Monthly Archives: April 2016
This is not just applicable to children! We can all learn so much about own self-development by stepping out of our comfort zone and challenging ourselves. The increased confidence levels we see in the little ones when they decide on a goal, push themselves and reap the rewards is wonderful. You watch them grow before your eyes! Another example of how we too can learn from the way we help develop our children.
We look forward to welcoming back our term time families as Summer term begins on Monday 11th April. We hope you’ve all had a marvellous Easter break!
Ladybirds
In Ladybirds this week we have had the soft play out for physical play time including the tents and tunnels out which the babies have really enjoyed! We are in the middle of creating a wonderful Spring farm display and look forward to having the finished scene complete. We have been doing lots of mark making including painting and chalk colouring and we have loved having plenty of garden play time this week!
Next week we are really looking forward to a trip to Pets At Home to see all the animals and also especially looking forward to working some more on our farm display. We will of course have plenty of the usual sensory fun and as much outside time as the weather allows!
Butterflies
It has been a very physical week here in Bumblebees! We have been having lots of fun on the balance beams, tunnels and tents and constructed an obstacle course which the toddlers loved! We have also been getting creative making rainbows for the beginning of our April showers display. We have also been focusing a lot this week on developing fine motor skills so the children have been enjoying lots of mark making!
We are looking forward to making raindrops and umbrellas for the display next week as well as getting our culinary hats on and making and cooking pastry parcels – yum!
Bumblebees
One of our main focussed this week in Bumblebees has been making some beautiful Spring displays. We made some blossom trees with pink paint on the end of a water bottle and loved collaging some sticky back plastic bugs and leaves! We have also started to spend some time looking at fruit and vegetables, where they come from and how they grow. We had enormous amounts of fun fruit and veg printing too!
Next week we will be continuing to create some wonderful fruit and vegetable printing pics. We will also be carrying out some very important jobs such as cleaning our toys and will be sure to get as much garden time as we can!
Dragonflies
It has been a lovely week in Dragonflies, the highlights have been making some delicious bread rolls and having masses of time out in the garden. Particular fun was had on the balance beams, playing stuck in the mud and painting outside! We also made our very own kites that we cut out ourselves (the children that is!)
The letter of the week is S and the number is 26 next week. The colour is red and the shape is square! We are really looking forward to our coke and mentos experiment as well as cooking scrummy jam tarts and playing with jenga blocks. We will also be making dinosaur tracks with paint and having lots of fun and learning with chalk rubbing.
Rhyming is really important for early literacy development, it helps enhance understanding of how reading works as well as introducing a sense of rhythm.
We have found a great post from The Imagination Tree, which features (creator of the site) Anna’s top 50 rhyming books for babies through to 7 year olds.
Take a look here for the full list and where to buy. Happy reading!
With the blossom
ing trees, the blooming flowers, the chirping birds and the sunnier skies… Spring is most definitely (and finally) here! And with that, we have changed our menus for the Spring/ Summer terms to offer a nutritiously balanced, appealing selection of diverse dishes for our discerning little patrons! We will continue to post the weekly menu on the notice board in reception but also here on the blog at the beginning of each week, so keep your eyes peeled for our fresh selection of firm favourites and new culinary picks!
Ladybirds
This week we have been on a walk to the pet shop where we saw the wonderful brightly coloured fish and the fluffy rabbits! We have also been exploring sensory play with soft cotton wool, crisp crunchy tissue paper and wiggly spaghetti! Painting with the rollers this week has also been particular fun with the Butterflies.
We are really looking forward to our Spring walk next week and going to look at all the pretty Spring flowers. We will also be having plenty of fun with messy activities throughout the week!
Butterflies
We have been celebrating our new and fun garden area by bringing the outside in and creating a fabulous display with different types of artwork. We have also been introducing our welcome song to our Butterflies and they have enjoyed joining in with the singing and learning the actions! In fact, the little ones have really been in the singing mood this week and requesting lots of nursery rhymes, in particular Old Macdonald, Wind the Bobbin Up and Ba Ba Black Sheep!
There will be a focus on developing the Butterflies fine motor skills next week with lots of sensory play centred on Spring time!
Bumblebees
The Bumblebees have really enjoyed exploring messy play in different areas of the room this week. We had a cornflake café in the role play area, a cornflake dinosaur cave with stones in the construction area and much more! We have also been shape cutter painting to help develop our shape recognition and colour awareness. Some of the Bumblebees have also had a go at copying their names through gloss paper and using brightly coloured pens to make the individual letters in our names stand out.
We are really looking forward to our Hungry Caterpillar puppet show next week as well as some obstacle courses and continuing with some more fabulous Spring displays!
Dragonflies
This week we have been focussing on our Spring display making flowers, grass, butterflies and caterpillars. In the Spring weather we have been having a lot of fun outside with outdoor games including childhood classics, What’s The Time Mr Wolf and Duck Duck Goose! The Dragonflies have also really enjoyed a lot of time playing in the sand this week. The children really enjoyed getting involved in the science experiment with flour and yeast and we’ve spent a lot of time on colour and number matching also.
The letter of the week is Z and the number is 25 next week. The colour is purple and the shape is square! We are really looking forward to making a road outside next week as well as pasta necklaces, having a 3 Little Pigs puppet show and building towers using boxes and other objects. We will also be spray bottle painting in the garden, playing musical bumps and also enjoying plenty of show and tell fun!