The starfish children planted some radishes about a month ago. They had never been thriving, despite the children and the staff thinning them, watering them and caring for them according to the instructions. But, this week, they had to be declared dead and were pulled out by the children with sad faces. The good news is that the pansies which were also planted at the same time are still growing- no sign of flowers- but the leaves are green and fresh and so the team and the children are still watching them, talking about them and hoping for the day they flower!
Roller painting has been successful fun this week. The children had a good time putting paint to paper with rollers. The challenge was sharing the paint trays and keeping them within reach of everyone when the urge to take it for themselves is overwhelming for a toddler. We also out up some new displays. One of them showed our birthdays with new photos of all the children in the room. The children have really enjoyed looking and pointing to the photos. Some of our children know all of each other’s names and enjoy pointing to the photos and the children and saying them.
We have also been doing a lot of signing and have a new Makaton signs display up in our room to support the team in their signing with the children. Most of the children can confidently sign 'no' and 'sleep'. And many of them are signing 'please' and 'thank you', but not always getting the meaning quite right.
Seahorses have also been painting. Take a look at the pictures that they have produced. They really enjoyed smearing the paint around their paper (and the tables, chairs, their ears and rubbing their hands together with glee. (Thank goodness for aprons with sleeves!) We have some new easy accesses furniture in the Seahorses room too which has meant that we have been able to really support the babies in putting toys away after they have used them. With encouragement, they enjoy tidying up. Who said tidying can’t be fun? We have also had a lot more outside time this week a
s the weather has become much warmer and dryer for the babies to be able to take time and enjoy playing in the open air. In Dolphins,
much of the week; discussions and activiti
es revolved around our caterpillars which had turned into their cocoons. Once they were in their cocoons, we needed to take them out of their pots and put them into the butterfly tent. When they first went into the cocoons, we could see the caterpillars wriggling inside the cocoons making the cocoons jump about. It was very strange and exciting for some, but a bit scary for others.
They are all inside the butterfly tent now, so we have to wait for three weeks before we can see them come out as butterflies. It is a long time to wait, but we are filling the time in with activities. We have read all sorts of butterfly books, drawn loads of pictures, made caterpillars and many of us contributed to a display of the lifecycle of a butterfly.
