What are we doing in Starfish this month?

During August, we will be having a focus on colours.

Some of our starfish children are starting to name colours. Some of them have an understanding of the differences in colour, the names of colours and can point to colours that are the same. Others are just starting to say the names of some colours and notice that the same item can come in many colours.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
Introducing colours into our circle times; talking about the colours of lego- red, blue green yellow.
Painting with red, blue, green and yellow with increased opportunities to talk about the colours they are using.
Additional opportunities for building with Mobilo, Links, Duplo, Mega Blocks while talking about and matching up colours.
Talking about the colours of animals and different patches of animals.
An increased focus on colours through everyday conversations with the children.
Having ‘colour’ days. E.g. red day. Where children can wear a certain colour, the water play will be coloured, play dough will be coloured.
Baking with icing of certain colours.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
Go to the library and get out a book on colours
Talk about colours in your everyday conversations.
Watch vehicles go past and talk about the colours of the cars, buses, etc.
Name the colours of your children’s clothes as they get ready.
Do some painting at home and talk about colours.
Take a walk around your garden or go to a park and talk about the colours of the flowers, trees, plants, etc.

July in seahorses has been a special little month with welcoming new babies and settling them into the patterns of the day, new experiences and new little friends to bond with. Settling has been the biggest focus of the month and it has been really sweet seeing the babies who have been with us for the longest time feeling confident and showing the new babies how it’s all done in their own little ways.

The babies have had lots of opportunities for outside play and this also means they get to spend time with the toddlers while sharing the same space. The babies are adored by toddlers, especially our new babies.

Many of our babies have started to find their voices within the room and because they are settling well, they are really starting to chat away with each other and the teachers.

And, as well as welcoming new children and a change to the dynamic, we have still continued with our regular activities including a lot of the usual messy activities; corn flour slime, water play- inside and out, sand play in the garden, ball and bean bag throwing and placing in buckets and pots.

We even created a pretend beach on one of the days with mats to sits on and material to wave around their feet, buckets and spades and other beach toys to play with.

It has been a very active summery July month in Starfish.

We have spent a lot of time outside enjoying the summer weather and when it has not been feeling quite so summery, we have still carried on our outdoor summer time. We have enjoyed being outside watering our pansies which have continued to grow (we do have green fingers after all!). We have even been able to pick some of the flowers that have grown.

The teachers and children have taken several trips to our local park to play in the playground and enjoyed being out in the community.

We have made some lovely seaside artwork and the children chose the coloured sand they liked best to sprinkle on their art work as well as some waves to stick on.

In our garden, we made some kites to fly. The children had so much fun running up and down with their little kites blowing behind them.

On a very wet (and not very summery day) we had to accept that it was an inside day, so we put some Brazilian lounge music up loud and grooved away to the music as we bounced on our indoor bouncy castle.

Jenny, our teacher in the Dolphin room has been teaching some of the older children how to belly dance and they had made belly dancing belts with fabric and bottle tops. We were really lucky to have her offer to come into our Starfish room to do some belly dancing with the toddlers. She had three very enthusiastic followers and the rest of the children just enjoyed dancing away with their own rhythm.

And of course, we have been playing with all our messy activities and creating lots of art and having a fun and busy little time.

Over the last month of July, the Dolphins children have been focussing on grouping, pairing, ordering and sequencing amongst a whole lot of additonal fun!

There was lots of interest in fruit and vegetables and discussing the similarities and differences. The children are always interested in animals, but they have been more involved in talking about matching babies and parents, putting small ones together and big ones together, etc.

Although the biggest event for Dolphin children in July was our school leaver’s concert. All of the three and four year olds took part in presenting ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt', by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury, as well as sharing some of their favourite songs with the families . Sadly, the day bucketed down with rain and so the great bear hunt made to be displayed outside in the sunshine was confined to inside, but still really fun and the children did a wonderful job of exploring through, thick oozing mud, deep cold rivers, and showing their parents how big and confident they have grown.

The week following the concert the children were able to wear the props and play amongst the scenery that we left out for them. They loved re-enacting it and reading the book together some more.

The other great excitement for some of our children was the school leaver’s trip. Our children who are about to head off to school all went on a special excursion to the Butterfly Jungle at the Natural History Museum. They absolutely loved it and the experience fitted in really well with our focus on butterflies and growing them at the nursery in spring. Lots of children had butterflies land on them so they could have a close look at them. The variety, colours, shapes and sizes of the butterflies was incredible.The children also had their packed picnic in the museum and of course, could not leave without some time spent inside checking out the big dinosaur skeleton!

What are we doing in Starfish this month?

During July, we will be having a big focus on the sunshine and warm weather.
Many of the starfish are really interested in the process of going outside and preparing for the sun. They are fascinated by the ritual of sun block going on and sun hats having to stay on. They have been spending lots of time in the outdoor play area and loving the daily sand play and activities that really go with sunny days and a relaxed environment.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will be:
Allowing children to have a turn at putting on sun block and talking about where it goes.
Using a lot of language such as ‘hot’, ‘warm’, sun cream’, ‘hat’, ‘ice creams’, ‘ice lollies, ‘play grounds’,’ shorts’, ‘t-shirts’, summer dress, etc.
Creating seaside artwork.
Reading stories about the beach, playing, holidays, etc.
Eating tea, snack outside

What you could do to support your children at home:
Eat your lunch outside.
Take a trip to the seaside and point to new things, have a new experience.
Make some ice-lollies at home with your children, then sit in the garden and eat them.
Remember to use lots of language for labelling new things.
Go to the library or buy some books about summer time, holidays, etc.
Relax. Have a summer time holiday!

What are we doing in Seahorses this month?

During the months of July and August We will be having a big focus on welcoming, settling and getting to know each other. We have had four new children and one new team member join our old friends over the last month so we will be doing lots of meeting, greeting and sharing smiles. A part of getting to know the new surroundings and each other is by having lots of fun together and trying new things. Summer is the perfect time to explore the everyday and additional activities we do with the children.

Some of the additional activities all the babies will be involved with this month are:
Adding to our ‘messy’ display. This will involve lots of paint and mucky substance exploration.
Beach play- stripping off in the heat and taking part in water and sand play, and using paddling pools and buckets.
Exploring treasure in the outdoor play area new ‘cosy corner’.
Lots of play on the soft play structures to encourage mobility and physical confidence.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Encourage cooling relaxing activities in the heat. Set up the paddling pool or play with water in a bucket.
Set up shaded areas outside for your child to explore their usual toys, but in a different environment. When you come into the nursery acknowledge your child’s peers with them and say their name.
Learn the ‘Hello Song’, we sing it a lot at nursery going through the children’s names and acknowledging who they are.

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?
July will see a focus on sequencing, sorting, grouping, and classifying.

This has come from two emerging interests. Firstly, following on from our plants, animals and living things topics, the children have started to really think about grouping, pairing, ordering and sequencing. We have also been talking a lot about sequences of events, such as growing up, metamorphosis, etc. This is particularly topical for our school leavers and those children who are staying at nursery but saying good bye to old friends.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this concept will be:

- Playing games; snap, matching, dominoes.
- make our own sequencing cards with the children. E.g. I get up, then I get dressed, then I eat breakfast, then I brush my teeth, then I go to school.
- Discussions about growing up and the order of growth.
- Ordering sizes of our strawberries and tomatoes we are growing.
- Discussions about the stages and sequence of living things growth.
- Use of matching and sorting sets.
- Using the clay or play dough to make objects of varying size and comparing.
- Going on a walk to collect natural materials to sort at nursery.
- Go to the library and get books out on the topic.
- Lots of small world, sand and water play with objects to sort, sequence, group and classify.

What you could do to support your children at home:

- Talk about sequences of events in your own life; routines, patterns of activity, etc.
- Ask questions like, ‘what happens after we have a bath?’
- Write a story together about sequences of events in their lives and get them to think or talk about what you do in the day, your work routines, when you have lunch, etc.
- Go on a natural materials hunt and collect items to sort at home.
- Talk about size; smallest, biggest, the same as, etc.
- Sort your laundry together; ‘Daddy’s shirt, my shirt, Mummy’s shirt’, etc.