What are we doing in Dolphins~ November to December?

Well this year we are getting on with Christmas early so they know their Carol’s and Christmas festivities in good time and before the fun arrives. The children have been nagging us to sing Christmas songs and so why not? Let’s get the glitter scattered, glue gummed about and start the Christmas production line…. We will also be learning about Hanukah, Santa Lucia and the different ways these festivals are celebrated around the world
The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:
KUW-religious festivals in the world PSED- different ways in demonstrating care for others MD size, shapes, counting, organising. CLL Learning new words to songs, signing songs. PD Action songs, keeping warm in the colder weather CD- creative dance to Christmas music. The Dance performance
Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be:
• Christine H will be reintroducing the children to Christmas songs and reminding us of all the ones we forgot over the year.
• She will also be helping children make salt dough Christmas decorations for your trees at home.
• Laura Williams will be supporting the Thursday dance group in preparing for their dance show. • Laura W will also be helping children make presents for their parents and talking about the meaning of Christmas and why we give gifts.
• Rachel G will be making decorations for the room, junk modelling and doing a lot of box wrapping with the children.
• Lan will be helping the children to make Christmas cards and also flashcards for our Christmas songs.
• Laura Zurita will be showing the children how to make some great Christmas decorations. • Jenny will be teaching the children about Santa Lucia and Hannuka.
• Su will be talking to the children about remembering those who aren’t as lucky as us at Christmas time.
• Carol will be putting together a book called ‘Our Story of Christmas Time’ which is about what the children in our nursery do to celebrate Christmas or if they don’t what they do instead.
What you could do to support your children at home:
• Send a few works to the nursery about your plans for Christmas so that the children can talk about it and share them with their friends.
• Take a walk through the city to look at the Christmas lights. They are beautiful and children just love them.
• Talk with your children about others less fortunate and ways that you can help.
• Make some Christmas tree decorations.
• Practice your Carol’s for Carol’s by Candlelight!
• Read them the story of Christmas. • Share your family’s plans for Christmas so that your child can talk about it and share their excitement with their friends.

What are we doing in Sea Turtles from November to December?

Celebrating the environment around us. Christmas, lights, cold, wrapping up warm, celebrations and decorations. The activities this month will be based around the Early Year
Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:
KUW-observing the changes in the environment and responding to them. PSED- learning about and dealing with excitement, wonder and expectations. Experiencing Santa and responding to feelings about him. MD- size, shape, pattern, colour. CLL- naming new discoveries and expanding vocabulary, especially through song PD-coping with dressing for the cold and moving in more restrictive clothing CD- arts and crafts, movement using things in creative ways.
Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
• Manjit will be helping the children to create Christmas scenes through art. Also making Christmas stocking pictures and cold winter collages.
• Manjit will be making a Christmas cake with the children.
• All of the Sea turtles team will be making Christmas cards and presents with the children.
• Sarah G will be helping the children to ice rich team biscuits with the children to bake Christmas biscuits.
• Sarah G will be helping the children to make Santa’s boot collages and snow men collages.
• Sarah Louise will be making Christmas tree decorations with the children; balls, angles, presents, candy sticks, etc. She’ll also be making Christmas tree collages.
• Sarah Louise will be helping the children to make snow globes using clear plastic bottles.
• Sarah Louise will be making reindeer ears and bell bracelets with the children.
• Sara will be helping the children to make Christmas hats with the children and also introducing a Spanish Christmas song.
• Ella will be helping the children to make stained glass windows.
Some ideas to support your children at home:
• The most exciting this for small children at Christmas time are the decorations that shine and sparkle. Make them a Christmas treasure basket using safe items that they can explore and enjoy without destroying the Christmas tree and house adornment.
• Take them for a walk in the buggy through the city filled with lights so they can lie back and enjoy the show.
• Take them to an ice skating rink. They can’t participate but infants and toddlers love to see bigger children enjoying themselves.

Sea Turtles October

We have been seriously spoiled in October with the amazing weather. We always love the leaves and wind and approach to darkness, but this year we have been able to do it without freezing fingers and toes! This has meant loads of 'collecting' activities being able to be explored outside to their artistic end.

So, we have enjoyed leaves, leaves and more leaves. They have been scattered over the top of water. Sarah M submerged lots in brown paint and squelched them about with the children. Beata painted leaves and stuck them on paper to make tree pictures. Piles of them have been put in the big sand and water tray for the children to sit in amongst them. We have picked them up, thrown them and sat quietly investigating them more intently.

And then there was the fun leading up to Halloween with the grand finale of the Halloween Day. Sarah G made spiders with the children, which were a lot of fun. Manjit made some pumpkins with them and a delicious pumpkin loaf cake that they decorated and ate on the fun day. The children came in fantastic costumes and as a collection of little dressed up toddlers they were quite simply adorable.

Dolphins October

Dolphins have also embraced the outdoors with a number of preschool children’s trips to the Green. They have had a great time collecting leaves, sticks, conkers, seed pods, etc and bringing them back to the nursery to look at further.

Jenny, who has been training as a Forest School teacher for the last year, has been talking to the first group of children and getting resources ready with them  for their Forest Schools sessions. A Forest School is an innovative educational approach to outdoor play and learning. The philosophy of Forest Schools is to encourage and inspire individuals of any age through positive outdoor experiences.

For more information on Forest Schools, please look at the link to the right of this page.

Following the collections, we have been making leaf rubbings with the leaves, sticking them together to make autumn collages, playing with them in clay, drawing around them, etc.

Some of the Dolphin children also took a trip to St Mary’s nursery and took part in some tile making workshops there to make colourful tiles to display in the children’s bathroom. We’ll take another trip to look at the finished tiles in December too.

And then there was of course an overload of Halloween activities as well. Pumpkins made out of paper plates, salt dough cats, witches, houses, pumpkins. Orange and black paper chains have been strung up…all in preparation for our Halloween costume party. And the Halloween Day was great fun too. The children were fantastic and we had all sorts of dressing up, fun and games all day, finished off with partying in the dark playground at the end of the day with our Halloween music, disco lights and glowsticks. What a great way to finish October!

 

September reflection

Sea Turtles explored a range of natural materials and elements in more depth this month.
One of the things Beata set up was a lovely activity with stones of different shapes, sizes and colours and mixed them in with wet sand on a tray. The children explored the qualities of the different stones and felt the smooth textures against the rough sand. Very mucky and fun. Megan also did a variation of this, by helping the children to make pictures using wet sand to make designs and apply on paper.

Beata also set up a great activity with green-blue jelly crystals and water in the water tray. The crystals expanded in the water to make a grainy jellish substance to run the toy ducks through and around.

Sarah Louise set up a water play activity for the children to explore different natural materials in water. She used stones, leaves, sticks, shells, sand in the water and also explored and showed the children the pieces that floated and sunk; letting the children drop them into the water to see the effect.
She also set up a very messy, but absolutely wonderful activity of clay and water to make mud with lumps, bumps and silky smoothness for the children. They buried items in the mud and then dug to find them as well. The children really loved this activity!

After the wet muddy clay, Sarah Louise set up a regular clay activity with stiff clay for the children to poke, scratch and manipulate the clay into different shapes and to get different effects from it. This was really enjoyed too in a different kind of way as the children could get more permanent effects from their impact on the clay.

Manjit made pancakes with the children. They loved this and loved eating them. The activity promoted lots of discussion and language involving ‘hot’, ‘stand back’ and ‘careful’, etc. They looked for the bubbles forming to see when they were ready to turn and discussed their shape, pouring, getting bigger, turning brown, etc.

Making fire pictures was also led by Manjit. She used red, orange, yellow to add texture to pictures they had done using white chalk on black paper. And they also made wind pictures using long strips of white tissue paper on blue paper and talked about wind, whistling and blowing as they made them.

One of the highlights was the volcano. Jenny came down from Dolphins to show them how to set it up and the children watched as the 'lava' spewed out over the sides unexpectedly in great froths after she poured in the vinegar to the soda.

The month, even though it ended with a random heat wave, also saw leaves tumbling down all around us, so tossing and throwing leaves has become a daily activity as great drifts of leaves find their way all over the playground and gathering in the corners.

Something that we have been doing a lot of recently in Sea turtles has been exploring all the sensory toys in the sensory tent. They flash, glow, vibrate, move and totally excite the children, filling them with delight in thje unexpected.

And in Dolphins, they had a month exploring boats and naturally this extended to a lot of water interest too, especially at the end of the month when 28 degrees had us putting great icebergs in our water play that we had been freezing the evenings before.

Carole and the children worked hard across the month putting together a book all about boats. She held great discussions with children about different types of boats they knew about and boats they had been on. They drew lots of pictures about their discussions and book is fabulous and full of some wonderful drawings. It is sitting in reception if you want to have a read with your children.

Laura W taught the children two new songs this month about the sea. Including a A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea… and When I Was One, I Sucked My Thumb and sailed Away To Sea... and so we have heard them being hummed and sung away as the children potter through activities and it sounds so lovely.

Laura W spent some time on floating and sinking this month with the pre-schoolers too. A lot of just choosing any random items and making predictions about whether or not they would float and sink, but they also moved on to designing boats by looking at images of boats, drawing pictures of them and then making them with lego. They were asked to make them while thinking about all of the things they thought made something float and many of them came up with some fantastic boats that floated!

The pre-schoolers also did a lot of counting and number work based around colours, shapes, sizes and quantities as well.
Laura Z set up a boat collage activity for the children to select shapes, draw around them, cut them out and stick them on card to make a boat in their own way. They also added wool for water and put together some wonderful boats shapes.
Some of the children made boats going to Antarctica and used white wool ‘because it is so cold there’.
Throughout the activity they talked about where in the world boats go and the types of weather and conditions they come across. They sang boats songs, chatted away and carried on their discussions into the book corner where they read all sorts of boat books. They especially enjoyed the book, Sam Goes Sailing.

Laura J spent a lot of time with the children in the outdoors making boat dens and setting up dramatic boating play. The most special of the activities was the pirate ship on the climbing frame. They set up lots of blue fabric on the ground as the water, the oven as the ticket stop, to buy tickets to go sailing on the boat. The children spent hours setting up the boat the way they wanted it and setting sail.

And on a different tangent, our Apple Harvest day was terrific fun. We set up the car park as an orchard using the trees that we had made in the week with Carole, then scattered 100s of apples around the car park hidden in cunning places. Then, the children role played traveling to the orchard on a bus of lined up seats, singing songs about buses and the outdoors. When we finally made it, the children got out and went on an apple hunt; racing around the car park trying to find the most apples to fill the apple bucket. Then, once all the apples had been found, the children chose between games of Pin The Apple on The Branch, Apple Bobbing and jumping on the bouncy castle.

In the afternoon, they made apple crumble with the gathered apples, for tea children ate a whole apple of their choice and they got to take an apple home too. It was a pretty fun special activity day.

September to October plans

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?

From September to October we will be having an enhanced focus on boats.

The children became really interested in Pirates a couple of months ago and they have started to revisit this with a bigger focus on boats. The younger children have really been brought along with it through the boat aspect and so we are going to explore all the different sorts of boats there are with them and peg a range of activities around boats.

The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:

KUW-exploring different types of boats PSED- sharing what they know about boats with other children MD- size, variation, differences, similarities, ordering, comparing. CLL- Reading about, learning new words, talking about boats. PD- making boats on large scales using the large construction equipment dramatic play around boats.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be:
- Laura W will be introducing two new boats songs to circle times.
- Laura J will be making boats with children using the large construction equipment in the outdoors.
- Christina will be setting the scene of a ferry for some role play and making paper boats with the children.
- Laura Z will be discovering with the children about the journey a boat makes through hot and cold environments.
- Laura J will be making a series of laminated images of different types of boats and some information about them to share with the children.
- Rachel will be role playing, talking about and doing some creative activities about the sea life you can see from boats.
- Jenny will be making woodwork boats with the children and creating sea life mobiles.
- Laura W will be setting up some floating and sinking activities based around the things in the sea.
- Carole will be making a book of children’s drawing and stories about what they know about boats.
- Laura and Jenny will be organising a small group walk to the Thames Path to look at, draw and take photos of the different types of boats they can see.
- Rachel will be collecting photos the children bring in of themselves on boats to talk about in circle times.

What you could do to support your children at home:
- Bring in some photos and share what your family knows about boats; boats you have been on, boats families have been on, boats family members work on. We can use these in discussion times to support your child in building their confidence in talking in front of others.
- Go for a walk along the canal or Thames Path with your child and talk about the different types of boats and what they do.
- Go to the library and get some different books out about boats.
Take a ride on a boat on the Thames or Canals with your child.


What are we doing in Sea Turtles from September to October?

Sea turtles have been loving playing in the new sand pit, pushing their faces into the wind, playing in the water and starting to watch some of the leaves find their way into their playground. They have a real interest in exploring through their senses and with the big changes that the start of autumn brings, this is a great time to explore these elements with the children.

The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:

KUW-exploring textures and qualities through their fingers. PSED- confidence in exploring new textures and feelings. MD- size, shape, pattern, colour. CLL- naming new discoveries and expanding vocabulary PD-using bodies to touch, move, explore through their senses CD- arts and crafts, movement using things in creative ways.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
• Manjit will make a volcano with the children in the sand mixing vinegar and bicarbonate of soda.
• Sarah G will be helping the children to make kites to fly in the wind and using the sensory tent blacked out with torches, flashing balls, mirrors for light reflection, etc.
• Sarah-Louise will be using natural materials to make collages with the children, planting bulbs and making windmills.
• Beata will be making collages with leaves and playing with and exploring different types of stones.
• Megan will be making sand pictures with the children and setting up a variety of different water play experience for the older and younger children.
• Manjit will be making pancakes with the children and using the camp stove to cook them; talking about the heat and safety and making some art with the children to represent the process of cooking the pancakes.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
• Collect natural materials for your children to play with and explore the qualities of. E.g. sticks, stones, leaves, conkers, sand, water.
• Play with your baby by fanning them to give them the experience of wind on their bodies. Flap blankets and sheets and blow on their skin.
• Let them explore water movement by half filling a water bottle to play with. Add food colouring for a different effect.

reflection

Well, August started off with our full steam planning and preparation for our Working Mums Summer barbecue held at our nursery for both of our nurseries.

The children love getting ready for our barbecues and feeling the excitement build as they decorate and create props for the theme. This year was a Hawaiian Beach Party and the children made so many beautiful interpretations of palms, leis, pineapple faces, flowers and so on.

And thanks in the largest part to the families who came; we think our Hawaiian beach party atmosphere was the best yet and it looked and tasted great too. Memories of our dads doing their best at the limbo, children bowling coconuts at the shy and trying to loop pineapples for little prizes are great, but always the most fun and biggest draw is the bouncy castle (the biggest we could get this year) and the beach that we made with sand dumped on tarpaulins, is just such summery fun.

And after the event had passed us by, we settled back in to enjoy the last of the summer sunshine (and rain realistically ..more and more of it).

Sea turtles have really settled into their new space and are having a great time with loads of activities. They have been exploring Sea life over the last month and so have had loads of activities going on around that.

Megan organised a trip next door to the Tropical Fish Shop. They went in two at a time to keep under the radar and not disturb the shop, but loved it! It is like visiting a little tropical aquarium in there. They have amazing fish of all colours and lots of ‘Nemos’.

Beata has been doing loads of drawing with the children and using the outside blackboard with them by showing them what to do and giving them chalk to draw with. She has also been making little mini pictures like post cards using paints and lots of crayon drawings on the painting easel inside with them.

Sarah-Louise showed the children how to make some great little crabs. She gave them crabs shapes to cover with glue, orange and yellow sand, then some little googly eyes to put on. She also set up some lovely underwater play using seashells and sea creatures in blue water.

Emily had some fun with the children painting shells. Great for their fine motor skills to paint small items and different shaped surfaces and textures.

Manjit made some fish mobiles with the children. The children selected their fish and punched holes in them with the hole punch. Manjit helped them to thread the string through the fish to hang up for mobiles. She also made little ‘fish tanks’ with the children by laminating goldfish pictures and getting the children to post them into bottles, fill them with water and glitter and secure the lid. They then had loads of fun playing with their little goldfish tanks.

Sarah G worked solidly with children over the month to create her sea display. The children had loads of fun making collage octopi, starfish and painting a whale and then helping her to display all their work. It does look pretty cool.

One big addition to the environment this month has been the new sand pit. The children love it and there are often times we need to weed children out of it because they all want to get in and can’t all fit and leave room to play! As the month has worn on and the nove

lty died down, it remains in constant use, but without the whole group wanting to be in there all at once.

And over in Dolphins, the hardest part of the month has been waiting for our tomatoes to ripen. So slow that some of the children gave up and presented us with a collection of green tomatoes and said look they are ready! But after that, we waited and one by one they slowly ripened and those who like tomatoes enjoyed eating them. But still, we wait and wait for the rest to ripen and wonder if they ever will. And as for the pumpkins, they produced those beautiful yellow flowers and that is all, but for the first time ever, we have been successful in growing all of our sunflowers and they were beautiful.

This month, we had a big focus on music and sounds. Christine H helped the children to make some fabulous shakers using cups and filling them with rice, then decorating them. Laura Z helped the children make some groovy guitars with the boxes, rubber bands, paint and glitter. Cristina helped the children make some drums with the children using two paper bowls, stapling them together and decorating them and Laura W helped children to make shakers using bottles. The children all had a very big music session using their instruments to accompany their singing and having a fantastic time. And, at the end of the session there was not much decorative glitter left on their instruments, but left the nursery looking much like one of those snow globes!

Activities tend to spiral off in all directions like singing Humpty Dumpty, that went into making Humpty Dumpties’ one raining day with Christine H and Laura W and then all sorts of discussions about what was inside humpty Dumpty. So, the only way to find out was to boil and egg, open it and investigate what is inside an egg. So Laura and Christine got out the camp stove and showed the children the process of boiling an egg. The children loved this and guessed how long it would take, what the egg would look like, how hot the water had to get, how to keep safe and so on. They especially loved the steam coming out of the pot!

Laura J did some work with the children on the types of noises animals make as this has been a feature of many of our songs. So, to jazz up our circle times, she helped the children to make animal masks and then they came to circle time with their masks in front of their faces to do some animal music.

Jenny, had a wonderful day with the children teaching them how to do Egyptian dancing with hip belts that jangle and dazzle. The children (boys and girls) shimmied, learned hip drops, figure of eights, snakey arms and danced their way through the afternoon taking turns and loving it!

Laura Z has made a game for the children where she has collected sounds of birds for them to listen to and pictures of the birds that make the sound. The children listen intently and then point to the birds that they think made the sound. Very hard at first, but after a few rounds the children got very good at identifying the sounds and matching them with the bird pictures. She has also made a rhyming game for the children where the children have to match up pictures that rhyme- a little bit like dominoes. This has really piqued the children’s interest in rhyming and some of the older children are finding rhymes in everything they do!

And the noisiest part of the month was of course the pots and pans bands. Children just love that din and clatter of wooden spoons and spatulas of pots and pans! It is loud, we hate the noise, the children love it and so space needs to be made for it…sorry neighbours!

Then finally of course the saddest part of the end of summer is saying good bye to our school leavers. When they go, it leaves a little hole in our hearts, helped by many of them returning for after school care, but always really sad ending an era of children, many of whom we have loved each day since they were babies.

August to September

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?
From August to September we will be having an enhanced focus on sounds and music.
This has really kicked off because with the introduction of the iPod touch to manage the children’s music, we have been able to quickly access a wide variety of music that we always had but just couldn’t find when you wanted it! The children are able to use the iPod to select what they want to listen to and the motivation and energy behind joining in and choosing different music and favourites has been inspiring and something we want to enhance.
The iPad has also introduced new ways to think about sounds and music, including birds and animal sounds, volume, beats, etc.
The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:
KUW-music from other cultures PSED- confidence in singing, dancing and making sounds MD- variation in sounds, counting songs, tapping out rhythm. CLL- learning new words to songs. Repeating language PD- movement to music CD- exploring new ways to express themselves with music.
Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be:
• Laura Williams will be setting up instrument making workshops with the children and then using the instruments children have made in music sessions.
• Laura Z is planning on using some recorded sounds of birds to work with the children on sound and image matching.
• Laura Z will be working with some children to make a guitar.
• Laura J will be incorporating animal sounds into new songs and old favourites like Old MacDonald.
• Rachel G will be introducing some old nursery rhymes and focussing on rhyming words and the sounds they make.
• Christine H will be running music sessions conducting fast, slow, loud, soft sounds and tapping out beats.
• Jenny will be introducing some Egyptian music and teaching children some simple dances.
• Cristina will be making loud noises with pots and pans bands.
• Carole will be teaching the children some new songs from around the world.
What you could do to support your children at home:
• Break out in the lounge and do some fun dancing to different types of music.
• Talk about the types of music you like and why you like it.
• Ask them what their favourite music is and take some time out to enjoy it together.
• Go to the library and get out a book on music instruments. Talk about the different types and noise they make.
• Take time to listen to their environment and see if you can spot bird calls and talk about what they sound like.

What are we doing in Sea Turtles for June?
With the last month of all things Hawaiian, we went to the beach and the sea and probably with our new name as Sea turtles, we have started to discuss and show an interest in sea creatures. So we will explore this further this month.
The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:
KUW-discovery of different sea life PSED- finding a sense of curiosity and satisfaction in learning new things. MD- size, shape, pattern, colour. CLL naming new discoveries and expanding vocabulary PD-using bodies in new actions songs or exploring new activities CD- arts and crafts.
Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve: • Manjit will be supporting the children in making some ‘bottom of the ocean’ art works using paint, coloured sand and collage. She will also be setting up sea turtle making with card, tissue and paint. • Sarah G will be helping the children make whale pictures, starfish and jelly fish pictures.
• Megan will be leading a small group excursion to the tropical fish shop to look at the fish and making sea life collages.
• Sarah-Louise will be making sea creature pictures of crabs and setting up water play experiences with sea creatures, sand, pebbles, shells, etc.
• Emily will be making some fin dress ups for the children to pretend they are
• Beata will support the team in different activities when she returns from her holiday.
• Su will bring in a real fish for them to touch and feel and make prints from.
Some ideas to support your children at home:
• Take your child to the library to take out some books on sea creatures.
• Go to a pet shop and look at the fish with them.
• Take them into a fish shop and show them all the fish, then buy one, cook it and try it together.
• Teach them a few fishy songs like….”One, two, three, four, five, onvce I caught a fish alive….

July reflection

Dolphins as usual have had a really busy and active month with loads of time spent outside. Gardening has been a favourite and since all of our work has been done in our pots, we are just doing lots of watering and to keep the fingers busy and the love of gardening going, we have been doing plenty of gardening role play too.

Carole has been doing lots of poetry and stories from around the world with the children, particularly the older children during rest time. The children have loved this and it has prompted loads of discussions about where the children have family around the world. So far in poems and stories she has taken us to the Philippines, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, France and Czech Republic.

Laura J has been doing wooly collages with the children. She has been helping them to cut wool of different colours shapes and sizes that they want and then collage it to make their pictures. Laura has also been making grass skirts with the children in readiness for our Hawaiian Beach Party BBQ.
Laura Z has been doing some cute little collages with the children, making palm trees and lady pineapples. Some of them are really cute and the children have concentrated really hard to get all the pieces in the places they want them.

Lan has been making leis with the children out of little flowers she has taught some of them to cut, paint and card strips to stick them on..

Laura W has also been making leis and talking with the children about how leis are used as a welcome in Hawaii. It’s been great for their fine motor skills as they push the little tissue flowers onto bodkins and down onto the string.

She has also spent a lot of time with the children looking at flashcards of images of different cultures and countries, talking about the different customs of the countries.

Christine H made a fish tank with some of the younger the children. They painted card fish that she had made and then strung them up in a box painted by the children. She helped children make telescopes from tubes by encouraing them to choose tubes, paint and decorate them. Then they were able to use them in play.
Rachel has been helping the children to paint big palms trees together to decorate our barbecue. There is something the children find really satisfying about applying loads of paint up and down to a big surface.

And Jenny has seen her pre-schoolers year end with their final excursion to the Tropical Zoo. They had an amazing time feeding tortoises, snakes, creepy crawlies and loads more. If you have not been there it is a zoo worth visiting if you are brave and if you are not, you might need to pretend you are for the sake of your child. http://www.tropicalzoo.org/.

It was a big month for Seaturtles. We went from Seahorses and Starfish to Sea Turtles this month, joining the two rooms together to create one group with more freedom and more options for play depending on their mood. So we now have a quiet room, where sleeping, sensory play, books, puzzles, heuristic play goes on with quiet music always playing in the back ground. It’s been great for children who just need a bit of space and for babies sleeping throughout the day too. And, for the teachers to have some time with a bit of peaceful quiet play too is a breather.

We also have an ‘active room’ for louder play, exploring equipment at different heights, encouragement to pull themselves up, climb, interact, play with water, the home corner, musical instruments, arts and crafts, blocks and a range of different equipment.

But most of the time, the children who want to be ‘busy’ have been outside. We’ve had a great month for weather and have been able to take the arts and crafts outside, loads of cooling water play, sand play, gardening and climbing about the equipment. It has also been wonderful to be able to eat our snacks and some of our teas outside too. We’ve even been able to fit in a trip to the park.

A lot of the activities this month have been around our focus on Hawaii. We have our big summer barbecue at the start of August and so these are some of the activities that we have been doing to get into the spirit…
Manjit has been supporting the children in making Hawaiian flowers, tropical fish and Tiki Gods. She also helped a group of children to bake pineapple cake and muffins. These were delicious, the children devoured them and so did the teachers!
Sarah supported the children in making some Hawaiian skirts, necklaces, palm trees and pineapples. These are really groovy and look great!
Beata helped the children to make little flowers with circles of tissue paper all stuck together.

And, Megan helped the children make some Hawaiian pizzas with a small group which were enjoyed by everyone.

June reflection

Dolphins, Seahorses and Starfish had a great month of insects and creepy crawlies exploration.

These are some of the activities they have done…
Laura Z in the Dolphins made some little puzzles for the children out of images of different types of insects and then cut them up to make puzzles out of them. The children pieced them all together to rebuild the images and guess the names of the insects. The children learned some new insects in the process such as a lady bird spider. And if you didn’t know what one was, here it is- they’re kind of cute don’t you think?

Laura Z. also made some bumble bees with the children. She made a model one and the children had all the pieces together to choose where they go and they made some fantastic attempts at some bees that really do look like bees!

Christine H. introduced some new insects stampers that the Dolphins children drew around to make insects outlines. They then cut them out with scissors and decorated them. Generally, the children’s ability with scissors is very competent and they are regularly looking for things to cut around in magazines and tracing other items such as their hands to then cut out.

Laura W supported the Dolphins children to make some really gorgeous little spiders out of foam eggs, pipe cleaners, paint and buggy eyes. They are adorable and the children loved making them. Actually, as soon as the beady eyes come out of the collage cupboard they are pretty excited!

She also set up a great insect collage table with foam pieces cutting up some pieces for the children to use, but also getting the children to use off cuts and their own cut up pieces to build their insect collages. This was great for all abilities and some children made amazingly advanced pictures like the caterpillar here and others made pieces that were a bit more rough around the edges and just as brilliant.

Rachel set up an insect stencil activity that all of the Dolphin children took part in. Some of the children drew around stencils, cut them out carefully and created patterns in them. Others drew around them and left them as a collection of images on paper and coloured them and some just did lots of stencil prints with no colour. This was a lovely quiet activity with children coming and going as they did their but with lots of support to the especially young Dolphins to encourage them into the world of arts and crafts. The butterfly was by far the most popular stencil.

Laura J did some dramatic play with the children outside by setting up dens for insects. She draped fabric about to made the dens and then got inside the dens with the children to pretend to be insects coming and going from their den to collect food and bring it back to their insect friends!
Throughout the month in Dolphins, while we were exploring all sorts of insects, pirates took over our nursery.

Lan made a collection of head scarfs with different themes on them and the pirates were by far the most popular….so Lan had to make a few more last minute to keep all our pirates happy. Every morning after breakfast our pirates grabbed their head scarfs and so the day began and soon we were making pirate ships, printing of treasure maps and hiding gold coins around the nursery to be found, reading stories about pirates and making all sorts of impromptu piratey type things!

Carole read the favourite story for the month, The Troll, which involved pirates, treasure chests, maps and walking the plank!

Seahorses and Starfish planned together this month and also followed an insect topic after all the bug collecting in our plants of the month before.

Sarah helped the starfish make some really groovy spider pictures by painting card spider bodies and gluing on straws for legs. The lovely thing about the children doing it and sticking the straws in all sorts of random positions is that somehow the spiders look even cuter!

Sarah also set up red and green ant making activities, caterpillar collages and water play filled with all sorts of insects in the water. The lovely thing about the Starfish is that they love getting really sticky with glue and slippery with the paint and just wallow in the joy of exploring the different sensations.

Manjit set up for the children a really neat little ‘bugs in the night’ small world activity. She used dark coloured sand, twigs, leaves and set the children to work moving and playing the little plastic bugs through the mini wilderness. So many different tectures to feel in this and some of the chldre really got into moving the bugs about and others really focussed on feeling the( different quality of this sand to our sand tray) sand in their fingers, the leaves and twigs.

She also set up a great little activity of making ‘snail trails’ on paper using string and silver paint. They trailed the strings around the paper leaving behind trails of silver paint like snail trails.

Manjit also helped the children make spiders using different materials to Sarah. She made them with black and brown fur, glued onto egg boxes with googly eyes.

For the smaller children Emily set up a butterfly making activity using glitter of different colours, lots of glue and mess on paper. It was fantastic and the children loved the flicking about of glitter, sticky hands on paper and everything getting caught on their hands including the glitter, the paper and them selves! The process was such fun and the end result was pretty gorgeous too.

With a lady bird colour concept, Emily also set up some fun sponge painting with red and black colours to dip round sponges into and onto paper. Of course it was a mess and the images to the uninformed eye and probably to the babies as well, were nothing like lady birds, but the point was an activity that was fantastic exploratory fun.

Beata made some lovely summery pictures with the babies of shapes of birds, butterflies, etc using sponges to absorb and stamp water colours onto yellow and blue paper. Lots of the babies really preferred to use their fingers- dipping them into the paint and smearing them about the paper, the table, their aprons and them!

She also made some fun giant flies with the babies. They were able to stamp black paint onto cut out fly shapes and then stick tissue paper about to make a kind of winged effect.

But other great spontaneous fun was the wonderful summery weather that meant we got out the giant submarine paddling pool for the children to splash about in for the day. It was so much fun and really made us all feel we were on holiday at nursery! We’ve also been able to do excursions to Mortlake park to search for bugs, more gardening and may we add that the gardens in both the under two’s and over two’s play grounds are looking amazing with flowers! And we have even had some fantastic water play with flowers and glitter- how pretty is that!?

Dolphins edible garden is also looking just incredible. Our tomato plants are the biggest and most flowery and green tomato bud bursting that we have ever seen them. Our pumpkins are going strong and we are not quite sure how we are going to manage them because there is a long way to go till pumpkin harvest! And our strawberries, while not enough to feed us all, but mixed with a few bought in ones was a really special and satisfying event.