19th - 23rd October 2020.

This week we have had lots of messy fun. 
 

We have made marks in flour, explored the feel of cooked spaghetti, and painted some spooky pumpkins using apples. 
 

We have practiced our fine motor skills using our finger and thumb to pick up various sized cereal and filled up jugs and bowls.

We have played with the large plastic keys, threading them onto the rings and filling up the stacking cakes and shaking them, listening to the noises they made.

We have been exploring different ways to make marks, using our fingers in the flour, apples and our fingers to paint, large chalks in the cement tray, and using etch a sketch boards to mark make and stamp. 

Practising mark making whilst we are still so young will help us to become super writers when we start school, why don’t you try it at home using various ingredients on a tray, for example - sugar, whipped cream, flour, glitter or rice crispies.

We have really enjoyed tasting foods including broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, lemons, limes, cucumber, celery, ice cream cones. 
 

We have also started to try to feed ourselves using spoons at dinner time. We are getting so good at this now! 
 

We are also making some lifelong friends in the Sunshine Room, our older babies love to look out for the younger ones, and the younger ones love to join in with what the big ones are doing.
 

12th-16th October.

This week we have been practicing our fine motor skills.

We have been painting with our fingers, hands and feet, finding toys in the shaving foam, mark making with crayons and chalk and exploring puzzles.

We have been using our fingers to fill jugs up with coloured rice and then emptying them out. 

We have enjoyed tasting different foods mixed in with water. This week we have tried lemon, lime and oranges. All the children loved the lemon and splashing in the water.

We have also had lots of sensory play with various fabrics like tissue paper, felt and scarves. We enjoyed filling cups, bowls and boxes with the felt and tissue paper and hiding balls and animals under the scarves. We even hid Traci and Justine and ourselves! 
 

5th - 9th October.

We have done lots of exploring this week and figuring out how things work.
 

We have learned to push and pull cars around the wooden garage, to press and twist buttons  on electronic toys in different ways to make them make noise, how to connect various construction toys, like the rabbits, stars and duplo and started to make towers with them, and how to fit different shapes into the shape sorter.

We are getting very confident at building towers with the wooden blocks, the mirror blocks and the foam bricks. We build the, high then count “1,2,3 go!” And knock them all down. We make a big CRASH! sound when the tower falls down. 
 

We have made friendships with each other this week and started to play together. We enjoy playing peep over the den wall! We are starting to learn that our emotions and our movements affect each other, all the children are learning to give hugs and stroke their friends arm if they are upset. 
 

We have been practicing our gross motor skills lots this week, crawling through tunnels and climbing up the slide frame both inside and outside. 
 

We have loved splashing in the puddles outside! It was so much fun, we even decided to lie down in the puddles and we got very wet! 
 

We have been exploring different fabrics, wrapping the babies in them and hiding under them playing peep. 
 

We have got a new sensory light this week and we loved looking at all the different colours and trying to catch all the spots.
 

We have been practicing saying words this week - peep, pop, crash, bang, uh-oh, bye bye, splash. We are getting very good at trying to say the words, perhaps you could try some of the activities below at home to help us? 

Blowing bubbles - blow the bubbles and encourage your child to pop them saying “pop pop pop”

Playing peep - using blankets, scarves or even t-shirts and jumpers, hide yourself and your child underneath them saying “peep”

Building towers - using any items at home you could build with, make towers, taking turns to put an item on the tower. Count “1,2,3 go!” then encourage your child to knock the tower down. Use words like “crash!” “Bang!” When it falls, and clap and praise your child.

29th September - 2nd October.

We have been doing lots of body painting this week. Some of the children were wary of it and didn’t want to join in but after a little encouragement loved it. Some of the children weren’t fazed at all and dived straight in, loving getting so messy. The paper became a little slippy and they found it funny sliding across it on their bums. After painting we had a big wash in the tub and the children loved splashing the water and each other and helping us to clean them, using their own flannel. 

Here’s some photos of all the other things we’ve had fun doing this week.

These include; 

Filling cups, pots and tubs with various items, like straws, pipe cleaners, different toys, pom poms and pine cones.
 

Practising out fine motor skills by trying to clip and unclip pegs from tubs, posting pom poms through tubes at different heights and watching them fall and poking dried spaghetti through the holes in a colander.

Exploring outside, splashing in the puddles and playing with the diggers, the slide and the push along toys, as well as having a run around.

Exploring different textures - finding toys hidden inside jelly and body painting.

Buiding towers with our sensory blocks, exploring the magnetic toys and seeing how they stick together and fixing the rabbits onto the tubs.

We have been listening to the different sounds the instruments make, making quiet and loud noises.

We have been learning how to feed ourselves with spoons and how to pick up food with our fingers.

We have enjoyed role playing with the dolls and figuring out how to put the lids on the dolls juice cups.
 

Come back next week to see what other fun things we are learning to do!

21st - 25th September
 

We had lots of fun this week! We have had lovely weather this week so we have enjoyed lots of time outside playing on the slide, the seesaw, the cars and playing with the diggers. We are getting very good at climbing up on the frame to go down the slide. Getting lots of time to play outside let’s us develop our gross motor skills (using the large muscles in arms, legs and torso) by climbing, running and crawling and lets us get lots of fresh air.

We have done lots of filling and emptying this week, using stacking cups and jugs and filling them with pom poms, straws, Duplo blocks and pine cones. This helps us to develop our fine motor skills (using the small muscles in our hands and wrists)  and our pincer grip (Picking things up with finger and thumb)
 

We love looking at our books in our quiet corner, some are musical, some are foam and some are wooden. The pictures are so colourful! 
 

We have also had lots or heuristic play. For this we use lots of natural items, things you would find in your own home. All the children love playing with these, they put toys inside them, use the crockery to make noises, and even put them on their heads as hats! You could do this with your child at home using items such as pans, metal and wooden spoons, plastic bowls or plates, egg cups etc.

We have had lots of funny making cars race down the car track and pushing them around the room. They go so fast! 
 

We have enjoyed exploring the magnetic sticks and balls, building with the sensory bricks and foam bricks, learning how to build with the rabbits and the stars. 
 

We have had lots of fun this week looking after the dolls. We put nappies on them, wrapped them in blankets for a sleep, and fed them with bottles and spoons and bowls. Even at this young age the children are using their own experiences of care to show care to our dolls.

We have started to use our singing wall to become familiar with some nursery rhymes. The children really enjoy looking at the pictures and dance when we sing.

Some of the children enjoyed making marks in the sand this week, drawing and colouring pictures and exploring sensory things such as scarves, bubble wrap and ribbons.

We have done lots of painting this week. We have used our fingers to make big pictures, exploring the texture of the paint all mixed together and we have made small individual pictures, again using our fingers, but dipping Them into individual colours and then making marks. This was lots of fun!

We hope you are enjoying our blog and seeing what your children are having fun doing at nursery 😄

Come back next week for another update! 

14th - 18th September.

We have had another brilliant week. All the children have settled in wonderfully, so we have just allowed them to explore this week and focussed on us all forming bonds with each other. 

We have had lots of fun exploring sensory things, like  pom poms, bubble wrap, oats, water and lots more

We have enjoyed exploring our outdoor area, climbing up and sliding down the slides, rocking on the rocking horse's and riding in the cars!

We have enjoyed building.

31st August - 4th September. 
 

What a lovely first week of term! We met all of your beautiful babies and they came for a little visit to our room to settle in and wow they were so good, we hardly had any tears!

Here are some photos of us exploring all the fun things we can do in nursery!