The babies have had lots of fun making pitta pizzas for our Around the World themed week. They enjoyed exploring the different textures with their hands and their mouths.
Physical Development (PD) Using their fine motor skills to make the pizzas.
Picks up small objects between thumb and fingers
Personal, Social, and Emotional Development (PSED) Builds relationships with special people
Cheese straws a good favourite and easy to make. By ready made puff pasrty and add some gratd chees. Twist the pastry with your little one and cook for 10-15mins in the oven at 180 degrees
Carrying on from last week we put different objects into water and froze them in the freezer. The children choose different one-handed tools to break the ice p and get to the objects.
Physical Development (PD) Using their fine motor skills using one-handed tools Communication and Language (CL) Talking about the different objects in the ice.
Make some ice lollies with your little one and enjoy them together
We used a variety of opportunities to use water play inside and outside to try and cool off in the hot weather
Mathematics(M) Estimating how many small containers it would take to fill up a big container. Who was the closest?
Activities parents could do at home to extend their child’s development further?
Use your child’s bath time to talk to them about objects that float and objects that sink
Water play was our learning experience too! We used lots of mathematical language to describe our play, like sink and float, more and less, big, bigger and biggest, small, smaller and smallest, estimate etc. to name but a few
Mathematics (M) Use of mathematical language
Enjoy the ‘guesstimating’ game with your little one to test their knowledge
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home…
I see the clouds moving W, w, w
I see the kites flying W, w, w
I see the trees bending
W, w, w
The wind is blowing strong
We have had a fabulous time making cheese straws for our ‘little chef’s theme this week.
Communication and Language (CL) using single words. Enjoys babbling and increasingly experiments with using sounds and words to communicate.
Physical Development (PD) passes objects from one hand to another.
Baking with your little one at home. Bread dough is an old favourite for using their hands and fingers to knead.
We made a big block of ice and filled it with different sized and coloured pom poms.
The children loved this activity and spent a long time picking and melting the ice with their hands to get to the one that they wanted to get to.
Physical Development (PD) using fine motor skills to hold utensils to break the ice.
Personal, Social, Emotional Development (PSED) turn taking with the utensils to break the ice. Communication and Language (CL) Using describing words about how the different objects and ice feels.
Freeze other objects in ice. This is a perfect activity to use all sorts of developmental areas with your child. Why not put it in the garden and watch it melt as your little one tries to get to the objects.
We dressed up in clothes that made us look like what we wanted to be when we are older. There were builders, train drivers, firefighters, doctors and Farmers, to name but a few.
Understanding the World and Communities (UTW) Looking at different occupations
Physical Development (PD) Dressing and undressing themselves using their fine and gross motor movements
Activities parents could do at home to extend their child’s development further?
Talk to your little one about the job that you and other members of the family do. Perhaps even take them to where you work to show them what you do and what it looks like.
We have been looking at our community and different occupations and what they do. We had some really good circle times talking about what we would like to be when we are older.
Our favourite activity this week was P.E The children were super good at getting themselves dressed for P>E. We then gave the children a bean bag which they were asked to throw into a circle drawn in chalk on the floor. What a fantastic aim they all had…. excellent effort!!
Physical Development (PD) Shows increasing control over an object Communication and Language (CL) Able to follow instruction
Take it in turns to throw a small ball with your little one, using over arm and under arm techniques.
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home…Jelly and Jam, Jelly and Jam
Jiggling on a plate
Oh, what will I eat with it?
J, j, j, j, j
This week we made our very own banana and yogurt ice lollies and anyone that came in while we were eating them would have known that we loved them very much indeed!
Physical Development (PD) Using their fine motor skills to hold the lollies.
Communication and Language (CL) Has a strong exploratory impulse.
Why not make lollies with different using different flavours and fruit
We had an amazing time making each other ‘ice-creams’ with our play dough ice-cream Parlour. Make mine a 99 with a flake!
Understanding the World (UTW) Vehicles we see in our community
Physical Development (PD) Using their fine motor skills to make their ice-creams
Communication and Language (CL) Talking about our favourite flavours and what we would like
Cooking with your little to encourage mixing, pouring and taking turns
Shape jelly play! We explored the jelly with our hands to pick out different shapes and name them.
Mathematics(M) Recognising shapes and counting up to 5
Communication and Language (CL) Talking about and describing the different shapes.
Look at the different shapes that household objects are. Your clock might be a circle shape and your picture frame might be a rectangle?
We went on a shape hunt around the room and the garden. We created a tally chart and recorded each shape that we found.
The children were given a choice to create their own sandwich. They buttered the sandwich, chose their own filling and talked about healthy and unhealthy foods
Physical Development (PD) Using fine motor skills to butter and cut their own sandwiches. Understanding good practice with regards to hunger and contributing to good health.
Communication and Language (CL) Talking about being healthy and unhealthy
Making homemade pizza’s at home is fun. You could choice the vegetables to put on the top and you can even buy ready made dough mix to make the base!
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home…
Bring your bat and bring your ball B, B, B, B, B
Bring your bat and bring your ball to the park to play
Multi-sensory exploring- The babies got stuck in exploring different textured, coloured and scented foods. Including colourful cooked pasta, rainbow rice (which the babies enjoyed sprinkling) and we also had banana, strawberry and chocolate mousse, which the babies whizzed their hands through and tasted!
Communication and Language (CL) Has a strong exploratory impulse and frequently imitates words and sounds
Physical Development (PD) Enjoys the sensory experience of making marks
Raid the cupboards at home and choose different types of foods to explore together!
Playdough, pasta and cheerio threading. We stuck raw spaghetti into play dough then used our fingers to carefully thread the cheerios through
Physical Development (PD) Using fine motor skills
Communication and Language (CL) Has a strong exploratory impulse and gives everything a go
Personal, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) will stay at an activity they enjoy and that interests them.
Set out activities to encourage your child to use their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. An example of this might be using penne pasta to thread onto pipe cleaners
We looked at pictures of extreme weather conditions such as tornados, heavy snow, and a tsunami. We spoke about what they are and all our experiences outside in the rain, snow and sun.
Communication and Language (CL) Beginning to understand “why” and “how” questions and learning new words rapidly and can use them
Understanding the World (UTW) shows care and concern for living things and the environment
Go out in all weathers and talk to your little one about it. If you go on holiday talk about the weather when you are there too.
We have been looking at different types of weather too. We made rain clouds and we also carried on with our mark making and trying to write our names. We also cooked up a storm and made flapjacks.
We had a great time walking through our sensory trays, using our bare feet to feel all the different textures. There was shaving foam, bubble wrap, jelly and sand (to name just a few)
The children had to talk about whether they liked the sensation on their feet and use describing words for each one.
Experiments to create different textures. Expressive Arts and Design (EAD)
Uses talk to explain what is happening Communication and Language (CL)
Communication and Language (CL) extending vocabulary, especially by grouping and naming, exploring meaning and sounds of new words. Beginning to be interested in and describe the texture of things.
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home…
We lick our lollipops
We lick our lollipops
L, l, l, l, l
We lick our lollipops!
Exploring our outside world with our senses. We used soil, watering cans and water to mix and make different textures with our hands and fingers.
Exploring and using their senses to explore by tipping and pouring Physical Development (PD)
Using simple words (dig, scoop, fill, mud, cold, dry Communication and Language (CL)
Planting flowers in the garden and perhaps picking weeds!
Gluing and Sticking Mini-Beast pictures
Showing control when using mark making tools (PD) Physical Development
Playing alongside others and turn taking (PSED) Personal, Social, Emotional Development (PSED)
Colours (M) Mathematics
Go on a bug hunt in the garden
Why not try a gluing and sticking activity with your little one?
We made collages out of old materials and containers and glued them, used Velcro and painted them too. We spoke about how we don’t need to throw everything away and that we can reuse things repeatedly. That’s called recycling!
Shows care and concern for living things and the environment (UTW)Understanding the World
Notices features of objects in their environment
Select tools and techniques needed to shape, assemble and join materials they are using
Look around the house for old objects that you don’t use anymore. Have a look in the recycling bin and make something out of what you can find.
Look around the house for old objects that you don’t use anymore. Have a look in the recycling bin and make something out of what you can find.
We have been making sensory pots using lemon, orange and vanilla to go in them. We had lots of fun closing our eyes and smelling the smells and trying to guess what it was.
Experiments to create different textures. Expressive Arts and Design (EAD)
Uses talk to explain what is happening Communication and Language (CL)
Why not go on a scavenger hunt and give your little one a list of textures and smells to find.
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home…
U, U, U go umbrellas
U, U, U go umbrellas
U, U, U go umbrellas
When it starts to rain!
Scented Ice play with Safari animals. An activity that gets our little ones to use EVERY sense.
Physical Development (PD)- Senses to explore
Communication and Language (CL) Alert to the sound of speech
Characteristics of Effective Learning (COEL)Fleeting affection and Strong Exploratory Impulse
Water play of ice play with different colours to explore and mix up.
Giant Race Track
Physical Development (PD) Use the pincer grip to hold the cars as you race them along
Personal, Social, Emotional Development (PSED) Playing alongside others-turn taking
Characteristics of Effective Learning (COEL) Playing and Exploring-Showing particular interests
Run the cars through paint and make tracks on some paper on the floor
Making Father’s Day cards and gifts
Expressive Arts and Design (EAD) Use different materials to create a masterpiece!
Communication and Language (CL) Talking about the things we love most of all about our daddy’s
Talk to your little one about what they like doing with you. Going on a Father’s Day family walk
Celebrating and talking to our children about their daddies or an important male figure in their life and cooking cupcakes together.
We have been making cards for our daddies or the important male figure in their life.
Communication and Language (CL) Talking about the different families we have and what is most important about family life.
Physical, Social and Emotional Development (PSED) Talking about what makes you feel loved. Using describing words
Talking about what we love most of all about pour daddies
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home…
Now it’s dark the lights go on
O,o,,o,o,o
Time for bed, the lights go off
O,o,o,o,o
We made a dinosaur tuff tray using lentils as the lava coming out of our grey playdough volcano. There was also cress that we grew to make the forest that some of the dinosaurs lived in.
Physical Development (PD) Reaches out for objects, touching and beginning to hold objects.
Communication and Language (CL) Has a strong exploratory impulse
Characteristics of Effective Learning (COEL) Not easily distracted
Nature walk through a forest, using your sense of smell, listening and touch with your little ones.
Using corn flour and water we mixed the 2 ingredients together to make a texture changing ‘gloop’. We added different colours to the ‘gloop’ and used our fingers to make patterns and mix the colours together
Physical Development (PD) Feeling different textures
Communication and Language (CL) enjoying talking about different colours and feelings
It is so easy to make, and your child will love exploring the feeling of ‘gloop’ with you too. Add rice, pasta and lentils to make different textures and enjoy picking up the different things using your fingers and hands
We really enjoyed building rockets for our space board. We had different ideas on how our rockets should look and designed them ourselves. Some models were very technical and colourful.
Mathematics(M) Using shapes and colours to design our rockets
Literacy (L) We tried to write our names on our rockets using our mark making skills
Encourage your child to mark make, using their name as a focus
We used the smartboard to look at dinosaur body parts and did some dinosaur foot printing too.
Jolly phonics song for J
Jelly and Jam, Jelly and Jam
Jiggling on a plate
Oh, what will I eat with it?
J, J, J, J, J !
We enjoyed using our ‘independence skills’ by getting ourselves dressed (most of us all by ourselves!) without much adult support. We did stretches to warm our bodies and muscles up. We all completed 3 laps of the garden, the climbing equipment and down the slide. We then practiced our jumping and star jumps together as a group. A really good session!
Physical Development (PD) Health and self-care skills. Dressing and undressing independently
And using our gross and fine motor skills to maneuver around the course
Encourage your child to dress and undress themselves at home. Ask them to put their socks and shoes on too, especially if your little one is going to school in September!
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home…
The letter D,d
See me play on my drum,
Playing drums is lots of fun!
With a d,d,d,d,d,d,d
See me play upon my drum!
Messy Rainbow Icing sugar play. Wow! What a mess!
Personal Social Emotional Development (PSED) Playing alongside others
Physical Development (PD) Using tools to create marks
Communication and Language (CL) Listening and Attention
Why not decorate biscuits with different coloured icing at home.
The Hungry Caterpillar Tuff Tray
Literacy (L) Reading the story as a group
Expressive Arts and Design (EAD) Exploring textures
Extending and improvising story times using toys, puppets and role play resources
Our theme for this week is dinosaurs and we made up a dinosaur tuff tray with flash cards to identify the different dinosaurs
Understanding the World (UTW) Learning about a different age in our Planets history
To find similarities between toys and outside objects and identifying the concept of ‘big’ and ‘small’
We used the smartboard to look at dinosaur body parts and did some dinosaur foot printing too.
Phonic song is ‘B’
Bring your bat and bring your ball, b,b,
Bring your bat and bring your ball to the park to play!
Our favourite activity this week was a science experiment involving placing folded paper and card flowers in some water and watching the petals unfold. Some unfolded straight away and some more slowly
This experiment was to talk about absorption and for the children to predict what might happen to the flowers when they went into the water. A few children predicted that the petals would unfold, others said it would sink, some did not what would happen
Characteristics of Effective Learning (COEL) Making links, making predictions, testing their ideas
Have a tray of different objects and a large bowl of water. Ask your child to predict then test which objects sink and which objects float
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home… (M.m)
The mums and dad’s make many meals mmmm mmmm
The mum’s and dad’s make many meals for the hungry children
Noah’s Ark bubble scrubbing. A water tray with Noah’s animals in and lots of bubbles. Give the children a brush and off we go!
Physical Development (PD) Explores objects with mouth, often picking up objects and holding it to their mouth.
Characteristics of Effective Learning (COEL) changing strategy as needed
Water play at home with different materials for a sensory experience
Cheerio threading. Using hard spaghetti to thread the cheerios on to. This takes lots of practice!!!
Math’s(M) Counting the cheerios as you thread them on
Encourage your child to join in with threading using penne pasta and pipe cleaners
Water play with all the different sea animals to explore and talk about.
Understanding the World (UTW) Talking about all the animals and their habitats and being aware of a wider community
Go to the pet shop to look at the different tropical fish and perhaps go to the beach to collect shells
Pre-school bees have been making lots of under the sea animals and artwork for our new display. They used different materials to make these. They have also been to the smart board to look at the real-life sea animals.
We have been talking about hygiene and health and what we can do to keep ourselves healthy
Physical Development (PD) Health and self-care
Talk about why we brush our teeth and take pictures of things that we see that are either healthy or hygienic. Practice washing your hands together.
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home…
See my puppy rip the rag R, R, R
Se my puppy rip the rag
When he pulls so hard
The Bell House Blog is designed to show parents what activities our children are doing week by week and how these activities relate to the Early Years Curriculum. We feel it’s important for our parents to be able to see ‘what’ as well as ‘why’ we plan the activities we do for the children. Parents are encouraged to be a part of their child’s education being invited to do the ‘At home’ ideas with t
We made a very yummy banana smoothie using our fingers and hands to squish the banana and then we added the milk to make it drinkable!
Physical Development (PD) Using their fine motor skills to hold and squish the banana between their hands and fingers.
Communication and Language (CL) Imitate words and sounds
Expressive Arts and Design EAD) Exploring media as a sensory experience.
Make different flavoured smoothies with different types of fruit with your little one.
Making ‘fast’, ‘slow’, ‘loud’ and ‘quiet’ music with our pots and pans!
Expressive Arts and Design (EAD) Explores and Experiments with a range of media through sensory exploration
Understanding the World (UTW) Linking together approaches e.g. shaking, hitting etc.
Using different objects to make music. It’s amazing how many sounds a stick makes on different surfaces when you are out on a walk. Why not describe the sound it makes (Clink, tap, thud etc.)
Our theme of the week is mini beasts and we really enjoyed hunting for insects in the garden using our magnifying glasses to see them really clearly
Understanding the World (UTW) People and Communities and our environment
Communication and Language (CL) Talking about the different mini-beasts and using our describing words.
Going on a nature walk and talking about what you see is always very interesting for children.
Looking at minibeasts around our environment as this our theme of the week. We also used our fingers to make our own little mini beasts!
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home…
We lick our lollipops l, l,l
We lick our lollipops l, l, l
We lick our lollipops L,l,l,l,l,l,
We are enjoying our topic of healthy living and hygiene. We especially enjoyed looking at how many teeth we have in our mouths and taking a picture of our mouths and teeth.
Physical Development (PD) Health and Self care Understanding that good practices with regard to exercise, eating sleeping and hygiene contribute to good health
Discuss why we clean our teeth, how to brush them properly and how going to the dentist helps keep our teeth healthy
The Jolly Phonics song for our letter of the week goes like this, why not try singing it at home…
I like to hop, hop, hop up and down
I like to hop, hop, hop all around
I like to hop, hop, hop up and down
H,h,h,h,h,h !