the plants around the garden have started to bloom and vegetables have began sprouting in the growing area, the toddlers have started to take notice and went on a tour of all of the new additions. A couple of children made their way to a small collection of beautiful white flowers and leaned in for a smell. One child mentioned that they liked the smell while another laughed as the flower tickled their nose. After a short period, they moved onto a planter which contained lots of herbs and plants with different smells. As the children leaned in for a smell, smiles bloomed on their faces as they took in the different aromas. After this they made their way to a different planter and began carefully feeling the different textures of the leaves, “This one’s soft”, “Ah this one’s tickling me!”. 

To go with the sunny weather, the home corner inside the toddler room was turned into an ice cream shop with cones, scoops and tissue paper ice cream for the children to serve! There were calls across the room of “WHO WANTS ICE CREAM?!” and lots of responses of “MEEE!”. As the children began scooping, serving and handing out ice creams, they had lots of discussions of their favourite flavours, “I like pink”, “I like the white one”. One of the children serving the ice cream reminded their friends to use their manners, “Say please and thank you… there you go!”.  As the commotion died down some of the toddlers serving began making ice creams for themselves, with one child stating, “Mmm… it’s so nummy!”.

Over the last couple of weeks in the Under Twos room the children have been eager to get outside as much as possible, whether that be in the garden or out and about on their daily walks, leading to the children spending a lot of their day outside taking part in activities or choosing to explore their surroundings. 

In the garden, the children chose to get some clay out by pointing at the bag. As the table was being set up, a small group of children made their way over, intrigued with what they saw. One child pointed at the clay and said, “Oh… play dough!” as they looked around at peers, almost as if to see their reactions too. Once a practitioner confirmed it was clay, the children were all able to repeat the word and applauded each other for doing so. Once the table was set up, some of the children ventured deeper into the garden to see what they could use with and add to the clay. Some children brought pine cones, others brought sticks and scoops. Together they stood around the table and explored the clay, how it felt and what marks different objects left within the clay. One of the children pushed their index finger into the middle of the clay block and said, “Uh oh! Hole!” and pointed it out to friends around them. Everyone at the table began to poke the clay, making as many holes as they possible could and giggling together as they showed off their marks. 

The exploration continued out and about on the daily nature walks, where the children took part in lots of hunting and gathering activities. During one morning walk, the children we able to explore and collect natural materials such as, grass, leaves, sticks and flowers. Once they’d collected their items, the children could stick down their findings onto sticky tape and make a little keepsake to take home. The children were very enthusiastic in gathering their items and would run back and forth, bringing the most exciting things to stick down. Some children were even able to name the things they had chosen such as ‘flower’, ‘stick’ and even ‘daisy’. 

The Great Hatch!

The last couple of weeks have been a very exciting time at nursery for the children with the arrival of 5 duckling eggs. On the build up to the ducklings coming to nursery, the preschool children have had many opportunities to engage in lots activities including learning about various life cycles and creating their own nests whilst engaging in imaginative play with natural resources collected from the nursery grounds. Once the duckling eggs arrived, the children were eager to take a look inside the cage and were intrigued when instantly they could see two little beaks poking out from two eggs which had already started to crack. The children were keen to learn all about what the incubator was for and why the ducklings needed the warmth from the heat pad, with one of the children explaining, “It’s just like using a blanket in our beds”. 

The children could not wait to get in to preschool each morning (and even some of their older siblings) to monitor how the ducklings were doing! Once all 5 eggs had hatched and the fluffy ducklings were ready to play, the children were so excited to hold, stroke and even watch the ducklings have a swim around the paddling pool. Groups of children spent many moments throughout the day, seemingly admiring the ducklings, smiling at them as they watched them cuddled together and sleeping. The children showed great kindness and care throughout the time the ducklings were at nursery, often reminding their friends to stroke gently and to use their quiet voices if the ducklings were trying to sleep. 

Our Duckling Visitors!

The toddlers were so very excited for the arrival of the duck eggs this week and even more exited to see one hatch out on the very same day they arrived! In the lead up to their arrival the children made their own pond pictures and crafted ducks with play dough, collage materials and lots of natural resources. They also got to enjoy the story ‘Farmer Duck’ at circle times, where they were able to investigate the story sack with lots of different ducks inside. A group in particular really seemed to enjoy a water activity with ducks, frogs, lily pads and bubble wrap frogspawn. A couple of children began moving their arms at a fast pace creating waves in the water, causing the ducks to move around on top of the water causing lots of giggles. As plenty of splashes ensued there were smiles and laughs as the some of the children began getting droplets of water all over each other. One child began balancing a duck on one of the floating lily pads, “Woah woah it’s going to fall off!”.

As the toddlers got to go and visit the ducklings while they were hatching there was excitement in the air and each child’s eyes lit up and they had cautious but excited little smiles on their faces as they approached. One child asked why the duck was still inside the incubator and once it was explained that we needed to wait for a friend to hatch out so he had some company she began telling her friends, “We need to wait for two ducks!” whilst holding up two fingers, “one more duck needs to hatch out!”. Another child kept looking from the duck that had hatched to the eggs that had cracks in before stating, “I like it!” with a big beaming smile. A group of children began getting louder with their excitement until a friend gently reminded them to not scare the ducks and held their finger to their lips saying, “Shh we need to be quiet!”.

The under 2s have been very excited to meet the ducklings this week at nursery and watch as the eggs begin to shake and crack, and see the ducklings coming out and fluffing up in the incubator. On their way to preschool to visit the ducklings, the Under 2s smiled and looked around showing their excitement brewing. A couple of the children were slightly hesitant when they first saw the ducklings, standing slightly back as they peered into the cage, but after a moment they carefully approached and began to point at them, curious as to what they saw. One of the ducklings opened its beak which made the children giggle. They overheard some of the preschoolers saying “It’s talking, it’s saying quack quack!”, to which the Under 2s began saying, “Quack, quack!”. They have also been able to join in with a duck themed circle time, where the children sang about Old Macdonald’s ducks on the farm, 5 little ducks, and reading through the book of the month ‘Farmer Duck’. 

Whilst out on the daily walks, the children have been on the hunt to find some ducks in the river which they can feed. Whilst walking in the buggies, the children excitedly shouted ‘Duck!’, and ‘Quack quack!’ as soon as they spotted a couple of them swimming along. When the ducks came onto the grass, one of the children excitedly exclaimed ‘Hello duck’ whilst waving, which led to a couple more children also waving to the ducks as they approached. Once the children were out of the buggies, they all peered curiously at the ducks, with a couple of them crouching down to inspect them closer. When one of the children shouted ‘Duck’, another turned quickly and let out a quiet ‘Shh’, before a group of them sat down and watched from a slight distance as the ducks tucked into their snacks that the children had thrown them.