Posting Letters & Finding Flowers!

Over the last few weeks, the toddlers have been looking at June’s book of the month, Dear Zoo, as well as looking at different sea creatures for ‘World Ocean Day’. During circle time one morning, the toddlers had a discussion about oceans, if they knew what an ocean is and what animals live in our oceans. When asked what lives in the ocean, there were shouts of “fish”, “octopus”, “starfish” and “SHARKS!” along with a few impressions of animals as they wiggled their arms like an octopus and placed their pointed hands on their head like a shark fin. The group then went on to learn about how we can help look after our oceans and the creatures that live there, one way is by making sure we put all of our rubbish in the bin. This then evolved into the children talking amongst each other and repeating what they had just learned, “Yeah we have to put our rubbish in the bin!”, “Yeah otherwise it will fly away and go in the stream”, “No because then it will go into the ocean with the fishes!.” 

Amongst other activities based on the story ‘Dear Zoo’, some of the toddlers wrote their own letters to the zoo, which they were then able to post in our nursery post box. Whilst writing their letters at the garden writing table, there were lots of conversations about their favourite animals, “I like an elephant”, “my favourite is the lion… RAAAWR!”. As their discussions continued, they began talking about their different experiences with animals at farms and zoos, “I saw a hippo the other weekend”, “I saw a shark in Egypt and a tiger in Japan”, “I saw a cow and pig at the farm with daddy”, “I saw cows in a meadow” and they evolved into telling their own stories, “I was in a cave with a wolf and then he was hiding from the most ginormous turtle in the world”. Once they had finished telling their stories the children all posted their letters into the post box.

Over the last couple of weeks, the under 2s have been doing lots of exploring of the Imber Court grounds whilst out on their daily walks. One day whilst the children were on a walk, they spotted some flowers, and when one child shouted “Flower!”, they all turned to look and investigate. A group of the children gathered around one of the flowers, and one of them said “Look, a purple flower!”. They then proceeded to smell the flowers and explore to see what other coloured flowers they could find.

In the garden the children have been exploring the new herbs planted in the herb garden. They wandered over to watch as the herbs were being planted and helped with watering them, using the watering cans with a bit of assistance. Once the herbs were planted and watered, the children began to lean in closer to investigate them through a combination of looking at them, feeling them, and smelling them. One of the children sniffed the mint before calling out to their friends “Look”, and beckoning them over. The children then moved around the herb garden, exploring each of the different herbs and kindly showing their friends the different smells they found. 

The children have also joined in with some activities to celebrate World Oceans Day. One of the activities the children joined in with was exploring some ocean animals in blue playdough, to see what different shapes and prints the animals made. One of the children picked up a whale and shouted “Whale!”, before attempting to create their best whale noise. A couple of the other children heard and began to copy, leading to a chorus of “Whale” and whale noises from them. The children then began to investigate what prints the animals left in the playdough, and seemed particularly intrigued by the octopus which left imprints of their suckers. They began to point at the print, saying “Wow!” or “Ooh…”, before reprinting the octopus marks across the playdough laid out round the table to show their friends. 

Exploring Streams, Pulleys and Thunderstorms!

Over the last couple of weeks, the preschool children have been very excited to play with the new pulley system apparatus. They very quickly worked out how to use it and have been working together to transport buckets of sand and wooden blocks to and fro using the turning wheel. A couple of the children waited at one end as another child turned the wheel and when the bucket of sand got halfway along, the children then swapped over, encouraging each other to be able to manoeuvre the bucket the whole way across. On a rainy day, the children set out some buckets underneath a water flow and once they were full with rain water, they were transporting the buckets to the sand pit on the pulley and using this water to wet the sand with one of the children suggesting, “Now we can make really good sandcastles!”. 

The children have been embracing the wet weather and even welcomed the thunderstorms throughout the week. The children situated themselves to look out through the open doors to the garden and watched as the lightning struck through the sky and eagerly waited, counting how long it took for the thunder to happen. When they got to just 2 seconds, one of the children informed everyone else, “That means that the storm is very close!”. Once the storm had passed, the children went straight out to play in the garden, with some children setting out some guttering to catch the falling rain that had collected on the sail and had placed buckets underneath to catch the water.

A group of children ventured off to the wilderness to observe pond life this week which has been a focus topic in preschool over the last couple of weeks. At group times, the children have been discussing things that live in ponds, rivers and the sea and also how important it is to dispose of rubbish and recycling correctly to protect our oceans ahead of world ocean day. Whilst in the wilderness, the children waded through the stream in their wet suits and wellies, collecting water and using magnifying glasses to investigate the water they had collected. They used nets to scoop up some small creatures that could be found in the water, carefully handling and examining them before gently releasing them back into the water.

Giant cable machine play!

Recently the toddlers celebrated World Bee Day when they explored what bees do and how they help us, as well as looking at pictures of bee hives and read stories all about bees! A few children explored the play dough set up which had a model of a what the inside of a bee hive looks like with the aim for the toddlers to make their own bees and hives. One child began pulling off small pieces of dough and said, “I’m making lots of little ones” before adding in a higher pitched voice, “They babies!” Meanwhile another child began rolling out a large amount of dough and stated “It’s a Daddy Bee!”. On another table some of toddlers were extracting pom pom ‘honey’ from egg carton bee hives using tweezers. A discussion started about honey and if they liked it, “I like honey I have it at home”, “My daddy has honey on his breakfast” while another child added, “Mmm it’s so nummy”.

Outside a group of children explored a very exciting new piece of equipment which they could use as a pulley for their sand buckets. One child wondered over and asked what it was before taking hold of the handle and moving it from side to side. As others approached they noticed the hook on the bottom and hooked on a bucket which gave them a little giggle of success after attempting for a few moments. This was then followed by some trial and error with the handle before they were able to fully rotate it which moved the hook from one end to the other. Some toddlers watched on laughing while others began asking, “Can I have a turn?” A couple children began getting scoops of sand and adding it to the bucket as it moved along the pulley with cheers of, “I did it” and “That’s a big one!” as they successfully got their scoops into the bucket. There were a few “Uh oh”s and “Oopsy daisy”s as some of the scoops missed the moving bucket which gave them another laugh. A few toddlers standing nearby then picked up the dustpans and brushes and very helpfully began sweeping the fallen sand from the floor and returning it to the sand pit.

Over the last couple of weeks the  Under Twos have continued to enjoy outdoor play in the garden and their adventures around the grounds. Whilst out on a daily walk, the children had just finished up with their picnic snack when a couple of children stood up and went over to one of the football goals. Others soon followed and chose to take along their small footballs with them. One of the children began to kick and throw their ball into the net, followed by clapping their hands and smiling which encouraged others to join in. Other children found the base post of the goal a rather comfortable seat and sat alongside friends as they watched the balls roll past them and into the net. In the garden the children have had a lot of water play activities to keep them cool in the hotter weather including water trays, builders trays with boats and pouring on the water wall. Whilst playing with the water wall the children were giggling and helping each other work out exactly what to do. One of the older children gave a great demonstration by lifting a cup of water and pouring it slowly into the top part of the wall, then pointing out the water as it flowed down the pipes. They would then say, “All done!” once the water had reached the very bottom of the wall. 

Inside the children have been developing their fine motor control by taking part in a lot of mark making activities. This particular day it was a drawing table with chunky pencils. A lot of the children were very eager to get started and helped set the table up, by placing the paper down and applying a piece of tape to the tops of the paper. They then helped choose some pencils from the tray and got stuck in. One of the children shouted, “Pink, pink!” as they began to colour and another child said “Circle” and pointed down at the circular marks they had made on the paper. Once that was said, the whole group of children began to say the colour crayon they were using.