January

What are we doing in Dolphins in January?
The Dolphins group have continued to be interested in Christmas cards and been talking about cards coming through their letter boxes, etc. So we plan to extend this interest in to writing cards and letters and posting them, talking about the postal service and how it works and giving the children the opportunity to take part in the process.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
• Setting up a post office in the nursery where children can write letters and cards, put them in envelopes and post them in a post box.
• Making 3D postal vans out of boxes and talking about what the postal vans are for.
• Making cards using stencils.
• During circle times we will be reading Postman Pat stories and talking about how the post service works.
• Taking some of the children on an excursion to the Post Office.
• Designing our own stamps.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
• Write some letter with your children to family and friends. Pop it in the post box and ask them to call your child when it arrives.
• Take letters to the post box to post with them. Talk about where they are going and how they will get there and how long it will take.
• Take your children on a trip to the Post Office and talk about what you are using the services for.
• Point out the postal service in action when you pass it. Post deliverers, post trucks, post vans collecting from the post boxes etc.
• Talk about the colour of the post service being red and how it can be recognised.
• Talk about the colours of stamps and what they mean. E.g. gold for a fast delivery, blue for a slower, big stamps for big letters, etc.


What are we doing in Starfish in January?
The Starfish group have been taking an interest in the sensory experiences such as water play, the sensory bag and tactile bags and so we will be extending and supporting on this.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
• We will be using words to explain properties of things, such as soft, hard, warm, cold, rough, furry, etc, with the children to build on their word repertoire.
• Manjit will be setting up some cooked corn flour play.
• Bea will be setting up some clay experiences.
• Sarah will be setting up some whipped and set soap flakes play.
• Sarah will be setting up a range of wet sand activities.
• Bea will be setting up some clay activities.
• Manjit will be making play dough and using it with the children while it is warm.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
• Explore textures with children and talk about the properties of them. Help them run their hands over bricks, wood, grass, trees, fur, etc.
• Use describing words to build their repertoire of language and using it to relate to the experiences they are having.
• Have a go of doing some finger painting at home, use play dough, set up some bubbly water play, etc.


What are we doing in Seahorses in January?
The start of each year always means welcoming new babies into the seahorses room, getting the settled and supporting them in learning about the room, their neighbours in Starfish and the different faces in the nursery.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
• Making a display of children’s pets so that they can feel that important and familiar parts of their home can give them comfort at the nursery as well.
• Asking parents to bring in pictures of the babies families so that they can see them during the nursery day.
• Lots of use of names so that the babies can become familiar with who is in the room with them and start to become aware of their peers.
• Introducing children to explore sensory activities like feeling paint, corn flour and water, water play, etc that they may not have had a lot of experience of at home, but that is and will become very important parts of their nursery experience.
• Introducing the new babies to a range of other activities to encourage the impulse to explore.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
• Use the names of the staff and the other children in the group when you are at home to keep the links between nursery and home active.
• Sing songs with your baby and use the names of people s/he is familiar with at nursery.
• Talk a lot about nursery while you are at home in a positive and relaxed tone to demonstrate that it is a special place in their lives and that you acknowledge what is important to them beyond your home and family.
• You could even try to extend some of the activities we do at nursery into your home if you are game enough. Finger painting (with non-toxic paint of course), corn flour and water are great at home too. Just as a team member for a recipe if you are keen to create a bit of mess and explore.

Working Mums Christmas art gallery~ at the Fromer Mortlake Green School

A Dolphins Christmas

The nursery wreath
A big welcome to all our families each day through the front door with the Christmas wreath that the Dolphin children contributed to with their hand prints.

Decorated Christmas tree collages with glitter pom poms, tinsel, sequins, glitter, little colourful bits and pieces and white paint for snow. The chlidren love to position pieces in places that satisfy them.

Wreaths to take home for the children's own doors.
Paper plates with holes cut were provided and different types of green paper pieces were available to collage the rings with gold stars to put at the top.







The children cut snowflakes with help and stuck them onto paperplates for a great snowflake effect.

Abstract Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer compositions.
A range of different reindeer pieces were available for children to choose and stick them where they think they should go.








Santa's boot collages.
Free choice collages with lots of different coloured and textured paper pieces to add to boot shaped pieces.





Snowmen
Snow man compositions. Children made their own snowmen using pre cut pieces. They watched an example one being makde then had a go themselves.





Children's drawings
The children's Christmas drawings. Draw what you like about Christmas.....









Christmas icon paint stamping.
Dipping playdough cutters into paint and staming out the prints onto paper.







Children's free choice Christmas collages.
Children love quiet time gluing and sticking pieces in different places. It is relaxing, fun and rewarding.

The Working Mums~ Mortlake Christmas Art Gallery

A Starfish Christmas

Starfish children made Christmas Elves hats to wear to their Christmas Party. Mother Claus came to the party and gave out little gifts for all the children. They had music, singing, dancing, art, party food and a really great time.

They have also made Santa's boots and snowy days art.

The children have loved the Christmas stampers and they always love glitter on top.

They painted Christmas tree, with glitter too...of course.

And, snowmen of cotton wool and googly eyes.

December plans

What are we doing in Dolphins, Starfish and Seahorses for December?

...Well? It's a jolly good time to get festive!!!

During December, with the Christmas season upon us we will be having a focus on Christmas, Hanukah and we will also be focussing on thinking about others and ways we can help and look after those who are sick or in need.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support our celebrations will be:
• Reading stories about Christmas and Hanukah.
• Learning Christmas carols and songs.
• Making Christmas cards and presents for our families.
• Decorating the nursery including Christmas trees.
• Discussions about what we are doing for the holidays; who we will be visiting, how we will travel there, etc.
• Wrapping presents and making our own decorations.
• Reflecting on the year with the children and remembering events, talking about favourite parts of the year and what they would like to do again.
• Thinking about others and way that we can help and support other children in need.

Some ideas for home:
• Help your child to wrap their own presents they are giving people.
• Make your own Christmas cards with them.
• If you are writing a Christmas letter, ask them to contribute by telling you the best thing about the year.
• Go for a night walk to look at the lights and decorations.
• Go to a local school Christmas fair and for older children talk about the kinds of things the school children might be doing Christmas.
• Go shopping for and decorate a Christmas tree.
• Take your child shopping for a special Christmas tree decoration that they can put on the tree.
• Save your wrapping and cards for plenty of post Christmas collage- children love to keep the spirit going and it's a perfect mid winter indoor activity.
• Do some lounge dancing to some Christmas music. Turn the lights down and dance round the glowing Christmas tree. Babies love dim rooms with sparkling lights.
• Come to Carols by Candlelight on the 10th December at 6pm!

reflection

Starfish in November
Starfish have had a very animal filled month. Children love exploring and relating to animals and the Starfish group have had loads of fun enhancing their day to day activities through this topic.

There has been a lot of ‘making’ of animals. The cat and dog mobiles have been great fun and the children enjoyed the supporting meowing and woofing as they worked away at their art. They also made some interactive art- furry cats and dogs- decorating them with fur and then stroking them.
Pigs were made too on paper plates with pink paint and pink foam pieces for ears and noses.

As well as making animals, the children have done some footprint art work. They walked the animal figures through paint and walked them around on paper to see the foot prints that they make.
The animals were a feature of the water play as they played with animal figures around the ‘lakes’ and the ‘sea’.

And in the back ground the room has been a cacophony of animals noises. The children love making animal sounds and naming the animals or pointing to the pictures of the animals. Some of the children can name most of the farm animals and they can all join in with the oinks, woofs, meows, quacks, neighs, moos and baas!

Seahorses
The start of the month saw a lot of colour splashed throughout the nursery as the teachers and children talked about and made colourful art to celebrate Divali and Guy Fawkes. Seahorses did some fantastic colourful paintings on black paper. Even if they were oblivious to the events, they still enjoyed a lot of bright colour!

The seahorses have had a focus on using British Sign Language (BSL) in the room to help support the communication with children and to begin signing in the nursery from babies so that throughtout the age groups it becomes a regular part of the way we communicate.

The key signs that the staff have been using with the children during the day are ‘stop’, ‘no, ‘please’ and ‘thank you’. One of the babies is regularly using the 'please' symbol to request things and many of them are starting to use hand symbols, even if they are not entirely recognisable yet. They love looking at the hand pictures on the signing chart recently put up in the room. They often go over to the display to touch and look at the signs.

The children have also painted some faces to go with the letter symbols of their names. They have gone up on the wall to help the team to remember the symbols for their names and use them whan talking to them.

A lot of fun was also had making foot and hand prints to go on the teatowels we are making for the nursery. Lots of trials runs took place to get a print that met the criteria and was great fun doing so!

Dolphins
The Surrey Docks Farm visit at the start of November prompted a flow of animal activities that led from one thing to another swiftly. Like doing animal foot printing, making animal masks, cutting out sea animals to make a communal sea picture.

The children loved the animals and it left an interest in all things animal and real animal experiences to relate the animals that we have been discussing at nursery to. It also encouraged children to talk and share with each other their zoo and farm experiences that they have had with families and friends outside nursery.

The preschool group investigated unusual animals and found pictures on the internet, printed them, laminated them, displayed and discussed them together.
The main group did the same with more well known animals and made their own flash cards to discuss and look at with some of the children’s own drawings of the animals as well.

They also made giraffes and put spots on them, discussing pattern and positioning and why they put the spots in the places they did.With teachers help, some children also made animal snap cards that they have played memory, snap and other games with.

Group games have become a real favourite with the children in the last hour before home time and they have really been a great way to round off some of the discussions and learning the children have been doing on animals in a fun way at the end of the day. And at the same time, it is great way to spend time together at the end of the day doing something different and fun.

Favourites have been, catching butterflies blow out of the elephants nose, springy spider, crocodile snap, Guess Who- animals. They have all been great for reinforcing animals names, sounds, and of course to support the children’s co-operation and skills in following instructions.

November's plans

What are we doing in Dolphins this month?
During November we will be having a focus on Animals.

We started to look at animals in the autumn time and discussed what they have been doing to get ready for winter. This has lead on to discussing animals in general with the upcoming mobile farm visit and animals starting to make their way into the children’s play.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will be:
Laura Z is going to making giraffe’s with the children as they have been talking to her a lot about giraffes. (CD)
Laura J is going to be researching some key information about a set of animals of the children’s choice and making information cards about the animals. (KUW)
Laura W is going to be selecting and sharing some new books and songs with the children covering new animals. (CLL)
Jenny is going to be researching ‘unusual’ animals with her preschoolers and sharing what they have learned with the rest of the group. (KUW & PSED)
Lan is going to be making some animal masks with the children. (CD)
Christine is going to be making a counting board using animals (PSRN)
Su is going to be teaching the children the actions to the ‘Animal Boogie’ (PD)

What you could do to support your children at home:
Take them on an animal spotting walk to look for dogs, cats, horses, cows, sheep, foxes, etc.
See if you can find out about an animal that is very unusual and bring a picture in to the nursery.
Go to the library and get some books out on animals
Take a trip to the zoo
If you do not come on the day of our animals visiting, bring your child anyway.
Talk to your child about animal safety on bonfire night.


What are we doing in Starfish this month?
During November we will be having a focus on Farm Animals.

We have a planned animal visit for November 1st and to get ready we have been looking at farm animals and making noises that they make. The children love exploring animals and so we will continue to extend this interest throughout November.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will be:
Collaborating to make an animal book with Bea, Sarah& Manjit.
Making rabbits ears head pieces with Sarah.
Making an animal mobile with Bea.
Making abstract cats and dogs with Manjit.
Discussions about animals, different types of animals, noises, etc.
Introduce new animal songs to the children.
Collect some animal books from the library to read to the children.
Small animal farm visit to the nursery.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Take them on an animal spotting walk to look for dogs, cats, horses, cows, sheep, foxes, etc.
Talk about the noises animals make
Go to the library and get some books out on animals
Take a trip to the zoo
If you do not come on the day of our animals visiting, bring your child anyway.
Bring a photo in of your pet and/ or tell the team about your pet so it can be included in our discussions.

This month’s plans and strongly linked to the Early Year Foundation Stage curriculum; knowledge and understanding of the world. (KUW),


What are we doing in Seahorses this month?
The Seahorses team are making a commitment with the rest of the nursery to making British Sign Language (BSL) complimentary to our everyday language.

This is the age of significant communication building. The children understand a lot more than they can communicate to us in words and sometimes this is frustrating for the children. We are planning a focus on BSL signing with the children introducing one sign per week. Signing does not replace language development, it supports language development and communication.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will be:
Making a display of BSL 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 BSL 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.

What you could do to support your children at home:
Take a look at our display and learn some symbols and signs.
Borrow our parent signing kits and start using them with your baby.
Learn and sing songs with your baby that involve signing (you know loads already; ‘Where is Thumbkin?’ ‘Two little dicky birds sitting on a wall, etc’.
Take a look at the BSL website below, it uses moving pictures to show you how to do the signs- really helpful.

http://www.britishsignlanguage.com/


This month’s plans and strongly linked to the Early Year Foundation Stage curriculum; communication, language and literacy. (CLL),

October reflection

Starfish
In October, the staff made a texture pictures wall for the children to explore. The children have spent lots of time looking at it and trying to feel the textures and in contrast to all of other sensory textures, these have all the same textures even though they look different. The children have been fascinated by this.

Autumn leaves have been a big feature of the month. They have littered the playground and every day they have been swept up, the next day has seen even more on the ground. So they have stuck them onto art work, crunched them, kicked them, thrown them, squeezed them and just really enjoyed them.

We have also done a lot of Halloween artwork; making spiders, pumpkins, ghosts, bats, witches, wizards hats and on the 29th, we had a little Halloween party where the children all wore the wizard hats they had made. We also really enjoyed the battery operated witch that sung ‘I put a spell on you...’ as she whizzed and spun about the room.

Basically, a whole lot of glitter escaped from the jars this months and it was a bit of a Halloween art bonanza! But also a lot of time outside still too as the weather has held out for us and we have been able to keep up our outside playtime and learning (the names for and where to put) our hats, jackets, Wellies, scarves and gloves.

Seahorses
We changed our fairy net to a camo scramble net this month over the sensory cube to create a new space for babies to crawl into to have a quiet space and explore sensory items or toys of their choice. The babies have particularly enjoyed playing with the material treasure, hats, bags and purses and draping them on their bodies as dress ups.

We have also had plenty of music going on as the children bang, rattle and shake instruments for the team to sing to. We have also added puppets to the singing sessions, so the children and teachers make the puppets move and join in with the music. And, we have borrowed two big drums that the children have been able to bang together for collaborative noise while the bubble blower blows bubbles- it’s been a multi-sensory joy!

We focussed on Autumn quite a bit and shared with children pictures of trees with leaves falling, conkers, park spaces, etc , then passed and tossed leaves around in our playground. We have pointed out our great big tree above us that sheltered us all summer and watched it lose its leaves and get thinner and thinner.

Dolphins
Dolphins went a bit Halloween crazy too this month as our harvesting and Autumn observations got littered with influences from around us of Halloween. Most of the children adored the crazy singing witch and took every opportunity to collect her from the office and let her loose on the lino floor to spin, cackle and sing. She didn’t actually make it to the Halloween party as her batteries ran out and she couldn’t quite make it to the finish line.

However, Halloween party we did, with lots of jelly and crisps, dancing, games and music with our decorations of ghosts, bats, pumpkins, cats, etc all of which we made and displayed.

The children have done quite a bit of garden tidying too as each day we have swept leaves (only to have them replaced the next), we have laid our sunflowers to rest, strawberries and tomatoes and farewelled them for next year.

Gathering up all the leaves has been fun and we have stuck them on all sorts of boxes, paper, etc to make little collages. We have also collected different conkers, leaves, acorns, etc and made little autumn scapes too.

Junk modelling has been a big part of the Dolphins and it has even continued on throughout the sessions as children independently collage and join boxes and decorations to make robots, trucks, scarecrows, etc.

And the other big craze in Dolphins is Birthdays. A lot of children have had them and so now they are all talking about what month their birthday is in and how old they will be next. Anything creates an opportunity for this discussion and a reason to sing the song!