October plans

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?
During October we will be having a focus on Autumn. The children are loving the leaves falling and talking about it getting colder and darker and of course, the shop windows are attracting children to talking about Halloween. So it is an exciting month of change and experiences all around us.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this concept will be:
Going on a nature walk to collect natural materials
Setting up an autumnal nature table to look at the various things falling from the trees.
Art- printing with natural materials. E.g. leaves, conkers, etc.
Cooking- making soup out of seasonal vegetables.
Discussions and stories about what Autumn means and brings; darker weather, new colours, changes to the environment, warmer clothes.
Taking a photo shoot with the children of the environment to discuss changes and what is happening.
Having a Halloween party and discussing the festival of Halloween.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Go on a nature walk and collect conkers, acorns, leaves and any other autumnal items- use them at home or bring them into nursery.
Go to the library and get some books out on the weather.
Talk about the year cycle of trees, how they lose their leaves and then regain them in spring.
Talk about animals through the year and how they change. Maybe they hibernate, gain thicker fur, shed, etc.
Get your winter gears on and go for a long muddy walk. The Thames side is great for looking at long shadows, leaves and the environmental changes.
Take some photos with your child of the trees and the environment every couple of weeks and track and discuss the changes.

EYFS link: Knowledge and Understanding of the World.

What are we doing in Starfish this month?
Our children have been facing a change in routine involving more time spent in dressing up to get to the outdoors with discussion and new words around clothes and wrapping up to keep warm, so we will be having a focus on autumnal/ winter clothes, getting dressed, organising and looking after our belongings. And, also some observation and discussion of autumn.

Some of the activities all the starfish will be involved with this month are:
Exploring clothes for dressing up: hats, bags, scarves.
Doing some leaf printing, clouds and rain artwork.
Singing songs about getting ready for colder weather. E.g. Here We Go Round the Mulberry bush on a cold and frost morning. It’s raining, it’s pouring.
Stories about weather and dressing warmly.
Naming clothing items, snap games and flash cards.
Discussions about why we dress up warm and discussing temperature.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Talk about what you need to wear in the colder weather with your child. Name items as you put them on. Point out other people wearing scarves, hats, boots, etc in the street.
Take your child on a walk to point out all the fallen leaves.
Sit amongst some dried leaves and scrunch them together.
Go to Richmond park and look at all the chestnuts, conkers, acorns, leaves falling. Watch the squirrels running about.
Go to the library and get out some books on weather and clothes.

EYFS link: Knowledge and Understanding of the World.

What are we doing in Seahorses this month?

During the month of October we continue to exploring some of the natural materials that come about from autumnal changes- conkers, leaves, twigs. We will be looking at warm clothes, boots, hats, gloves, etc.

Some of the activities wall the babies will be involved with this month are:
Exploring clothes for dressing up: hats, bags, scarves.
Doing some leaf printing.
Painting in autumnal colours.
Making up a treasure basket with autumn things.
Singing songs about getting ready for colder weather. E.g. Here We Go Round the Mulberry bush on a cold and frost morning. It’s raining, it’s pouring.
Going for a walk to the park to scrunch some leaves.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Take your child on a walk to a point out all the fallen leaves.
Sit amongst some dried leaves and scrunch them together.
Go to Richmond Park and look at all the chestnuts, conkers, acorns, leaves falling. Watch the squirrels running about.
Go to the library and get out some books on weather and clothes.
Talk about what you are wearing: scarf, gloves, coat, boots.
Talk about what they are wearing too.

September reflection

Seahorses

Seahorses have had a very autumnal month with lots of painting, playing, singing and observing the autumn coming. They have particularly enjoyed exploring paint and paper textures, using their hands and using their paint brushes to paint the shapes of squirrels, hedgehogs and leaves with autumn colours.

The outside area has changed dramatically with all the leaves tumbling down and landing on the ground. The babies have had fun being surprised when one lands on or beside them, they have been picking them up and scrunching them and dipping them in puddles and making them stick on things, then clapping their hands for their accomplishments.

Music has been a very big feature of the month. With new babies more settled and relaxed we have been able to raise the volume in the room a little with singing sessions. The team sing songs and the children have been the supporting act with the percussion instruments. They love the ringing and singing and joining in with the words they know and humming and jigging along with the tunes they enjoy.

Books have also been explored along the topic of autumn and have been really useful and fun to watch the children as they make the connections between the pictures and what they have experienced in the play ground, especially after outside sessions of exploring leaves.

Apart form the autumn enjoyment, the children have also been very interested in the material treasure baskets. Perhaps it is due to the colder weather and the enjoyment of the feeling of different fabrics against their skin.

Starfish
Starfish have focussed on emotions and expressing them this month and covered a range of activities to discuss and express happy, sad, angry and excited feelings.

During circle times the children and teachers have been role modelling cuddling, gentle touching and caring and how this makes us feel. Then through stories and flash cards they talked about how hurting each other and taking things off each other makes us feel sad, which isn’t very nice.

The children have done some lovely artwork making faces with eyes, mouths, hair- placing the pieces where they wanted them to go and creating some delightful faces.

A special trip that made everyone happy despite the wet weather was the trip to Kew Gardens. The teachers and children all caught the bus to Richmond and then another to Kew Gardens on foot, while the buggies were delivered to Kew for them to enjoy getting around the gardens by buggy.

Sadly, the day poured with rain so the children went into Creepers and Crawlers play area and had an amazing time playing and having their picnic lunch. The journey home was the wettest, but still the children and the staff enjoyed it and had fabulous time, returning with very happy, yet tired faces.
Art work is always a big part of Starfish. This month they have done artwork using a variety of different processes making and decorating animals using paint, glue, glitter, wool, finger prints, etc. And, they have also done some leaf artwork to extend the interests and excitement of watching and catching leaves as they fall al over the playground.

Dolphins
Dolphins explored ‘Community’ this month with a bit more depth. The children have been very interested in the community dress ups that we have, with the doctor, vet, construction and police outfits being well used and supporting lots of role modelling play. The police officer uniform is definitely a favourite and lent a lot of opportunity for turn taking and waiting! The biggest attraction on the police outfit was the radio and walkie-talkie that they can clip on and off and talk to their beat partner on!

We also had a community health nurse come to the nursery to talk about health and hygiene with the children. The children really enjoyed her hand washing experiment. She put a special powder on their hands to make their hands dirty and then they looked at their hands under the UV light. She then asked them to thoroughly wash their hands like she’d shown them and then come back and look at their hands again under the light to see how well they had washed them. There was a lot of excitement about who did and didn’t do a proper job!

We bought a new climbing den in dolphins this month and the children have been completely excited by it. Again, lots of turn taking and waiting- which they are very good at now! They have loved hiding away in it, creating their little space rockets, homes, tree houses and other places they make believe it to be.

A big highlight of Dolphins in September was the excursion on a Friday to Garson’s PYO farm. After a mammoth one hour task of fitting different shaped and configured children’s car seats into two mini coaches, teachers and children set off to Esher to pick their own apples, buy and bring back to the nursery to make apple crumble with. We caught pockets of dryness amidst a very wet day and managed to collect loads of apples in little baskets along a very sodden orchard. It was a very tricky trip to organise, but so well worth it for the fun that we all had.

The children loved making the apple crumble as well and then finishing our day with warm apple crumble and custard at the end of a cold wet day was perfect.

plans

What are we doing in Dolphins for September?
With the new dress ups for community roles in the home corner the children have a refreshed interest in taking on the roles of medical practitioners, vets, police, construction workers, etc. We plan to support and extend this interest further.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this interest will be:
Small groups going on an excursion to the local vet to learn about what they do there.
The local health visitor is coming in to talk to the children about healthy practices and her role in the community on the 28th September.
We will be inviting the local community support officers to come in and talk about stranger danger.
We plan to set the home corner up into doctors surgeries, vets and a police station to support the children’s learning.
We have new figures of people in community roles that will be put in the various areas of learning through small world to extend the interests.
A group of children will take an excursion to the library to take out some books on different roles in the community.
Discussions, small group work, crafts and games based around the role of people in the community.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Point out police cars, ambulances and fire engines on the road. Talk about the differences in them and try to notice the different sirens they make.
Talk with them about what they know about the different roles in the community and what they do. Doctor, nurse, police, vet, fire fighters, shop assistants, street sweepers, rubbish collector, builders, plumbers, etc.
Take the opportunity to talk about stranger danger and who in the community can help if you are lost and what words to use if someone you don’t know tries to pick you up ‘Stop, stranger, put me down!’

What are we doing in Seahorses this month?
During the month of September and October as well as our primary focus of settling in our new babies, we will be exploring some of the natural materials that come about from autumnal changes- conkers, leaves, twigs. We will be looking at warm clothes, boots, hats, gloves, etc.

Some of the activities wall the babies will be involved with this month are:
Exploring clothes for dressing up: hats, bags, scarves.
Doing some leaf printing.
Painting in autumnal colours.
Making up a treasure basket with autumn things.
Singing songs about getting ready for colder weather. E.g. Here We Go Round the Mulberry bush on a cold and frost morning. It’s raining, it’s pouring.
Going for a walk to the park to scrunch some leaves.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Take your child on a walk to a point out all the fallen leaves.
Sit amongst some dried leaves and scrunch them together.
Go to Richmond Park and look at all the chestnuts, conkers, acorns, leaves falling. Watch the squirrels running about.
Go to the library and get out some books on weather and clothes.
Talk about what you are wearing: scarf, gloves, coat, boots.
Talk about what they are wearing too.

What are we doing in Starfish for September?
Toddlers love to explore and push boundaries and physical abilities and don’t always realise the impact of their actions on others. Frustrating as it is, this is a normal part of developing. This month, we are planning on having a focus on feelings and how our actions make other people feel both in positive ways and negative ways.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will be:
Demonstrating to children how they make us feel; cuddles make us happy, pushing makes us sad, hurting our friends makes them cry, etc.
Using emotion flash cards to support discussions about emotions. E.g. showing happy faces with the happy cards, sad faces with the sad cards, etc.
Lots of role modelling gentle touching, turn taking, waiting for others to finish with things.
Putting together different faces with faces cards and talking with the children about whether they are happy or not.
Lots of repetition of the words happy, sad, crying, not happy.
Lots of role modelling being gentle with our friends, kind tones and caring about each other.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Talk to them about how they make you feel when they give you a cuddle, kiss, play with you nicely and when you have fun together.
Talk to them about how they make you feel if they hurt you, or don’t do the things that you need them to do.
Use key words such as happy, sad, not happy.
Role model to them actions you’d like them to do. Gentle playing, touching, tidying up, etc.
Get some books out of the library about caring for each other and emotions.
Redirect behaviour in positive ways showing them what you’d like to see them do, rather than focussing on what they need to stop.
Use words such as ‘Stop’ instead of ‘No’ as the word stop gives them an action to follow rather that no, which isn’t clear exactly what you want them to do.

Use positive language to redirect and give them an action to do. Such as ‘walking inside’ rather than ‘stop running’, or ‘gentle touching’ rather than ‘no hitting’.

reflection

Starfish
The start of august saw a lot of Mexican activities in preparation for our nursery Mexican barbecue. We made cacti, hats, fans, flags- red, green and white dominated our days and we got through a lot of paint!!

We have also been able to go on lots of little trips to the local parks and library too. With many children on holiday, we have had more staff and less children making excursions easy and a really fun part of our weeks.

A spell of rain got in the way of our outdoor play later in the month and a part from the breaks racing outside to splash in puddles, we got trapped inside on more than a few occasions. Rain became a regular topic of conversation and looking at clouds and rain became an activity in itself. We even painted our own little rain clouds with textured paper, grey and silver paint and silver glitter.

Also on the art front, we have made some little mobiles from halved kitchen rolls decorated with paint and with pipe cleaners to hang them, sponge paintings and the general drawing and mark making that goes on in the room on a daily basis involved us all.

Makaton signing was a focus for the month and we practiced and have mastered a number of Makaton signs that are helpful for expressing ourselves. We are fluent in please and thank you and continue to practice some other supportive gestures as well.

And, we have been really focusing on self help skills and especially supporting our new Starfish into getting their own shoes for teachers to put them on and putting them away by themselves when the come back inside. Also we have been taking coats, jackets and jumpers off by ourselves and with help, putting them away. We are getting pretty good at this and some of us even really love taking part in the process.

Jumping has been a feature of August too with an extra bouncy castle in the car park for us all to jump on and we have had our little indoor bouncy castle up in the room too- this makes rainy days almost something to look forward to!

Dolphins
Dolphins children have had a fun month looking at animals, creatures and lifecycles. We have had the model animals in the sand, water, wet sand and on plastic grass. Dinosaurs have also joined in to create little small world wonderlands. The mini stadium steps in the outdoor playground have been fantastic for putting the grass over and making grassy mountains for the animals and dinosaurs to roam over.

Children have enjoyed looking at lifecycles and have enjoyed our book about the lifecycle of a frog. We have a well enjoyed and used story sack of the lifecycle of a frog that the children have enjoyed in circle time and also in small group activities. Some children made their own little 3D frogs on lily pads with the help of the staff too. Lots of discussions have taken place about the dangers to frogs and other animals in the environment.

Our planting earlier in the year has finally started to do exciting things. Our strawberries have been berrying their way along with children (perhaps staff) pinching them as soon as they get a blush, but we are now finaly starting to see our tomatoes plump up and hopefully get to red! Sunflowers are also ready to bloom after so long waiting!

'Babies' are still a big main feature in dolphins too. With so many baby siblings of children and friends having babies, the baby dolls, buggies, beds, boxes, clothes in the home corner, in the outside area and on excursions all around the nursery are continuously taking place. We have a core baby mad group of children and even getting the babies slipped out for half a day to get them clean is a tricky quiet manoeuvre for the teachers!

Arts and crafts are always a strong feature of Dolphins and this month has been no exception with lots of sticking and cutting. Some of our quite young 2 ½ to three year olds have started to become really engaged in cutting pictures and shapes out and sticking them on paper.

We have also bought a lot of new role play dress ups and they have breathed new life into the home corner. We have two police outfits complete with radios and messagers, vets uniform, nurse, paramedic, construction worker, etc. So role play in the community has started to become a regular feature in the play during the day and the home corner in turning into more of an emergency station!

Seahorses
The biggest feature in Seahorses over the last month has been the introduction of all the different cosy corners. The team have been enjoying creating little spaces for the children to enjoy beyond the cube and the story cushions and have been using new textures of fabrics, cushions and boxes to to create little zones of relaxation.

A wet month meant lots of jumping in puddles, playing with lovely heavy wet sand, putting toys in and out of the sand buckets and also joining in with Starfish to bounce on the indoor bouncy castle.

We have also welcomed new friends into seahorses which is always nice showing them the ropes and having the established children enjoying taking toys up to them, especially when they are sad, which is pretty sweet to watch.

We have practiced each other’s names so that they become familiar with them and encouraging the children to share, tidy up and join in with little group singing sessions and looking at books together.

And, we have been doing some painting, play dough, corn flour finger play too. Messiness and exploring textures has been a hit with our more established children and our newer children have had a go and been surprised by the new exploration!

August plans

What are we doing in Dolphins for August?
Since the preschooler trip to the zoo and their concert, many of the children have been talking about animals, birds, insects, etc. as well as referring to the different stages of creatures, including reading about the different stages of animals and insects lives. We plan to continue this focus and also look more closely at some of the lifecycles of different animals/ species.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this interest will be:
Going to the library to get some books out about lifecycles to learn more from.
Introduce words associated with different species. E.g. spawn, metamorphosis, hatching, etc. and known words for different things. E.g. changing, growing, etc.
We plan to find some tadpoles to grow and then let put out once they have changed into a frog.
Going on an insect hunt out in the wider environment to spot and count insects and animals.
Arts and crafts associated with animals and creatures.
Learn some new animal songs.
Talk about our pets and how we look after them.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Go on an animal/ insect or bird spotting trip with your children. See how many different butterflies you can spot. Take a reference book with you and refer to the pictures of the birds.
Richmond Park has creature spotting guides in the RSPB shop where you can use the cards to spot different creatures in the park.
Take your child to a petting zoo for a day trip.
Go to the library and take some books out lifecycles. Also animals of the world that are unfamiliar are fascinating for children.

What are we doing in Starfish for August?
Our biggest starfish have moved through into Dolphins and been replaced with some new friends from the Seahorses room. To really support the communication in the rooms between the children with each other and the teachers, we will be supporting language through a focus on Makaton signing. Makaton is used in Starfish to support communication and is ongoing once the children have the hang of it as well.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will be:
Updating our display of Makaton signs for parents to learn and staff to use as support for signing to children.
Encouraging children to sign as a way of communication with staff and each other.
Introducing children to Makaton symbols and using them to help support children in anticipating the routines of the group.
Supporting children in developing confidence in learning new skills and communication techniques through the symbols and signs by making them a part of our everyday activities.
Placing makaton signs around the room for children to see recognise and use to support their understanding of what is expected/ requested.
Lots of action songs and signing throughout the days activities.

What you could do to support your children at home:
If you do or have done baby signing with your baby, let the staff know.
Take a look at our display and learn some symbols and signs.
Take a book out on baby signing and start using them with your children.
Ask a team member for a sheet of symbols to take away and use.
Learn and sing songs with your child that involve signing (you know loads already; ‘Where is Thumbkin?’ ‘Two little dicky birds sitting on a wall, etc’.
Take a look at the Makaton website;

http://www.makaton.org/about/about.htm


What are we doing in Seahorses for August?
The children have had such fun playing with fruit and vegetable toys and sampling the different fruits. We are going to continue exploring them while supporting all of our new babies into our room by providing lots of spaces for quiet cosy play with little cosy corners and spaces for quiet reflection. This month is about calmness, stability and lots of love and cuddles for all our babies and especially our new friends.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
Lots of group activities such as singing, stories, water play, messy play, soft play, etc, that promotes children being together and feeling comfortable in the space with their peers.
A lot of name usage to reinforce children’s names and give them a sense of belonging.
Focussing on children spending time with staff and each other looking at things that are unique to them; facial features, clothing, hands, feet.
Taking photos of the children to display in the room to give the children a good sense of belonging and to start to recognise themselves as part of the nursery.
Talk about the children’s family members during the day. Name the people who are important to them.
Lots of repetition of the names of the fruit and veg.
Role play shopping by putting the fruit and veg toys in shopping baskets and wandering round the room.
Combining the food with tea sets to role play cooking.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Talk about the other children and team members to your children when you leave and are at home. Use their names to reflect on their day and when going to nursery.
For new children, parents can help by demonstrating excitement at coming to nursery and role modelling a sense of confidence and excitement in the changes in the daily routines of their lives.
Remember and talk about the nursery when you are not here. Even though you only come in at the start and end of the days, the day for the children forms a large part of their life and special times.
Bring into nursery photos of your family. It is nice for children to look at them during their day.

July reflection

Dolphins

It has been a bit of a Mexican Fiesta in dolphins during July and especially the end of the month as we gear up for our summer barbecue- Mexican Beach Party.

We have made..... Aztec temples out of boxes, glue and paint and also built lots of temples with the large wood blocks and lego, we’ve made a fantastic piñata to have a crack at during the barbecue, we have made Mexican fans, flags, paper chains, and we have even turned our hand at lino cutting Mexican patterns and pictures. Colour, paint, glue, boxes and paper have been prolific this month!

We have also learned our manners and greetings in Spanish, and a new Spanish song called 'Dale, Dale La Pinata'- this is to sing when we try to get the sweets from the piñata. We have been listening to some Mexican music as well.

And then, beyond ‘little Mexico’, we have been on some excursions to the library, the park and our school leavers went on a fantastic excursion to the London Zoo. They walked from the nursery, to Mortlake station, transferred at Waterloo to the underground to Camden, walked to the bus stop, to the Zoo, around the Zoo and back again. They are amazing! No complaints, no giving up, just wonderful excited children (and very exhausted teachers) arrived back at the end of the day.

There was still a bit of energy left for the school leavers concert the next week, where the school leavers performed for their parents a little play from the 'Dear Zoo' book and some songs as well, then were graduated with their leaving certificates.

Starfish

Starfish have had a fun month with all sorts of activities. We have been on a number of little excursions to our local park where we had a walk in the grass, play in the play ground and had a picnic tea too.

We have also had loads art activities going on as we prepare for our Mexican Barbecue. We’ve been stamping, using paintbrushes and sponges to apply paint and lots of sticking. We have made cacti, Aztec suns, maracas, mosaics, Mexican flags and sombreros.

Our cosy corner arch has been set up with lots of different materials everyday and we have been playing with dress ups under the arch as well as trying different fabrics on, experimenting with different clothes, textures and how we feel in them.

Lots of very special circle times have also been going on too. We have a lot of new sensory and tactile toys and so we have been playing with them , watching them change and trying them out on our skin and putting them on our teachers as well.

We also had a continued focus on colours and our art work for the Mexican barbecue gave us loads of opportunities to talk about colour. Many of us are getting the hang of differentiating through colour and enjoying pointing colours out, guessing what they are and the claps for getting it right!

Seahorses

The Seahorses have been doing lots of additional activities around fruit in July. They have been trying all sorts of different fruits during their tea times; peaches, grapes, apricots and strawberries. Summer is such a great time to try all the lovely flavoursome fruits around.

We have also been doing a lot of playing with the play fruits and vegetables- putting them in pots and pans and hiding them with lids, passing them back and forth to each other and listening to the names of them, absorbing and storing the learning to surprise you with when we get older and can get the words out.

We have been doing a lot of art work on fruit shapes too as well as some great communal pieces of artwork using brushes, sponges and reading a lot of books with pictures of fruit and vegetables.

A highlight of the month has been setting up lots of little cosy corners for the babies with different cushions, textured mats, things that dangle from the ceiling, like ribbons, canopies, etc.

And, we have also welcomed in three new babies to our group. They have all settled in perfectly and it is like they have always been with us!

What's happening in July?

What are we doing in Dolphins for July?
Our Mexican Beach Party summer barbecue is coming up at the start of August and so to help the children to understand what is special to Mexico and to make some preparations and decorations for the barbecue, we will be having a focus on Mexico.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this interest will be:
Making some Mexican stamps with lino cuts.
Making Mexican food.
Reading Frida, by Jonah Winter and trying out some of her art ideas.
Making Ojo de dios (god’s eye) decorations.
Laura Zurita will be teaching the children the song Dale Dale la piñata. (The song to accompany the Pinata game).
Making paper chains out of Mexican colours.
Making Mexican paper decorations.
Learning some basic Spanish words including por favor, gracias.
Listening to some Mexican music.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Make some simple Mexican food with your children. Let them assemble the different parts together to eat. E.g. tacos, nachos, tortillas, etc.
Read some stories about Mexico.
Look at some images of Mexico on the internet or some videos of Mexican children’s songs on YouTube.
Talk about where Mexico is and people you know who come from Mexico (Laura Z is one they know from Nursery).
Make an Ojo de Dios at home.
Find your child a Mexican outfit for the barbecue.

What are we doing in Starfish for July?
During July, we will be continuing our focus on colours.
It was initiated by the older ones last month, but now all the children have been enjoying and fascinated by our colour tables and finding other objects of similar colours. We will be continuing this for the month of July, with an emphasis on red, blue, green and yellow. We will also be preparing for our nursery Mexican Beach Party family barbecue and this will involve a lot of arts and crafts with plenty of colour.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
Continuing colours in our circle times; talking about the colours and finding colours in the room.
Continuing painting with a range of colour combinations with continued opportunities to talk about the colours they are using.
Continued 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.
A continued 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:
Continue to support their interest in colours 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.


What are we doing in Seahorses for July?

All our babies are on proper meals and finger food now and so we are planning on having an additional focus on fruits and vegetables to support their knowledge of fruit and vegetables; what they look like, what they are called and to explore flavours and textures of a range of fruit and veg.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
Introducing some new fruit and vegetable toys for play.
Introducing some more books containing fruit and vegetables.
Preparing fruit and some vegetables in front of the babies at tea time so they can see, for example, the apple whole and then prepared for them to eat.
Displaying images of fruits and vegetables around the room.
Lots of repetition of the names of the fruit and veg.
Role play shopping by putting the fruit and veg toys in shopping baskets and wandering round the room.
Combining the food with tea sets to role play cooking.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
Go to the library and get some books out on fruit and vegetable and read them together.
Buy or borrow a set of play fruit and vegetables for them to play with and explore.
When you go shopping, point out and name the fruit and vegetables (babies absorb loads of language, even if they are not talking much yet).
Let them watch while you are preparing fruit and veg and talk about what you are doing, naming the fruit and veg as you go.
Buy some different fruits and vegetables and give them an opportunity to try something new.
Talk to the staff about what their favourite fruit and veg are. They may have strong preferences and it might be helpful to balance out what you give them at home.