Christmas at our place

December 2009 in Seahorses, Starfish and Dolphins

Well, it's Christmas eve and we have had a wonderful December of singing, celebrating, decorating, making, creating and..... SNOW! Even if Christmas day is not white for all of us, the last week or so has given us all lots of opportunity to play in some snow and raise the levels of excitement and Christmas feeling. In short, we have had a really good time.

Enjoy our picture gallery of some of the things we have been doing in December...

One of our Dolphins children stares at the Christmas tree in the snow. That big white blob in the sky is not a moon. It is a snow ball that missed the photographer by a whisker!

A Christmas display in the Dolphins room. All the children contributed to either their own or the big Christmas tree.

The Christmas collage table in Dolphins.

Dolphins all added paper and glue at different stages to create our papier mache Santa. We never really knew what it would turn out like, but the Boogie Nights Santa came as a bit of a surprise!

Starfish painted and decorated their own Santa Claus, putting the eyes, paint and glitter in the places they wanted. All unique and all perfect.

Starfish decorated a little Christmas tree. All having a turn at putting on the pieces they wanted to see on the tree.

Rudolf was made by the children painting the different parts of the body and the team putting it together. Rudolf has been one of their favourite contributions to the room- as well as singing Rudolf The Red Nosed Reindeer. Children made their own snow flakes for Rudolf too.

Some more art in Starfish. Christmas tree collages and Angel's hanging. If you couldn't tell it they were Angels, look again through toddler eyes.

Seahorses collection of Christmas trees, snow flakes, stars and a calendar for next year. All the children made 2010 calendars for their parents.

What's happening at Working Mums?

This friday (11th) is our Carols by Candlelight evening for our families.

Children, staff (and game parents) will be dressing up and singing Christmas carols in the garden around the decorated Christmas tree and Christmas lights. Mulled wine, mini mince pies and bratwurst in rolls will help to fuel the event that will be accompanied by Stephen on piano- our musical cover team member.

The songs that we will be singing will be:

• We wish you a Merry Christmas


• O Christmas Tree!


• Deck the halls with boughs of holly


• Ding dong merrily on high


• Christmas Pudding


• The twelve days of Christmas


• Rudolph, the red-nosed reindeer


• Five tubby snowmen


• When Santa Got Stuck Up the Chimney


• Here we go round the Christmas tree


• Jingle Bells


• We wish you a Merry Christmas (yes-again!)

There are too many words to put up here, but go and take a look at the Christmas song website link on the right to learn the words and hear the tunes. Some of the words we have modified a little to make sense to the children and you will be given a copy on the night.

Happy Carol-ing!!!

What are we doing in Dolphins for December?
During December, with the Christmas season upon us we will be having a focus on Christmas, Hanukah and we will also be talking a lot about darkness and the environment in the darkness- including playing in the dark, the bright lights, decoration and festivities.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this concept will be:
Reading stories about Christmas and Hanukah.
Learning Christmas carols and songs.
Making Christmas cards and presents for our families.
Talking about darkness and why the outside has become so dark.
Talking about how to keep ourselves safe in the dark, e.g. wearing bright colours, lights on our bikes.
Decorating the nursery including Christmas trees.
Discussions about what we are doing for the holidays; who we will be visiting, how we will travel there, etc.
Wrapping presents and making our own decorations.
Reflecting on the year with the children and remembering events, talking about favourite parts of the year and what they would like to do again.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Help your child to wrap their own presents they are giving people.
Make your own Christmas cards with them.
If you are writing a Christmas letter, ask them to contribute by telling you the best thing about the year.
Go for a night walk to look at the lights and decorations.
Go to a local school Christmas fair and for older children talk about the kinds of things the school children might be doing Christmas.
Go shopping for and decorate a Christmas tree.
Take your child shopping for a special Christmas tree decoration that they can put on the tree.
Save your wrapping and cards for plenty of post Christmas collage- it is a time consuming and perfect mid winter indoor activity.

What are we doing in Starfish for December?
This month we will be having a focus on tidying up and taking care of things. We have some new starfish in the room who are learning the ropes and being exposed to a new range of toys to play with. They are learning how to play with them, where they go and how to explore with care and consideration for others and the environment.
Of course, December is a month of many festivals, including Christmas and Hanukah and so we will be also thinking about and doing many activities based on the festivals.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
Making a game out of tidying up and having group times involving children putting objects away in the right places.
Using lots of shape sorters and puzzles to emphasize putting pieces in certain places. Supported role play in the home corner to focus on putting things away and tidying up.
Reinforcing, role modelling and reminding children about where things go and the need to tidy up.
Circle story time in the book corner with getting children to take turns at putting books away.
Using and emphasising language such as precious, careful, special.
And for Christmas??? Glitter, tinsel, sticking, wrapping, etc, etc, etc.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
Have a ‘tidy up time’ before meals, bed, or going out and encourage your child to tidy up.
Chose some music to play while tidying up to indicate tidying up time and make it a fun event. (Mission Impossible has a great pace and will give you some humour to go with it).
Play ‘Where does it go?’ You chose an item and get them to show you where it goes. Make it a fun and light hearted game.
Talk a lot to your child about caring for toys and looking after things. Especially books. Show how to handle them with care and how important it is.
Use words like ‘precious’ when referring to special things that extra care is needed for. Precious is a special and less used word as well, so it emphasises that there is something important about taking care.

What are we doing in Seahorses for December?
During December we will be continuing our focus on weather and clothing as the children are really enjoying it and the dressing up and fun with it has made for a really positive approach to our cold weather.
December will also see the glitter spread as the children take part in numerous activities associated with Christmas, including lots of messy, creative and vibrant Christmas and Hanukah activities.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
Making Christmas and Hanukah decorations, cards and presents.
Wrapping and unwrapping present activities.
Scrunching and playing in wrapping paper
Decorative art to dress up our room for Santa
Christmas party for the children
Santa will be visiting.
Singing Christmas songs and listening to Christmas music.
Exploring the Christmas treasure basket.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Set up a little treasure basket of decorations to go under the Christmas tree that your child is allowed to play with to reduce the Christmas tree destruction. Plastic balls are great because they can roll them around, tinsel is fun to drape around and they are all no breakable.
Save all your Christmas wrapping for your baby to play with. They love the noise and texture and throwing it round.
Wrap up and go for a wander round a Christmas market. They might not be ready for skating, but babies love watching skaters whizz around the rink and they love all the lights.
Do some lounge dancing to some Christmas music. Turn the lights down and dance round the glowing Christmas tree. Babies love dim rooms with sparkling lights.

Dolphin’s reflection on the month of November
November saw our home corner transform into a supermarket with children loving the change and spending lots of time role playing shopping, stocking and exchanging. Playing the customer and playing the shop keeper, as well as babies and dogs! Filling baskets and exchanging money and also lots of discussions have taken place about the different jobs in a supermarket- cashier, baker, deli assistant, stocking shelves, etc. The shopping game has also been really enjoyed by the children too. It is like the memory game, but includes a shopping list.
Some of the older children have been able to talk concepts such as running out of food at home and ordering more from Tesco or ‘going shopping’ to replace food used.
The general scene in the main play room has been children wandering round with handbags and shopping baskets as they moved between all the other activities with their shopping, taking breaks to do a puzzle or play on the computer with their shopping at their side and then cruising back to the supermarket when they have finished what else they are doing.
Painting in the garden has also been a feature of the month with children painting the area and even the teachers! One of the teachers dressed up in a disposable boiler suit and allowed the children to do a splatter painting of her. Very messy, but very fun.
It is hard to keep Christmas at bay at the end of November, so the children started a winter display that involved lots of planned and spontaneous artwork. As well as the white winter scene, most of the children contributed a collective papier-mâché Santa making process that resulted in our own model Santa.
We have also made some decorations for the room out of CDs and shapes we made from painted and glittered baked play dough mixture.
Even though pink day is technically in October, we did it in November due to a busier October and had just as much fun! Children and staff who remembered came dressed in pink to raise money for cancer research.
Our tea making has been a well enjoyed event as always. This month we have made sausage rolls (from scratch!), vegetable pizzas, apple and raisin loaf, we prepared beans on toast, a loaf of bread and bread rolls.

Starfish reflection on November
It has been a busy little month in Starfish with some changes too. We said goodbye to some of our friends as they moved to the next age group and welcomed some new friends too. To help our new children settle in, we have done lots of name calling and gentle supporting in circle times, using it as a good time to get to know the new members of our group.

Sometimes when children are new, the changes can spark up some new emotions, so we have talked a lot and used pictures to support our discussions about being happy and sad, joining in the fun times and giving lots of cuddles when sad moments pop in too.

The children have loved playing with the miniature people recently as well, imitating life and activities. They have also continued to be really interested in the home corner, role playing what they see in life and taking care of each other and their babies. They have also been taking the plates and toy food out to have picnics on the floor, feeding themselves and feeding each other.

Art is always a big feature in Starfish and this month has been no exception. As the children have been so interested in lady birds this season with so many of them visiting our garden, we extended the interest into our room as the ladybirds disappeared from our garden. We made some ladybird pictures by painting our paper red and collaging black spots onto our red painted paper.

We also painted a sheet of paper to make our gold fish bowl and created our own goldfish art to go in it. And, we have made parrots, stamped up clouds, grass, sky, aeroplanes and made mobiles from painted and glittered salt dough and CDs. To stamp we have used stickle bricks, lego blocks and sponges.
This month we have made pizza, vegetable, cheese and sausage pasties, banana cake and prepared some beans on toast together.

Seahorses reflection on the month of November

Over the month of November in Seahorses, the group had a big focus on warm winter clothing. This involved not only placing an emphasis on getting children dressed up and ready for playing outdoors in the cold weather, but really making a point of naming the items of clothing and using lots of language such as; warm, snug, hat on, gloves on, coat on, boots on, etc.
The language and encouragement was also to make the layering up a positive experience and to support children viewing the extra time it takes to get ready to go outside as a fun time as well and just as much part of the enjoyment in the outdoor play experience.

To further support the thinking of extra clothing, the seahorses had a range of dress ups for the children to role play and practice dressing themselves and to make it another fun part of the day. They used play hats, bags, purses, scarves and material treasure to wrap around themselves and drape on each other. This has been a really fun activity that was revisited regularly by the children.

Aside from the weather and associated activities, the children got really interested in the spinning toys; watching them whiz and whirl. These were especially helpful for our new children starting as they are instantly engaging.

With the new children, a lot of focus was placed on getting to know each other. So, lots of naming and eye contact was role modelled for the babies as well as singing and circle times involving actions with the children bodies, naming body parts and each other.

And the walkers and crawlers have become more confident and outgoing in their roaming of the environment, enabling them to make certain choices in their activities.

What are we doing in Seahorses this month?
The seahorses are going to be having a focus on winter clothing with lots of images displayed to reinforce the clothes they are wearing and allowing them to make links between the clothes they wear, the images they see and the words we use to label them.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
Providing lots of hats and scarves for the children to try on.
Painting images of winter clothes- hats, scarves, jumpers, jackets, etc.
Wrapping the children up and getting them outside.
Providing laminated pictures of winter clothing for the children to look at.
Reading books about the season and the clothes we wear.
Displaying photos of the babies in the outdoor area in their winter clothes.
Use lots of language to reinforce the names of the garments and the weather. E.g. cold, wet, windy, hat, scarf, jacket, mittens, boots, etc.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Have a play with scarves, hats and jackets at home any try each others on.
Get wrapped up and go on plenty of walks in the outdoors to let the experience play in the colder weather.
Take them shopping to buy a new hat, mittens, etc.
Get some books out of the library about winter and winter clothes.
Use language regular consistent language to reinforce the words for the garments. ‘my hat, your hat’, ‘my jacket, your jacket’, ‘Shall we get your hat on?’

What are we doing in Starfish this month?
This month we will be having a bigger focus on the wider world. The children have become very interested in the outside environment and are linking in animals, trains, cars, pets, to their play. They are really noticing birds, squirrels, airplanes, trees, etc.
We will be focussing on talking about things in our community that we are all familiar with; the roads, trains tracks, parks and activities taking place there. We will also focus on the role play that the toddlers have started to become very involved in; dressing up, washing dishes, making tea and food for each other.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
Inside
Painting shapes from the environment they are familiar with- trains, cars, squirrels, cats, dogs, bugs, etc.
Set up train tracks, car mats, people, animals, etc and provide extra opportunities for small world play.
Continue role play of washing up, tidying up, cleaning, making food, drinks, etc.
Introduce more books on the community and environment.
Outside
Continue the exploration of our garden, searching for bugs, snails, insects, etc.
Going for an excursion to watch the goings on outside the nursery- people walking dogs, getting on trains, driving their cars, flying in airplanes.
Setting up the small world resources in the garden.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
Outside
Go insect collecting with your child.
Take a trip to the natural history museum to look at things that interest you and them from the environment.
Take a road side seat and count or just point to cars that go by, airplanes, buses, trucks, trains, etc.
Name colours of trees, cars, birds, animals.
Stand under a tree and catch the leaves.
Go to the library and get out some books on the community.
Inside
Set your child up at home with a tea set and some soapy water and let them wash the dishes.
Let them help you clean with the broom, dustpan and brush.
Give them a damp cloth to clean as you do.

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?
This month in Dolphins, we will be continuing our focus on the supermarket that started to emerge in October. We have transformed our home corner into a supermarket and will extend and refresh following children’s interests and ideas.
Also this month, we will be talking about Bonfire Night and making some colourful decorations for this and talking about safety for the children and our pets.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this concept will be:
Continuing to keep the supermarket refreshed and interesting.
Taking a trip to Waitrose
Playing and making games based around shopping and the supermarket: snap, memory, etc.
Buying ingredients from the supermarket and cooking with the children.
Talking about the different roles of the staff in the supermarket.
Talking about where the food in the supermarket comes from.
Making real food to sell in our supermarket for our tea time.
Making colourful fireworks art.
Talking about how to keep ourselves safe on Bonfire night.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Set up a little supermarket in your child’s room with old food boxes, etc.
Give your child some money to take to the supermarket and buy some goods with.
Talk about where the item they brought came from. What is it made of? Where was it made? Is it the finished product or do you need to combine it with others to make something else?
Talk about the local supermarkets and what you buy at each of them. Do you go to one for veges and another for nappies, or do you buy everything at the one place?
Make some cupcakes, biscuits, etc, make a supermarket and then invite your friends round to buy their food.

Seahorses reflection on the month of September

October saw lots of interest in autumn and a lot of joy at finding leaves all over the playground to pick up, crunch, scrunch and throw.

We painted leaves, used autumn colours in paintings and also did some conker paintings. For some of the babies rolling the conkers around in paint was a real joy, the sensory experience of slippery paint and conkers that clonk was great. The paint started off different colours, but all ended up brown as they stayed rolling for such a long time. Painting the leaves was also great fun for many of them, especially those relaxed with getting messy.

We also had a big focus on some of the babies physical development which brought us new walkers and babies really confident in crawling and rolling over too. Pulling pull-along toys outside has been an enjoyed activity for those new to their feet too.

Lots of playing musical instruments has happened too with the babies and making big noises. Lots of our older babies are really into the cause and effect of playing the instruments and getting them to play as loud as they can.

The babies always love the junk play. We collect loads of old containers, boxes, pots, crinkly biscuit trays, etc and let them just explore it and enjoy it. Strange how the cheapest resources for the children often get the best use!

And there has also been lots of puzzle and shape sorting going on for our bigger babies too, as well as plenty of time out and relaxation.

Starfish reflection on October
The weather has been great for October and so the Starfish have been really busy outside doing all sorts of things.

Sand play is always a favourite, but this month we have added a lot of water to it to stop it blowing away and this has given the children lots of sludge and grit to fiddle with, make moulds, build piles, etc. We added animals and leaves to it to give it a small world feel and extend the outdoor world concept we have all been spending so much time in.

We have been doing loads of leaf collection in our play ground and every day there is more to collect and feed the fun. Some of the children get quite fastidious about the thorough job they need to do and others just love to have the experience.
Lady bird hunts have been a favourite too as we have found so many of them this year. The children love finding ladybirds and showing everyone their success in finding one.

There have also been lots of throwing games going in with tossing balls to one another and throwing basketballs into the tyres to hold them. On one of the wet days, we put dye in the puddles to colour them and looked at all the different colours and our reflections in the puddles too.

Inside, we have been painting with conkers, making mobiles made out of baked salty dough and decorating them with paint and glitter- they look great! We have also been doing lots of group drawings with the children; their favourite topics to draw being balloons, flowers, bubbles and circles.

We had some fun playing with Hamlin of course too as we regularly do. We like to watch his antics climbing inside and out of his cage and coming out to see us when we go up to his cage.

And, something we do every week, but families might not be aware of is ‘jobs’. We collect water from the water filter for the room, we take out the rubbish, we load the washing into the washing machine, we sort the dried washing, we hand out cups to our friends and lots of other little tasks that keep us involved in the running of our room.

Dolphin’s reflection on the month of October
Plenty of interest has been paid to autumn with the leaves falling and the children collecting them and tidying up the outdoor area. We have also set up a nature table where the children could bring in autumnal items like conkers, sticks, leaves, acorns, etc, and share them with each other. They have thoroughly enjoyed the fascination found in the change of colour of the environment. We’ve talked a lot about the golden leaves and some of the children have been able to tell us about the ‘red’ leaves that they have seen on some trees too.

Thinking about the environment always brings lots of discovery. After talking about all the things the children have been finding, we decided to go on a nature trail in our nursery play ground. In addition to all the autumn fall, we found, snails, lady birds, spiders and all sorts of bugs. We are going to need to do some more research to find out their names!

Thanks to the wonderfully mild weather, we have spent loads of time outside talking and thinking about the environment. We have talked about all sorts of things and jobs that happen outside and the children have taken on some of those things and been ‘builders’ using the large construction, ‘street sweepers’ with their plastic bags collecting leaves, etc.

The supermarket took off towards the end of October and we set up the home corner as a supermarket to support this interest. The children love it and our cook, Christine has been keeping us well stocked with boxes and jars to stock the shelves. The children have enjoyed taking on the roles of shoppers, cashiers, stockists and...dogs in the supermarket.

And our cooking this month has included:
Banana loaf, bread rolls, cereal bars, carrot cake, making assorted sandwiches.
Here is one of our little boys grating some carrot for the cake.

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?

During October we will be having a focus on change, particularly seasonal changes and changes with ourselves.
The children are commenting a lot on being big and growing up as well as noticing all the changes outside with autumn coming.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this concept will be:
Going on a nature walk to collect natural materials
Setting up an autumnal nature table to look at the various things falling from the trees.
Art- printing with natural materials. E.g. leaves, conkers, etc.
Cooking- making soup out of seasonal vegetables.
Making story boards of our lives.
Drawing self portraits using mirrors.
Making a photo board of people pictures from young and old.
We are hoping to be able to organise a trip to a ‘pick- your- own’ farm.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Go on a nature walk and collect conkers, acorns, leaves and any other autumnal items- use them at home or bring them into nursery.
Go to the library and get some books out on the weather.
Sort out their clothes with them and exchange their summer clothes for winter clothes and talk about why.
Talk about the year cycle of trees, how they lose their leaves and then regain them in spring.
Talk about the people in your family- their ages, what they do, whether they are big or small, etc.
Show your child photos of you in a sequence from being a baby until now and talk about how you have changed.
Talk about animals through the year and how they change. Maybe they hibernate, gain thicker fur, shed, etc.

What are we doing in Seahorses this month?
During the month of October we will be exploring some of the natural materials that come about from autumnal changes. Conkers, leaves, twigs. We will be looking at warm clothes, boots, hats, gloves, etc.

Some of the activities wall the babies will be involved with this month are:
Exploring clothes for dressing up: hats, bags, scarves.
Doing some leaf printing.
Painting in autumnal colours.
Making up a treasure basket with autumn things.
Singing songs about getting ready for colder weather. E.g. Here We Go Round the Mulberry bush on a cold and frost morning. It’s raining, it’s pouring.
Going for a walk to the park to scrunch some leaves.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Take your child on a walk to a point out all the fallen leaves.

Sit amongst some dried leaves and scrunch them together.
Go to Richmond park and look at all the chestnuts, conkers, acorns, leaves falling. Watch the squirrels running about.
Go to the library and get out some books on weather and clothes.
Talk about what you are wearing: scarf, gloves, coat, boots.
Talk about what they are wearing too.

What are we doing in Starfish this month?

During September, we will be continuing our focus on fruit and vegetables as the children are still really motivated by talking about and investigating fruit and veg.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
Art- printing with fruit and vegetables- cutting them on different angles to get different shapes.
Sampling some different fruits that we don’t normally eat like dragon fruit, papaya, passion fruit and lychees.

Displaying photos of fruit and vegetables in the home corner. E.g. fruit stands, supermarket displays.
Take the children on an excursion to the supermarket to buy some fruit to sample.
Making vegetable soup using the vegetables prepared with the children.
Making freshly squeezed orange juice with the children to drink.
Sampling some juices like carrot juice, tomato juice.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
Make vegetable soup with them.
Take them to buy a fresh juice, let them choose their own fruit and watch the staff put the fruit in the juicers.
Make a fruit salad together and talk about the types of fruit.
Talk about the colours of fruits and vegetables.
Go to the library and get out some books on growing fruit and vegetables.
Take your child to an orchard and pick some apples.
Make fruit juice ice lollies at home to taste.

September in Starfish saw a fascination with fruit and vegetables that hasn’t stopped...



Fruit and vegetables were the biggest interest in September and it hasn’t stopped either. The children have really enjoyed the naming of the fruits and vegetables that they have been eating and also identifying cooked in their food. Vegetables at meals times are such a big discussion as the children eagerly call out contributions of what is what on their plate. They smile and wiggle in their seats with such satisfaction when they get it right and then all babble comment on the right word when they are corrected. It is really quite sweet to witness.
They are very confident in apples, pears and bananas which seem to come up a lot. We eat them regularly as snacks and they are the ones most depicted in books as well. The play food has been thoroughly used and enjoyed. Our Starfish have incorporated it in their play as they spend time in the home corner role playing cooking and caring.

As well as fruit and veg’, we have been talking about the weather getting colder. Lots of discussion about the wind and no longer needing our sun block, but instead we need coats and soon we will need to put on our winter hats too. The children have been commenting on the leaves in the playground and so we took them on an excursion to the local park to collect leaves and sticks for our autumn display. We had lots of discussions about the goings on in the park. –Leaves, trees, squirrels and the way the different textures feel when we touch them. We never did get to touch a squirrel though- way too quick!

One of the children brought in hundreds of conkers that they had collected in the weekend. We piled them into the water trough and we all loved running our hands through their cool, smooth, round, roly-poly-ness.

We have also been really getting into painting in the outdoors and displaying our artwork on the shed during our play time outside. It can be a bit messy, but it is such a relaxing, fun and creative activity to do.

Another fun and messy activity has been playing in wet sand. The children loved the way the sand stuck together and stuck to them. It was very gritty and lovely- and how soft (already soft) hands are after some wet sandy manicures!

Seahorses reflection on the month of September



It has been a very vocal month in Seahorses with lots of songs, rhymes and stories during time spent together as a group. The babies have become more familiar with each other and started to respond to their fellow babies as friends and companions with interactions that show care and familiarity with each other. It is quite special to see babies form friendships and start to value each other.

To add some challenges this month to painting, we supported the babies in painting tubes. They had fun rolling the tubes in the paint and looking at the paint clinging to the roll. We have also being doing chalk drawings on dark paper, crayon and pencil drawings too.

Seahorses have all been mucking in with our favourite corn flour slime play, water play in trays and play dough. Babies who have been pulling themselves up for a while now and cruising around furniture have been surprised by the discovery of sand in the sand tray outside. They have become regular sand players and are really appreciating the world at standing level.

Inside, lots of time has been spent with walkers, rocking on the pony ride-on toy. Outside, the more physical babies have been enjoying the ride-on toys and moving themselves around the garden in them, even though some aren’t quite walking, they have been firmly committed to getting around the space efficiently with the ride on toys!

Toy cars, push a long toys and running cars around the garage have also been a big feature of September, as well as counting and placing bangles on the paper towel holder. Yes, the bangles on the paper towel holder- everyone loves this one- staff included, and everyone has a favourite bangle!

Dolphin’s reflection on the month of September
So much happens in Dolphins it is hard to know where to start and where to end without writing a novel that would take a month to read. Everything feels important and everyday something special happens within so many little everyday things going on, but here is a little snap shot of September.

We started off the month looking at ‘ourselves’ and this has continued throughout the month with children sharing stories with groups of their peers, talking about what they have done in their time outside of nursery in the weekend or on holiday , talking about who their friends are and who their family members are beyond the nursery. We have made faces out of play dough, taken digital photos of each other and then compared elements of our features we have in common or that are different.

Dolphins’ has a new self registration board that we use each morning during our Welcome Circle Time. This happens at around 9am where the children get together as a group, welcome everyone and talk about any new people in the room for the day. The children are encouraged to find their own name card and stick it on the board to show that they are here. It helps them to recognise their name or picture and feel that they are a valued part of the room. Some of the older children will help the younger ones to find their name and put it on the board too.

The preschool children have been talking a lot about keeping themselves safe by crossing the road safely, keeping close to their friends or family when they are out and about, what to do if they get lost, why we wear special visible vests when we go on nursery outings, etc.
We have also had the community support officers come in to talk to all of the dolphins about keeping safe and stranger danger and Jenny has been teaching the preschoolers a phrase to shout if someone they don’t know tries to get them to go with them. Parents can help with this one too.
SHOUT: No! Stranger!

And, some children in Dolphins have tried their hand at wood work by sanding and gluing wood to make houses and boats. Some quite elaborate designs have started to be built.

And our cooking this month has included:
Lemon and poppy seed muffins Toasted pizza bread Wholemeal bread
Fruit loaf blueberry scones filled pita pockets and sandwiches
(In case you didn’t know, the children cook their own tea on Tuesdays and Fridays).

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?

During September we will be having a focus on ourselves.
We have some new starters who have come through from Starfish and some new children to the nursery. To support the reshuffle of ages and friendships, we will be having a focus on who we are; names, faces, friends, what we look like, special things about us, and so on. It’s a good time to boost our children’s understanding of themselves to support good relationships with each other.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this concept will be:
Drawing ourselves, around our bodies, foot prints, hand prints, etc.
Talking about our traits; eye colour, hair colour, styles, clothes, etc.
Reading stories about other children and comparing them to us.
Talking about preferences; in activities, food, clothes, games, pets, songs, etc.
Talking about our families, homes, where grandparents live, etc.
Introducing our new self registration board.
Telling and writing stories about themselves.
Comparing their lives to the lives of children in other countries.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Talk to your child about who they are- who makes up their family? Where do their extended family members live? Who do they look like? Which family members share certain traits like hair colour?
Look at photos of family members and talk about the relationships between them.
Talk to your child about what makes them special. How do you feel about them? How do they feel about you? Who are their friends? What sorts of things do they like to do? What makes them happy? What makes them sad?
Draw pictures with them of themselves, family members, pets, home, etc.
Write a little story together to go with pictures or without pictures. E.g. My name is........... I live at................with...................... In the weekend we like to....................... and so on.

What are we doing in Starfish this month?

During September, we will be having a focus on fruit and vegatables.
Through the extra focus on singling out and naming colours that we have been doing with the children, a lot of play fruit and vegetables were used to name and compare colours. As a result, the children have become really interested in talking about fruit and vegetables, comparing play ones to real ones and using the fruit and vegetables in their role play. So, this month, we will be basing many of our additional activities around them.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
Talking about, including and naming fruit and vegetables as we play.
Naming pictures through flash cards.
Painting, collage, art activities involving fruit and vegetables
Making pizza with the children and talking about the vegetables we include.
Baking including fruit, e.g. fruit muffins, banana bread.
Talking about the vegetables and fruit in our snacks, dinners, teas.
Looking at a variety of real fruit and vegetables and comparing them to the play versions.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
Buy a cheap bag of plastic fruit and veg and play with your children.
Go through the fruit and vegetables in your home and name them.
Do some cooking at home involving fruit and veg with your child.
Take a wander to your local green grocer and get your child to choose what fruit and veg they are interested in and then get them to help prepare it at home.
Take a trip to a ‘pick your own’ orchard and have fun picking fruit (apples are still good for picking)

What are we doing in Seahorses this month?

During the month of September we are having a focus on creating a multi level and wide environment where the babies are reminded that they can access activities on shelves, table tops and by moving through space to access toys of interest. The baby age group has grown into a much more physically able group and challenges are being placed around the room to get them thinking and moving beyond the immediate space.

Some of the additional activities all the babies will be involved with this month are:

Soft play in the outdoor area to encourage moving over obstacles.
The wobble cushion in the playroom to encourage awareness that not all objects are stable and require different approaches.
Puzzles, posting boxes, activity stations, books and toys on the tables to encourage children to move themselves across the room to get what they want and explore in an upright position.
Geometric soft play inside to create an obstacle for children to move around to get what they want.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?

While the weather lasts; set up some toys in the garden in different places to encourage them to move to get them.
Place different toys in different locations at home to encourage them to search for them.
Play ‘Where’s the..?’ Hide a familiar toy and go hunting for it saying and gesturing ‘Where’s the...?’
Take a trip to a soft play area and let your children move over the soft play climbing equipment. (E.g. Cafe Au Play)
Take your child to open spaces like commons and parks to get a sense of space and what’s on the other side of the space.

August in Dolphins

For such a quiet month with so many children on holiday and some of our school leavers already left, it was an incredibly busy month.

We introduced a new menu for the children which left Tuesday’s and Friday’s tea menu up to the children! So, every week the children will be making tea for their rooms on those days. We’ve started with great success and so far have made fruit scones, cheese twists, garlic bread, pizza, pineapple and banana bread and fruit loaf. All recipes have gone well and been delicious to eat. The children have taken such pride in eating what they have made and the discussions at the dinner table have been fantastic as they all discuss who contributed what to the making.

We worked a lot on 'using words' for conflict resolution with the children this month and working together co-operatively. In discussion, we talked about how we like to be treated and how we need to treat our friends. We also played a lot of games to promote turn taking, collaborating and remembering friends. For example, the children really enjoyed ‘Who’s under the blanket?’, where all the children walk around the room, then ‘Stop, Drop and Curl in a ball’. One of them is then hidden under the blanket and the children have to guess who is missing from the group. This is a great game for remembering who is at nursery and looking out for friends. We have also played parachute games where the children have to co-ordinate their movements to juggle balls on the parachute and get it to float up and down. The children worked together on board games such as Incy Wincy Spider, snakes and ladders and large puzzles too where they need to take turns, share, and be considerate of others in making their moves.

Lots of the children have been on fun summer holidays and some have even sent us postcards. We have enjoyed talking about who is missing from nursery and hearing what they have been doing on holiday from their postcards. And, it's been fun welcoming them when they get back. Even our friends who are on holiday are very much a part of the nursery as we talk about what they might be doing on holiday and what new things have happened at nursery that we need to tell them about when we return.

We had a lot of fun preparing for this year’s nursery summer barbecue, ‘Working Mums- on- Sea’. It was really exciting talking about how our Mums and Dads were coming for a barbecue dinner with us. To help decorate the garden and car park and make it feel more like a seaside we spent the week making art for our seaside art gallery. We made some really lovely wet on wet paintings which we framed for families to take home. We also made loads of seagulls, beach balls and underwater creatures to decorate the fence and remind us that we were ‘on sea!’

Some reorganisation also took place in the creative area by the staff to recreate the ‘Help Yourself’ trolley into a ‘Help Yourself’ corner by creating a special little zone for children to make things of their choice in. Just changing the location and making it more like a little cave has inspired lots of children to the table to potter away for long periods of time either by themselves or with a friend. The children have even started to decorate the walls around it as they have made things, so we are planning on putting up a pin board there so the children have a proper space to display their own creations.

Starfish in the August sunshine

Starfish combined a lot of preparation for our barbecue with their art activities this month. The team cut out shapes of sea creatures for the children to paint, draw on, stick on and decorate how they chose. The children have had lots of opportunities to cut using safety scissors as well and have really enjoyed it. We have made a lovely display of some of the art works which has also inspired plenty of discussion about sunshine, weather, water and so on.

Gardening was also a feature this month, however, sadly (due to weather and circumstances beyond our control?!) our flowers have died, so the children very sensitively helped to dispatch the remains to a better place. ‘Oh-dear!

However, we have been able to take a few trips to the park this month and have been on some flower collecting journeys as well as car spotting excursions. Car spotting was a great way to talk about colours which we have placed an extra focus on this month. Most of the children are really interested in colours at the moment, so there has been a huge amount of colour spotting and naming. Our oldest Starfish children have really got to grips with some different colours and differentiating the same object by colour. They get such a thrill out of getting it right.

Washing and tidying has been a big favourite this month too. There has been lots of help on hand to tidy up and wipe down tables. They have also enjoyed their little group excursions to the Dolphin’s area where they put on the washing for the room. Jobs and 'helping' make them feel really proud. We have just got some new toy brooms in the room too and they don’t get dropped for a second before another little tidier has picked one up to start sweeping again.

We are at the end of the summer time now and it is going to be so sad to be putting our sun hats away. What started off as a difficult task having the children keep them on, has now turned into a ritual every time the children go out. They are very particular about having a hat on and readying themselves to be sun blocked. If one of them loses a hat, they will either frantically search for it themselves or a friend will be swooping up behind them informing them that their hat has come off! ‘Hat on!’ is a very much used line in Starfish.

August with the Seahorses

The Seahorses have spent a lot of time outside this month, helped by the good weather and little cosy corner that we have set up for them. The cosy corner is a great way to get our babies started outside because it is a softer, quieter space that they can retreat to, start off in, and then move on from when they are ready.

They love spending time outside with the Starfish toddlers, trying to keep up and watching what they can do to build ideas for their own next moves. Many of the babies have become much more mobile and have enjoyed time with the ride on zebra and cars.

An interest in puzzles has grown this month with many of the older babies starting to look at puzzles and think about how the pieces fit in. Because many of them are able to pull themselves up either supported or unsupported, there has been an increase of activities put on tables to encourage playing upright and exploring things that are above them and adjusting their height to explore various levels of activities.

We always do a lot of singing in the room because it is a relaxing and fun thing to do with the babies- for them and the team. Recently they have really begun to understand the songs and shown recognition through smiling acknowledgement and jigging away on their bottoms to familiar tunes.

An interest in telephones has also emerged. The babies put the phones to their ears , smile and burble away as if chatting to each other. A clear understanding and interpretation of modern day life that they see all the time is being shown and role played on a regular basis.

Artwork this month was based a lot around the summer and seaside. The staff have given the children pictures of summer items to look at such as beaches, buckets, spades, etc and then given the children the resources to paint and create- maybe they are recreating and maybe they are just doing their own thing. Either way, they are have been having a wonderful time feeling and applying paint and colour.

As well as all the additional things going on, the babies have explored, pottered, interacted with each other and formed some lovely little friendships. There is a very (familiar with each other) little group in the baby room who have a good time together and show real delight in acknowledging those who come in on their day and who they have formed bonds with.

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?
During August we will be having a focus on feelings.

With change in the Dolphins group as some children head off to school, some have moved out of London and one of our teachers has moved on to, we will be placing a focus on ‘feelings’. We also have some new children due to move through from the Starfish group, so there will be a period of adjustment and refocusing on rules and appropriate ways to play together and care for one another.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support our work on feelings will be:
Circle times will have an emphasis on feelings and triggers for feelings; happy because granny is coming to stay, sad because a friend has left the nursery, angry because I wanted to play with that train.

Activities using expressions cards and discussions with children as they play.
Drawing pictures about feelings.
Discussions about working together.
Group constructions activities supporting groups of children into harmonious collaborative play.
Role playing strategies to deal with negative feelings and emotions.
Puppet shows demonstrating positive interactions and good ways to play with friends.
What you could do to support your children at home:

Talk with your children about positive ways to express their feelings.
Encourage them to use their words to express their needs and wants.
Go to the library and get a book out on feelings to read with them.
Talk to your children about what makes them happy and what makes them sad.
Do some drawings together of things that make them feel happy.
Have a friend round and talk about sharing toys together and how it is so much more fun to play together and share together.

What are we doing in Starfish this month?

During August, we will be having a focus on colours.

Some of our starfish children are starting to name colours. Some of them have an understanding of the differences in colour, the names of colours and can point to colours that are the same. Others are just starting to say the names of some colours and notice that the same item can come in many colours.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
Introducing colours into our circle times; talking about the colours of lego- red, blue green yellow.
Painting with red, blue, green and yellow with increased opportunities to talk about the colours they are using.
Additional opportunities for building with Mobilo, Links, Duplo, Mega Blocks while talking about and matching up colours.
Talking about the colours of animals and different patches of animals.
An increased focus on colours through everyday conversations with the children.
Having ‘colour’ days. E.g. red day. Where children can wear a certain colour, the water play will be coloured, play dough will be coloured.
Baking with icing of certain colours.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
Go to the library and get out a book on colours
Talk about colours in your everyday conversations.
Watch vehicles go past and talk about the colours of the cars, buses, etc.
Name the colours of your children’s clothes as they get ready.
Do some painting at home and talk about colours.
Take a walk around your garden or go to a park and talk about the colours of the flowers, trees, plants, etc.

July in seahorses has been a special little month with welcoming new babies and settling them into the patterns of the day, new experiences and new little friends to bond with. Settling has been the biggest focus of the month and it has been really sweet seeing the babies who have been with us for the longest time feeling confident and showing the new babies how it’s all done in their own little ways.

The babies have had lots of opportunities for outside play and this also means they get to spend time with the toddlers while sharing the same space. The babies are adored by toddlers, especially our new babies.

Many of our babies have started to find their voices within the room and because they are settling well, they are really starting to chat away with each other and the teachers.

And, as well as welcoming new children and a change to the dynamic, we have still continued with our regular activities including a lot of the usual messy activities; corn flour slime, water play- inside and out, sand play in the garden, ball and bean bag throwing and placing in buckets and pots.

We even created a pretend beach on one of the days with mats to sits on and material to wave around their feet, buckets and spades and other beach toys to play with.

It has been a very active summery July month in Starfish.

We have spent a lot of time outside enjoying the summer weather and when it has not been feeling quite so summery, we have still carried on our outdoor summer time. We have enjoyed being outside watering our pansies which have continued to grow (we do have green fingers after all!). We have even been able to pick some of the flowers that have grown.

The teachers and children have taken several trips to our local park to play in the playground and enjoyed being out in the community.

We have made some lovely seaside artwork and the children chose the coloured sand they liked best to sprinkle on their art work as well as some waves to stick on.

In our garden, we made some kites to fly. The children had so much fun running up and down with their little kites blowing behind them.

On a very wet (and not very summery day) we had to accept that it was an inside day, so we put some Brazilian lounge music up loud and grooved away to the music as we bounced on our indoor bouncy castle.

Jenny, our teacher in the Dolphin room has been teaching some of the older children how to belly dance and they had made belly dancing belts with fabric and bottle tops. We were really lucky to have her offer to come into our Starfish room to do some belly dancing with the toddlers. She had three very enthusiastic followers and the rest of the children just enjoyed dancing away with their own rhythm.

And of course, we have been playing with all our messy activities and creating lots of art and having a fun and busy little time.