Reflection on March

March was a fabulous month for all of the rooms as we went from winter to spring and each day more children went outside for longer and longer spells of play. The children started to get deeply engaged in some activities that were able to be revisited all day long and have not done outside for many months, like large scale construction- your fingers would drop off doing that for more than five minutes in February!

Starfish

Starfish had a focus on fruits and vegetables in March had a lot of fun and interesting expressions trying different fruits. They tasted kumquats, guava, yellow plum, Brazilian mango, Chinese pear, dragon fruit and ramphal fruit/ custard apple.

The children painted on different shapes of different fruits and then put them together with the teachers to make a hungry caterpillar display- one of their favourite books. Hungry Caterpillar was a well read and loved book this month- as it is every month, but this month they really enjoyed trying to say the names of the fruits and smiling and pointing in recognition of the links between what they have been experiencing and what they are seeing in the story.

Play fruit and vegetables have been used with the play kitchen sets a lot too. The children have taken great delight in showing the fruits and vegetables to the teachers to reaffirm all the connections in sharing experiences in learning and the conversations they have been having. And whenever a fruit or vegetable that appeals pops up in a book, play set, odd box, they jump at the opportunity to share what they have found.

The teachers also set up little smell pots for the children that contained lemon, orange, vanilla and peppermint scents. The children had a lot of fun smelling the pots and being surprised by the scents, smiling and sharing them with their friends and teachers.

Other fun in March was the opportunities for trips to the Mortlake park as the weather made excursions appealing and possible. St Patricks day was very green, red nose day was very red and making the tea cups for their mothers for mother’s day was great fun too.

Dolphins

Dolphins enjoyed all the events of March. St David’s Day; as they examined a daffodil and watched a bunch of them go from buds to flowers, St Patricks day; making green shamrocks while listening to Irish music. Red nose day; when just about everything in the nursery turned red- not just our noses. Staff came in red wigs, we had red water, red play dough, red paint, toys, food- all turned red.

Bike and scooter day saw even more bikes and scooters arrive and the children really loved their time biking and scooting around the circuit with their friends. What was great was their re-enactment of the instructions they were given about timing during the bike and scoot sessions and seeing them instructing their dolls, trains and cars as they played with them. ‘Right, now you’re going in twos… okay now you go off now… red car, you’re next…’

Loads of activities took place surrounding the biggest event of the month which was nurturing our caterpillars that started off as tiny 2mm caterpillars to 40mm fat caterpillars, to cocoons, to the grand finale of the month, being the release of the butterflies. We fed them oranges and sugar water until they had flapped and dried their wings to be ready for release. When we released them, they found it hard to say good bye to us and hung around for a bit on our jackets, hands and bodies untill we encouraged them that the sky and plants were waiting for them.

In fascination with our butterfly nurturing, the month was spent making all sorts of insects out of box construction and collage, painting, reading about lifecycles, doing lifecycle puzzles, watching the world around us change- even the light evenings and being able to play outdoors right till home time was appreciated, discussed and enjoyed.

Gearing up for Mother’s day was really special too. The children made candles with Jenny for their mothers. This required lots of rules, watching and supported pouring of very hot wax. The children chose their colours, some added fragrances and they all added their wicks. Collage cards were also made with flower wallpaper and collages of their mummy’s faces were made with paper plates, face drawing and wool for hair. The teachers and the children discussed ‘surprises’ and how they needed to wait till mother’s day to tell them about what they had been doing for them. They had some lovely discussions about how much they love their mummy’s and how they all have the best mummy in the world. It was really lovely to have some time sitting together working on gifts and reflecting on all the good things our Mums do for us.

Seahorses

Seahorses have had a month of exploring different textures and experiences. We have had a really settled and eager group of babies, very keen to climb, explore and investigate all sorts of new things, including climbing on and getting up close to each other! We have had the soft play climbing equipment out a lot for them to roll, crawl, climb and slide around on. They love this, especially inside on those wet spring days.

Our student has made some toys for the babies to explore as well, using a cardboard box and some different textured materials around it for them to play with, they loved the new, strange and exciting box in the room.

The babies have enjoyed and explored the sensory bottles with different brightly coloured bits and pieces in them, lots. They have loved their painting- getting messy and slippery and watching the effect as they smear, stamp and swipe paint onto paper. They have also had a lot of fun with gluing pieces of paper onto to other paper and getting into a really sticky mess!

Box play is always loved by babies and they have had some great times playing with each other climbing in and out of boxes and playing peek-a-boo.

Water play on the floor with ducks was fun and so relaxing to do on an afternoon inside and so was messy play with corn flour and water, spoons and containers. Squeezing and grabbing away at the play dough was a relaxing and fun activity to do together with the teachers.