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.

Reflection on June

Dolphins

Our holiday discussions in dolphins have been fun. Holidays must be special for our children because many of them have been able to recall holidays they have been on and what they did on them. We read the book Schnitzel Von Krumm~ Forget Me Not many times , which inspired the children to recall holidays and many of them could really relate to the packing of the car and what we take on holiday.

We have also had a travel agents that we set up. The children have looked at and thought about holidays through the brochures and groups of us have had little day dreams and talked about all the places we would love to go and what we would like to do on holiday.

At the start of June, we were feeling like our garden needed something more and so talked to the children about what we would like in the garden. We made a shopping list and now have new chairs and tables to play on, a lovely Elk to hang our bags and hats on, a mirror to make sure the bags look right on our arms, but the best things have been our big gardening week where we planted hanging baskets, window baskets, planted sunflowers and tomatoes and other stuff.

Our strawberries that we planted a while ago have started to ripen one by one and we have had small strawberry morsels to nibble. Sometimes strawberries disappear too and no one seems to know where they have gone, except that there is sometimes a suspicious milling about the plants from the children when some red ones appear.

The absolute loveliest part of the garden, that the children really love is the little quiet corner that the children made with one of the team members. The preschool children drew pictures on an arch that was made and then we painted and varnished it and secured it to the fence and shed. Another teacher made us some lovely cushions and we bought a special mat to sit on. This has been used by all the children and the favourite things to take in are books, bags, play food and tea sets. It is so special to us, that we put it at the top of this blog entry.

Starfish

June was a stunning month and thank goodness, we have plenty of shade in our playground. The highlight for most of the children was the paddling pool. They absolutely loved getting in and splashing about with their friends and it was a wonderful way for the children to cool off and enjoy some big physical play on hot days without getting over hot.

On the creative side, we have been collaging butterflies and we made some gorgeous flower collages too. The team cut out flowers from old wall paper and the children selected them and collaged them onto paper. And we are currently working on a wild animal display and have been sticking and painting elephants, lions, tigers and giraffes.

We have also had a lot of tea times outside recently too. It is always so relaxing eating outside and the great thing is that it doesn’t interrupt our play like going inside does, so after tea we can just get on with what we were doing again.

Looking at and naming colours has been a big focus during June. We have had colour tables out where we have put a variety of the same coloured items on the table from all the different resources in the room and the children have really enjoyed investigating things that they are familiar with but grouped differently. Sometimes they tidy up the table and put away some of the items in the places they are really meant to be!

In Seahorses,

July held a month of fun with babies who know the ropes and assert themselves readily into activities of their choice and are confident to try new things. Our babies are old hats at nursery now and so they have explored with surefootedness (and sure knees).

We have introduced into the space new pictures of animals for the children to look at. They are around the walls and the children have enjoyed wondering at them. We have also extending the exploration into images of sea creatures, including starfish, seahorses (of course) and fish.

The children have also done some art work on shapes that resemble animal outlines. They have been doing simple mark making with crayons and running their fingers though coloured paint- cooling and enjoyable on a hot day

It has been incredibly hot and so we have done a lot of water play, allowing the children to wallow in water indoors and potter with containers and different utensils and cloths to enjoy the different ways to move water around...lots of splashing! They have also loved playing with bubbles as the staff blow them for them and they jig about on their bottoms- too excited to move along to get them. We have smart babies- they know there is always more to come when they have all popped so why chase!

And of course Fathers day could not be forgotten. We painted little book marks for our Dads.

plans

What are we doing in Dolphins for June?
We have explored all sorts of vehicles and gone on to discuss a range of different reasons to use different types of transport, including going on holiday, which many of our children and families have been doing recently. We have looked at postcards sent to us by staff and children and have started to talk about where we are going on holiday and what we do on holiday. We plan to explore this further this month.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this interest will be:
Making post cards and posting them in the nursery post box.
Making some beach pictures using sand.
Reading books about going on holiday.
Setting up a travel agents.
Talking about what types of clothes we need to take for holidays.
Making packing lists for holiday suitcases.
Making tie dyed tops that we can buy on our holiday beach

What you could do to support your children at home:
If you are planning a holiday, talk to your child about it too. Talk about how you are going to get there, why you chose to go there, what will be there, who else will be there, what you will need to pack, if you need passports, tickets, etc.
Read some stories about holidays. At nursery we are going to be reading:
Schnitzel Von- Crumb~ Forget me Not, by Linley Dodd.
If you go on holiday, post us a post card so we can talk about where you have gone.
Collect some travel catalogues and look through the pages and talk about places you would like to visit one day together.
Talk about some of the places you have been on holiday together. Look at some photos of your holidays.
Look at a map of the world and link holiday destinations to the map and where you live. Use the link to talk about why you need to go on a boat, plane, car or train to get there.



What are we doing in Seahorses for June?
The seahorses children are loving learning about animals and listening to the team make animal noises for the different animals, pointing at animals, singing songs with animals like ‘Old MacDonald’, reading books with animals in them, so we plan to keeping this going for June or until the interest moves into another direction.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
Provide plenty of books with animals in them.
Name animals and make the noises that go with them.
Old MacDonald had a farm will join the room with a variety of animals.
Make some artwork on the shapes of familiar pets such and dogs and cats.
Provide lots of opportunity with the small world animals.
Put the animals in the sand, water, slime for some extended exploration.

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 animals, including some with real life pictures.
If you have pets at home, bring photos of them into the nursery so the children can relate to their pet and have a nice sense of home in the nursery.
Sing Old MacDonald had a Farm. While the babies won’t sing along with you, you should get a wriggle and smiles of enjoyment because they love hearing you sing. Some of them may hum or make noises with you.
Make sure you name animals when you see them. Children often pick up dog and cat (or variations of them) when they are learning to talk. Dog spotting on walks is also often a favourite activity for older babies.
Buy or borrow some little small world animals for them to play with and investigate. Play with them; naming, making noises or moving them.
If you work part time and have a child friendly dog, you could bring it into the nursery for the children to look at on one of your days off.


What are we doing in Starfish for June?
During June, 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.

Whats been happening in May?

A little bit of everything has been going on over the last month and a bit.

We had Upsy Daisy visit the nursery at the end of April and in May, Tigger came to see us for our Teddy Bears picnic. Our sister nursery at St Mary’s also came and had a teddy bears picnic with us, played on the Bouncy Castle, had their faces painted and shared some time together. It was busy, but very fun.

In Dolphins, the main group focus for the month of May has been vehicles, following on from the previous month looking at the emergency services. The children have really been enjoying playing with all sorts of vehicles as we have moved them round the nursery, putting them in sand, water, the art tables, making vehicles of our own, reading books and looking at pictures of vehicles.

The children have been putting together a variety of boxes and chairs to make buses and trains and to go on imaginary journeys with their friends. They have also painted boxes to decorate the trains.

The older dolphins have had lots of discussions about why we travel on the different sorts of transport we do, shared with each other information about how we personally travel to nursery, how we travel to friends places, grandparents and family who live overseas. We have also played a game listening to noises that the different types of transport make and guessing what they are.

The lovely May weather and odd heat wave has also excited us into talking a lot about beaches, painting summery things, such as flowers and lady birds and a lot of play outside under the gazebos.

Many of us have started going on holidays and so we have enjoyed sharing stories of those and discussing the anticipation of our next holiday, or the types of things we can do if we have a holiday at home.

In the starfish room the children have really enjoyed the different shapes that they have been playing with of transport images, making vehicle collages and naming types of transport and playing with them in the paint, sand, water, etc. Some of the older children have learned the names of different vehicle types too.

Starfish children have also been reading books about transport, singing songs about them and making their own trains out of furniture to go on journeys together. They have also made motorbikes out of egg cartons.

As the sun has been out and we have been enjoying it so much, we have all learned that to play in the sun we need our hats on. The children are very particular about this and if you go outside into their garden without your hat on- expect a child to remind you of your responsibilities!!

Another big feature of our month has been hanging saris on the line and playing under them as they blow in the wind. The children have loved watching the colours of the fabric as they twist and turn and flap. It made the play ground feel really special.

In the Seahorses room we have been talking about animals a lot. Naming and looking at images of animals that we see in our everyday environment- on the street or at home and friends and families places. Lots of pointing at animals in books and pictures, singing about animals- ‘Old MacDonald Had a Farm’, etc.

We have introduced the animals into the water and sand and we have been playing hiding games where we hide the animals in boxes so the babies can knock them over and find them.

Some of the babies are becoming quite mobile and are enjoying being able to cruise around the room and pull themselves up on the equipment and chasing the beads around the bead frame, the play cooker and furniture.

We have also been experimenting with using the musical instruments to sing with. The team sing songs to the children and the children interject words and hum where they feel enthused and join in with the musical instruments- shaking shakers and ringing bells.

Many of the children are also really enjoying taking themselves into the story corner at present to have some quiet reading time. They often have their favourite books that they go back to time and time again.

May 2010

What are we doing in Dolphins for May?

The interest in emergency services has spread into all sorts of vehicles and talking about what different vehicles are for and why we use them. Planes are a big part of this because we take them for holidays and for many of us, to visit family. Buses lots of the children look at and wish they took them more and boats seem to be a fascination lots of children wich they could go on!

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this will be:
• Discussing the types of transport we use and what we use it for.
• Creating more vehicles and extending on the junk modelling vehicles we have been doing.
• Games involving vehicles- counting them, matching them.
• Learning a new song about a Big Red Bus.
• Visiting the train station and maybe even taking a trip on a train.
• Aeroplane spotting and counting.
• Reading books about vehicles.
• Taking a safe trip near a road to count and classify the vehicles we see.

What you could do to support your children at home:
• Set yourself up a little spot safely by a road and spot the different types of vehicles. Name the colours, type and numbers of them.
• Go for some little trips on buses and the trains. Make it an event like going to Richmond on the train or bus to have a treat in a cafe.
• Find a spot in a park or in your garden if you have one and lie back and count the planes that go overhead. Classify them into big, small, noisy, quiet, up high, down lower.
• Recall and talk about times you have travelled on different vehicles and why you went on them.
• Go to the library and get some books out on vehicles.
• Spend some quality time playing with your toy vehicles at home.

What are we doing in Starfish for May?

Our Starfish children have loved talking about vehicles over the last month and their enthusiasm in them has not slowed, in fact it has grown, so we are continuing to investigate cars, bikes, buses, planes, scooters and trains as well as all the other activities going on.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
• Focussing on matching noises with the vehicles and naming pictures.
• Making bikes and aeroplanes.
• Reading stories involving vehicles.
• Introducing new books with vehicles in them.
• Talking about bikes or scooters they have at home.
• Using boxes to make trains to play in.
• Lining up the chairs to make bus journeys.
• Taking another picnic to spot some interesting vehicles on the road.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
• Children love ride on toys and if you don’t want to buy one, you could borrow one from friends or the toy library. The advantage also is that it is not yet another big toy to clutter your place- you have to give it back.
• Point out and talk about the vehicles on the way to nursery either from your car or their buggy.
• Take some time out and sit down with a car between you and your child and push it back and forth between you- toddlers can keep this game going for ages.
• Go for a ride on a train or bus.
• If you are in the county side, point out some big vehicles on farms.
• Line up your furniture and go for a train ride with them.
• And don’t forget to keep the wheels on the bus going!
• Share with the starfish a photo of your child on a scooter, bike or vehicle of some sort for us to make a little display of them.

What are we doing in Seahorses for May?

The seahorses are a pretty content little group at the moment and have really started to show a great sense of belonging in their space. They know where thing are, what their place in the room is and which staff they have really taken a shine to. Some of them have started to show an interest in animals, so we are planning on providing lots of opportunity to learn a little more about animals.

What are we doing at the nursery to support this:
• Provide plenty of books with animals in them.
• Name animals and make the noises that go with them.
• Old MacDonald had a farm will join the room with a variety of animals.
• Make some artwork on the shapes of familiar pets such and dogs and cats.
• Provide lots of opportunity with the small world animals.
• Put the animals in the sand, water, slime for some extended exploration.

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 animals, including some with real life pictures.
• If you have pets at home, bring photos of them into the nursery so the children can relate to their pet and have a nice sense of home in the nursery.
• Sing Old MacDonald had a Farm. While the babies won’t sing along with you, you should get a wriggle and smiles of enjoyment because they love hearing you sing. Some of them may hum or make noises with you.
• Make sure you name animals when you see them. Children often pick up dog and cat (or variations of them) when they are learning to talk. Dog spotting on walks is also often a favourite activity for older babies.
• Buy or borrow some little small world animals for them to play with and investigate. Play with them; naming, making noises or moving them.
• If you work part time and have a child friendly dog, you could bring it into the nursery for the children to look at on one of your days off.

plans for April

What are we doing in Dolphins for April?
Lots of requests for the book called Emergency have been given for circle time and increase in the use of the fire and police dress ups with some of the children has also been seen. So we have planned a focus on the emergency services, what they do and what emergency means.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month to support this concept will be:
• Going on an excursion to the library to get some books out on the emergency services.
• Adding into our daily library books on emergency services.
• Having discussions with the children about what emergency means and what to do in an emergency.
• Focussing on Fire Officers, Police Officers and Ambulance Paramedics and what they do.
• Extending the children’s home corner and turning it into a fire engine.
• Make dress ups for the children to reflect their chosen emergency service.
• Playing the emergency services matching game to focus on the uniforms of each service.
• We have requested the Fire Station and Police to come and visit the nursery to talk about what they do, wear, drive and how to keep safe. Hopefully they will visit.

What you could do to support your children at home:
• Talk to your children about the emergency services and what to do in an emergency.
• Teach your child their home address and what to do if they are lost.
• On a day out, notice and draw your child’s attention to Police, Fire and Ambulance Officers and vehicles, talk about what you know about those services and find out what they know too.
• If you are in your car and a siren is behind you, talk to your child about why you needed to pull over.
• Put your chairs together at home and make a fire engine, police car or ambulance and role play going out in them. Make some paper hats to wear if you don’t have the dress ups to get in role.
• Take a trip to the library and look for some books about the emergency services.


What are we doing in Starfish for April?
Our Starfish children really seem to be enjoying playing with the train and small cars at the moment and sometimes spend the whole day going back to them. So, we are planning on really supporting this interest and extending the opportunities throughout the days and curriculum.

Some of the activities we will be doing this month will involve:
• Focussing on naming the different types of trains and vehicles.
• Making space rockets, cars and buses with the children.
• Involving vehicles in the art work by including transport shapes, using vehicles to roll paint, etc.
• Including flash cards, books, stories, photos of different types of transport in small groups work and individually.
• Dramatic play- setting up buses, trains etc with the furniture and going for imaginary trips.
• Going for a picnic in the training centre garden and watching the traffic go by- counting, naming colours, types of vehicles, etc.

Some ideas to support your children at home:
• Set yourself up a little spot safely by a road and spot the different types of vehicles. Even count them- they might not understand the counting, but getting used to hearing numbers and the association helps set the scene for understanding.
• Go to the library and collect some books or just read them while you are there about transport and vehicles.
• Don’t forget to sing at home their favourite songs like ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, ‘Down by the Station Early in the Morning’ and any other vehicles songs that you might sing at home or know yourself that you could teach your toddler.
• Maybe it’s a good time to invest in a little train track? Girls and boys both love them.
• If you’re a car bound family, maybe take a little trip on a bus or a train. Or go to the train station to watch the trains go by.

What are we doing in Seahorses for April?
April sees a big focus on building the babies’ confidence to explore. We have a number of new babies who have started with us and as they have become more settled and relaxed, the confidence to move in the space and explore the environment has grown too. The team will be supporting the babies in feeling that they can go to, select and potter through the environment and start to gain a sense of belonging and control over their exploration and chosen activities.

What we are doing at the nursery to support this:
• Giving the babies an opportunity to explore a wide range of activities that are both available as part of the continuous curriculum and those that are put out as specific enhanced curriculum.
• Focussing on what activities are interesting certain children and learning more about their personalities and what they tend to gravitate to at nursery, then supporting the interest further by making their favoured toys easy to find and accessible to them.
• Introducing new children to messy play activities: water, corn four and water mix, paint, etc.
• Giving them lots of support in going outside and talking them through getting dressed for the outdoors and referring to the clothes they put on on the clothing display.
• Drawing their attention to the environment and allowing them to become familiar with it- the flowers, trees, toys, people.

What could you do to support the children and reinforce what they have experienced at the nursery?
• Make some links between the activities we do at nursery and recreate some of them at home. Water play out of a low edged basin on the kitchen floor with some bubbles and food colouring is a fun and inexpensive activity to do with them.
• Collect, clean and make safe some of your recycling and before it goes out, let them have a rustle through it- children love playing with it and you can feel virtuous by reusing before recycling.
• In the seahorses we have wooden, tin, plastic, fabric, etc, treasure baskets for the children to explore. They are made of a range of items found in homes, so for ideas ask the team to give you a look through and set up your own treasure baskets at home with similar items.

reflection on March

Dolphins
The children spent a lot of time in March garden planning. Children contributed to some drawn plans about how they wanted the Dolphins’ garden area to be and the types of things that they wanted in the garden.

To get going, we have started out propagating little seedlings with the preschool group. We are now gathering resources, wood, etc. so we can make planter boxes for the outdoor area to transfer the plants into. After the Easter holidays, when all the children and regular teachers are back, we will be re-bedding the window boxes and hanging baskets, planter boxes and planting our gardens.

Beyond green plants was also a very green St Patrick’s day that was celebrated with children dressed in green, painting in green, playing in green water and even making green cupcakes.

March was also largely dominated by Easter. We made collage Easter Eggs, sang Easter songs, made Hot Crossed buns, Easter nests and Easter cards.

Starfish
Starfish had a very multicultural month, starting off with St Patrick’s Day by dressing in green, painting clover, clover collages and making salt dough shamrocks. For Iranian New Year, the Starfish made goldfish out of sand and gold paint and for Hungarian ‘Name Day’ the Starfish children celebrated all the children and staff names. For Mother’s Day, we made fridge magnets and artwork for our children to take home for their mothers.

Loads of time was spent outside in March, until the rain came down in the last week. So we had lots of opportunities to bring the indoors out, by setting up our art activities outside and cosy reading corners. But also lots of great opportunity to really practice our gross motor skills, stretch our legs and practice climbing and manoeuvring our way round obstacle courses.

We went on a walk to the local library this month too which was great fun. The children enjoyed rummaging through the library book s and borrowing some books to read at the nursery.

Seahorses
March was a very busy month for Seahorses with an increase in children settling. It was all hands on deck for getting to know new children and supporting the children in getting used to the room and the toys and different faces.

The older babies have spent a lot of time doing art work as they have become familiar with the feel and process of playing with wet, coloured and messy substances. Knowing the staff well also helps them to trust and feel good about taking risks and trying something new.

Our new babies have enjoyed playing with the different treasure baskets and exploring through them. The wooden treasure, metal treasure and plastic treasure have been well explored as have the small people and musical instruments.

The team have been doing lots of singing with the children and the children listening without contributing their voices just yet.....but it won’t take them long!

Easter Bonnet Parade
All of the groups joined in the Easter Bonnet Parade the Monday before Easter. It was very unfortunate that the rain poured down on the day meaning that we had to bring the parade into the Dolphins indoors, but none the less children enjoyed parading their hats for each other and some of the parents.