June plans

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?

From April to May we will be having an enhanced focus on insects and creepy crawlies.
The children have been out in the garden hunting around, finding and delighting in insects and so we are planning on a big month of insects investigation and exploration.

The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:
KUW-discovery, growing, observation PSED- confidence in exploring creepy crawlies MD- size, shape, pattern. CLL naming, discussing, PD music and movement as insects CD- arts and crafts.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be:
• Model insects will be inhabiting our sand, water, playground and environment. Waiting for children to find them.
• Rachel and the children will be making some insect pictures.
• Lan and the children will be making some insect head gear.
• Jenny, Rachel and the children will be leading some creative dancing like insects.
• Carole and the children will be reading insects stories and poetry and doing some supporting artwork.
• Laura J and the children will be making some insects dens.
• Christine H and the children will be making egg carton bugs.
• Laura J and the children will be making a wormery.
• Jenny and the children will be raising stick insects.
• Christina and the children will be doing some junk modelling insects.
• Laura Z and the children will be making insects puzzles.

What you could do to support your children at home:
• Take them on a bug hunt, talk about the bugs you saw, then draw pictures of them.
• Let your child use a digital camera to take photos of bugs the find. Do some research and find out what different bugs you find are called.
• Go to the library and get some books out about insects.
• Look for tadpoles and different insects around ponds
• Make a wormery, it’s easy- ask the nursery for some instructions.

What are we doing in Starfish and Seahorses for June?
Insects, bugs, creepy crawlies and frogs.
Children have been fascinated in spotting bugs, including spiders, lady birds and bugs. We have also had some tadpoles that they have loved watching swimming around the water. So, we plan to extend this interest.

The activities this month will be based around the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning:
KUW-discovery, learning about new bugs PSED- confidence in exploring creepy crawlies, MD- size, shape, pattern, colour. CLL naming, discussing, PD-experimenting in different ways to move bodies through acting out the insects , CD- arts and crafts.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
• Sarah will be making some spiders with the children using googly eyes, straws for legs, circles for bodies and piecing them all together.
• The sand play will have a month of plastic creepy crawlies hidden in it.
• Manjit will be making some furry creepy crawlies using egg trays, furry bits, eyes.
• Lily will be doing some bug printing using paint and sponges.
• The children will be taking bug expeditions to the playground and local grassy areas to find bugs.
• Sarah will make some bug collages with little pictures of insects for the children to choose from.
• Emily and the children will be creating all sorts of things to create a new wall display.
• Beata will be making ‘flies’ with the children out of black painted tissue paper.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
• Take out a blanket and sit on a grassy patch. Look through the grass at all the bugs that are there. Count them, let them crawl on you, get a magnifying glass out and look at them.
• Go to the library and take out a book about bugs. Look at them and talk about them.
• If you have an iphone/pad or equivalent look for some bug apps, there are loads and some good basic children’s flash cards that name the creatures. Let us know of any good one you find.
• Sing lots of insect songs you know with them. Incy Wincy spider, I know an old lady…

April and May in Dolphins

Really, we had 'free plans' over May and April. There were so many bank holidays and children's holidays coming up over the two months, that we let our planning for lifecycles run for two months and were pretty loose in the interpretation of it, allowing children who were coming and going from holidays talk about what they had been doing and what they had been seeing.

Lots of discussions as expected and planned for were about all the flowers, plants, insects, etc. But the children also became really fascinated in weddings due to the royal wedding- of which we did no activities based around it at the nursery, but the environment saw to it that we were not going to miss out on thinking about weddings. Children found tiny pictures of William and Kate in magazines and papers and cut them out on the collage table like they had found treasure! There must have been a lot of wedding album sharing going on at home too, because the children loved telling teachers about their parents wedding photos and photos of them when they were small.

This led on to an interest in adults when they were younger. Laura Z asked all the teachers to bring in photos of them when they were young, which they did. The children have had so much fun and amusement trying to guess which pictures are of which teacher. The teachers had fun with this as well, mostly from a generation guessing perspective as we laughed at the clothes and quality of the photos!!

In April mostly, we did a lot of collage and work around flowers. Probably the most interesting and fun activity was dissecting a bunch of real flowers. We looked at and talked about the differences in their petals, leaves, stamens, anthers, etc. Then after they had all been taken apart, we collaged them onto some big pieces of paper.
In late April some of the older Dolphins children took a trip to Homebase to buy some plants, soil, hanging baskets and seeds to their garden. They chose some plants that they could eat and some plants that they could admire. This year, we have experimented with plants that grow up (peas and beans) and plants that grow upside down (we have some tomatoes growing upside down from hanging baskets) and then there are our flowers in the flower baskets that the children are watering (when they are not watering the teachers) and our strawberries that are a raging success this year, but for the constant hungry attacks from children’s wandering fingers and insects.

Children loved the gardening so much that once the plants were planted and we needed to end the digging, they just wanted to go back for more and this is not helpful for the plants survival! So we have set up a free gardening tray in the outdoor sand tray. Children have been digging, scraping, burying, hiding and discovering in the tray. We have plastic insects, and other natural materials in it to play with and the children have had a blast.

Football is a real success. The children who do it love it so much that we have had to add in another class to reduce the number sizes and ensure the children are having lots of opportunity to kick those balls. The other great thing about it is that it has really encouraged children's interest in lots of different physical activities and we have been kicking and throwing all sorts of objects about! Kicking- only balls, but throwing has seen Frisbees, bean bags, balls, tennis balls and scoops and quoits.

Sensory play has been a relaxing part of our days. We have a sensory tent that reflects light and we play with glowing balls, torches, funny feeling objects that have weird names we always forget, things to squeeze, pull, twist and things that slip through your hands and are really hard to hold on to! Also different textures, temperatures and sizes.

We can’t forget the bike and scoot days. They are so much fun and it is amazing how good the less confident children have become on their bikes or scooters. They just watch each other and want to hang out like big children together and just do it. It is brilliant to watch as they dish out instructions to each other and direct each other. They love the whole experience. Even the rolling down of the tyres to set up the space provides as much fun in the anticipation of the ride than the ride.

Oh and the Spring Tea Party at the start of April was massive. That is really the best way to describe it. We expected half the numbers of families and children, planned for a civilised bonnet parade but unseasonably hot weather brought out everyone at the eleventh hour and we were pretty unprepared for it and amazed. Still, we had a great time, children loved their bonnets, Peppa Pig (well, most children- not all), tea, prizes and of course the bouncy castle. It was hot and fun and we raised £621.80 for Wellchild which was great!

And, back to the garden, we have also been looking at insects through magnifying glasses. We have found lady birds, snails, ants and little odd bugs that we are unfamiliar with around the playground sparking off a major insect interest that is running through the nursery at present.

April and May in Seahorses and Starfish

Well, these children had a busy little couple of months as well.

Starfish have made beautiful butterflies by painting splodges on paper and the folding the paper in half to make a reflection. They rubbed the sides of the paper to make sure the paint was well spread and then loved watching the paint stick to the sides to be pulled apart with the butterfly effect appearing. They loved the end result too, demonstrated with claps of satisfaction. They look so pretty.

They also made spring flowers using coloured bits of tissue paper to stick onto paper to make ‘flowers’. The children loved the process of scrunching up the flowers and then sticking them onto the paper. There was lots of stickiness on fingers, tables and the work itself. -A lovely activity to lose themselves in while pottering away. To make some bumble bees the children used yellow tissue paper and black paint on card with some glorious glitter to dazzle them up.

We have bought some beautiful images of insects and plant life and laminated them for the children to look at and match up the same images. They absolutely love looking through them. They are so vibrant and interesting for the children and allow them to really look close up at flowers, plants and insects. We have been using them as flash cards for children to call out what they see, but also as images just left on a table for them to fossick through and look at ones that particularly interest them. With the bug pictures, we have been doing some actions for insects and dancing about pretending to be different insects.

Starfish highlight of spring was our trip to Kew Gardens. It was absolutely exciting and great fun to walk to the bus stop and catch two buses to Kew, and then great to be met there with the buggies so the children could take a break and be shuttled around the grounds before their picnic. We all looked at flowers, plants, enjoyed the open spaces and the play areas. We also looked at the fish and water creatures in the aquarium.

Seahorses and Starfish have been having lots of fun outside and we have been trying to cheer up the area with flowers and plants. We have done some lovely planting with the children and it is hard to give them too much input in the planting without setting the plants up for a tough life, so they have helped a bit, got all the plant boxes and pots organised and then we got down to some real messy business. We filled the sand tray with soil, children’s gardening tools and some plants that we had thinned, found or pulled and let the children dig, bury, scatter and trowel. They love this and it has been a big part of both the seahorses and starfish fun for a while now.

Our younger Seahorses children have been hitting the messy play, play dough, water play, paint and all sorts of textures to create pictures and just enjoy feeling new things, swishing different consistencies around making big messy splats on tables and themselves. Glorious.

As well as all the different daily activities, they have had a good time playing with the puppets, both enjoying the teachers make funny noises and songs to actions with them and exploring them themselves.

nd we have had three new settlers as well. New settlers are always a good time for the older children as they all of a sudden feel so big and sure of themselvest in the room and develop a certain crawling swagger of confidence. For the new babies, it is always so lovely watching them become settled and start to enjoy the toys, friends, singing and games that go on in the nursery.