reflection

Starfish
The start of august saw a lot of Mexican activities in preparation for our nursery Mexican barbecue. We made cacti, hats, fans, flags- red, green and white dominated our days and we got through a lot of paint!!

We have also been able to go on lots of little trips to the local parks and library too. With many children on holiday, we have had more staff and less children making excursions easy and a really fun part of our weeks.

A spell of rain got in the way of our outdoor play later in the month and a part from the breaks racing outside to splash in puddles, we got trapped inside on more than a few occasions. Rain became a regular topic of conversation and looking at clouds and rain became an activity in itself. We even painted our own little rain clouds with textured paper, grey and silver paint and silver glitter.

Also on the art front, we have made some little mobiles from halved kitchen rolls decorated with paint and with pipe cleaners to hang them, sponge paintings and the general drawing and mark making that goes on in the room on a daily basis involved us all.

Makaton signing was a focus for the month and we practiced and have mastered a number of Makaton signs that are helpful for expressing ourselves. We are fluent in please and thank you and continue to practice some other supportive gestures as well.

And, we have been really focusing on self help skills and especially supporting our new Starfish into getting their own shoes for teachers to put them on and putting them away by themselves when the come back inside. Also we have been taking coats, jackets and jumpers off by ourselves and with help, putting them away. We are getting pretty good at this and some of us even really love taking part in the process.

Jumping has been a feature of August too with an extra bouncy castle in the car park for us all to jump on and we have had our little indoor bouncy castle up in the room too- this makes rainy days almost something to look forward to!

Dolphins
Dolphins children have had a fun month looking at animals, creatures and lifecycles. We have had the model animals in the sand, water, wet sand and on plastic grass. Dinosaurs have also joined in to create little small world wonderlands. The mini stadium steps in the outdoor playground have been fantastic for putting the grass over and making grassy mountains for the animals and dinosaurs to roam over.

Children have enjoyed looking at lifecycles and have enjoyed our book about the lifecycle of a frog. We have a well enjoyed and used story sack of the lifecycle of a frog that the children have enjoyed in circle time and also in small group activities. Some children made their own little 3D frogs on lily pads with the help of the staff too. Lots of discussions have taken place about the dangers to frogs and other animals in the environment.

Our planting earlier in the year has finally started to do exciting things. Our strawberries have been berrying their way along with children (perhaps staff) pinching them as soon as they get a blush, but we are now finaly starting to see our tomatoes plump up and hopefully get to red! Sunflowers are also ready to bloom after so long waiting!

'Babies' are still a big main feature in dolphins too. With so many baby siblings of children and friends having babies, the baby dolls, buggies, beds, boxes, clothes in the home corner, in the outside area and on excursions all around the nursery are continuously taking place. We have a core baby mad group of children and even getting the babies slipped out for half a day to get them clean is a tricky quiet manoeuvre for the teachers!

Arts and crafts are always a strong feature of Dolphins and this month has been no exception with lots of sticking and cutting. Some of our quite young 2 ½ to three year olds have started to become really engaged in cutting pictures and shapes out and sticking them on paper.

We have also bought a lot of new role play dress ups and they have breathed new life into the home corner. We have two police outfits complete with radios and messagers, vets uniform, nurse, paramedic, construction worker, etc. So role play in the community has started to become a regular feature in the play during the day and the home corner in turning into more of an emergency station!

Seahorses
The biggest feature in Seahorses over the last month has been the introduction of all the different cosy corners. The team have been enjoying creating little spaces for the children to enjoy beyond the cube and the story cushions and have been using new textures of fabrics, cushions and boxes to to create little zones of relaxation.

A wet month meant lots of jumping in puddles, playing with lovely heavy wet sand, putting toys in and out of the sand buckets and also joining in with Starfish to bounce on the indoor bouncy castle.

We have also welcomed new friends into seahorses which is always nice showing them the ropes and having the established children enjoying taking toys up to them, especially when they are sad, which is pretty sweet to watch.

We have practiced each other’s names so that they become familiar with them and encouraging the children to share, tidy up and join in with little group singing sessions and looking at books together.

And, we have been doing some painting, play dough, corn flour finger play too. Messiness and exploring textures has been a hit with our more established children and our newer children have had a go and been surprised by the new exploration!

August plans

What are we doing in Dolphins for August?
Since the preschooler trip to the zoo and their concert, many of the children have been talking about animals, birds, insects, etc. as well as referring to the different stages of creatures, including reading about the different stages of animals and insects lives. We plan to continue this focus and also look more closely at some of the lifecycles of different animals/ species.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this interest will be:
Going to the library to get some books out about lifecycles to learn more from.
Introduce words associated with different species. E.g. spawn, metamorphosis, hatching, etc. and known words for different things. E.g. changing, growing, etc.
We plan to find some tadpoles to grow and then let put out once they have changed into a frog.
Going on an insect hunt out in the wider environment to spot and count insects and animals.
Arts and crafts associated with animals and creatures.
Learn some new animal songs.
Talk about our pets and how we look after them.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Go on an animal/ insect or bird spotting trip with your children. See how many different butterflies you can spot. Take a reference book with you and refer to the pictures of the birds.
Richmond Park has creature spotting guides in the RSPB shop where you can use the cards to spot different creatures in the park.
Take your child to a petting zoo for a day trip.
Go to the library and take some books out lifecycles. Also animals of the world that are unfamiliar are fascinating for children.

What are we doing in Starfish for August?
Our biggest starfish have moved through into Dolphins and been replaced with some new friends from the Seahorses room. To really support the communication in the rooms between the children with each other and the teachers, we will be supporting language through a focus on Makaton signing. Makaton is used in Starfish to support communication and is ongoing once the children have the hang of it as well.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will be:
Updating our display of Makaton signs for parents to learn and staff to use as support for signing to children.
Encouraging children to sign as a way of communication with staff and each other.
Introducing children to Makaton symbols and using them to help support children in anticipating the routines of the group.
Supporting children in developing confidence in learning new skills and communication techniques through the symbols and signs by making them a part of our everyday activities.
Placing makaton signs around the room for children to see recognise and use to support their understanding of what is expected/ requested.
Lots of action songs and signing throughout the days activities.

What you could do to support your children at home:
If you do or have done baby signing with your baby, let the staff know.
Take a look at our display and learn some symbols and signs.
Take a book out on baby signing and start using them with your children.
Ask a team member for a sheet of symbols to take away and use.
Learn and sing songs with your child that involve signing (you know loads already; ‘Where is Thumbkin?’ ‘Two little dicky birds sitting on a wall, etc’.
Take a look at the Makaton website;

http://www.makaton.org/about/about.htm


What are we doing in Seahorses for August?
The children have had such fun playing with fruit and vegetable toys and sampling the different fruits. We are going to continue exploring them while supporting all of our new babies into our room by providing lots of spaces for quiet cosy play with little cosy corners and spaces for quiet reflection. This month is about calmness, stability and lots of love and cuddles for all our babies and especially our new friends.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
Lots of group activities such as singing, stories, water play, messy play, soft play, etc, that promotes children being together and feeling comfortable in the space with their peers.
A lot of name usage to reinforce children’s names and give them a sense of belonging.
Focussing on children spending time with staff and each other looking at things that are unique to them; facial features, clothing, hands, feet.
Taking photos of the children to display in the room to give the children a good sense of belonging and to start to recognise themselves as part of the nursery.
Talk about the children’s family members during the day. Name the people who are important to them.
Lots of repetition of the names of the fruit and veg.
Role play shopping by putting the fruit and veg toys in shopping baskets and wandering round the room.
Combining the food with tea sets to role play cooking.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Talk about the other children and team members to your children when you leave and are at home. Use their names to reflect on their day and when going to nursery.
For new children, parents can help by demonstrating excitement at coming to nursery and role modelling a sense of confidence and excitement in the changes in the daily routines of their lives.
Remember and talk about the nursery when you are not here. Even though you only come in at the start and end of the days, the day for the children forms a large part of their life and special times.
Bring into nursery photos of your family. It is nice for children to look at them during their day.

July reflection

Dolphins

It has been a bit of a Mexican Fiesta in dolphins during July and especially the end of the month as we gear up for our summer barbecue- Mexican Beach Party.

We have made..... Aztec temples out of boxes, glue and paint and also built lots of temples with the large wood blocks and lego, we’ve made a fantastic piñata to have a crack at during the barbecue, we have made Mexican fans, flags, paper chains, and we have even turned our hand at lino cutting Mexican patterns and pictures. Colour, paint, glue, boxes and paper have been prolific this month!

We have also learned our manners and greetings in Spanish, and a new Spanish song called 'Dale, Dale La Pinata'- this is to sing when we try to get the sweets from the piñata. We have been listening to some Mexican music as well.

And then, beyond ‘little Mexico’, we have been on some excursions to the library, the park and our school leavers went on a fantastic excursion to the London Zoo. They walked from the nursery, to Mortlake station, transferred at Waterloo to the underground to Camden, walked to the bus stop, to the Zoo, around the Zoo and back again. They are amazing! No complaints, no giving up, just wonderful excited children (and very exhausted teachers) arrived back at the end of the day.

There was still a bit of energy left for the school leavers concert the next week, where the school leavers performed for their parents a little play from the 'Dear Zoo' book and some songs as well, then were graduated with their leaving certificates.

Starfish

Starfish have had a fun month with all sorts of activities. We have been on a number of little excursions to our local park where we had a walk in the grass, play in the play ground and had a picnic tea too.

We have also had loads art activities going on as we prepare for our Mexican Barbecue. We’ve been stamping, using paintbrushes and sponges to apply paint and lots of sticking. We have made cacti, Aztec suns, maracas, mosaics, Mexican flags and sombreros.

Our cosy corner arch has been set up with lots of different materials everyday and we have been playing with dress ups under the arch as well as trying different fabrics on, experimenting with different clothes, textures and how we feel in them.

Lots of very special circle times have also been going on too. We have a lot of new sensory and tactile toys and so we have been playing with them , watching them change and trying them out on our skin and putting them on our teachers as well.

We also had a continued focus on colours and our art work for the Mexican barbecue gave us loads of opportunities to talk about colour. Many of us are getting the hang of differentiating through colour and enjoying pointing colours out, guessing what they are and the claps for getting it right!

Seahorses

The Seahorses have been doing lots of additional activities around fruit in July. They have been trying all sorts of different fruits during their tea times; peaches, grapes, apricots and strawberries. Summer is such a great time to try all the lovely flavoursome fruits around.

We have also been doing a lot of playing with the play fruits and vegetables- putting them in pots and pans and hiding them with lids, passing them back and forth to each other and listening to the names of them, absorbing and storing the learning to surprise you with when we get older and can get the words out.

We have been doing a lot of art work on fruit shapes too as well as some great communal pieces of artwork using brushes, sponges and reading a lot of books with pictures of fruit and vegetables.

A highlight of the month has been setting up lots of little cosy corners for the babies with different cushions, textured mats, things that dangle from the ceiling, like ribbons, canopies, etc.

And, we have also welcomed in three new babies to our group. They have all settled in perfectly and it is like they have always been with us!