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.