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.