Nursery Planning

Here are some of the activities our children have enjoyed over summer.

Pre-schoolers talk about themselves and their families

It is an important time for our pre-schoolers as they get to understand more about who they are, what they like doing, and their relationships. During the last few months we’ve been asking them to tell us about themselves, as well as their mums, dads, stepparents and siblings. They have also put their knowledge down on paper, drawing portraits of their family members, which have been lovely to see.

As part of a new topic, our pre-schoolers have also been learning about different emergency service roles, including how Police, Fire and Ambulance workers help us. To bring their learning to life, they created an impressive police car in our ‘Big Art’ session.

Our eldest children have also had fun in the kitchen cooking (and eating!) yummy biscuits, and making glitter slime, getting very sticky and sparkly in the process. With the weather warm for most of the summer, the children have also been spending time in our new look nursery garden. As well as watering the flowers, we’ve been talking about how they grow and their different scents and colours. Our busy garden bees also set up a wonderful drive-through car wash, as you can imagine, it was bubbles galore!

“Working at the car wash yeah…”

Toddlers get colourful and creative

It has been a colourful, creative last few weeks for our curious toddlers. They’ve been making musical instruments out of cardboard boxes, painting pegs with pom poms and mixing sticky papier mache to cover balloons. To help learn more about colours, our toddlers have rolled toy cares through primary paint colours to see the secondary colours their tracks produce and made some amazing body paintings using whole body movements. Alongside creating fabulous artwork (come and see, it is on display) the toddlers have been having fun outdoors. The nursery garden has been buzzing with activity with little ones going on bug hunts and playing in the mud kitchen. We’ve also been on adventures to see the ducks in the park, collecting sticks as we go.

Our Toddlers’ and Older Babies’ vibrant art display

Older babies enjoy sensory play and dressing up

Our older babies relish visual and tactile activities. During the summer they have enjoyed lots of touchy, feely actions, including making fluffy slime, painting with ice and playing with squishy shaving foam. To help support hand-eye coordination we’ve been showing the babies how to use dabbers to make marks on paper – important for developing a pincer grip – and making marks using baby oil and sand. On warm days, we’ve taken the babies outdoors where they have loved getting to grips (and messy!) with the mud kitchen.

Babies’ imaginations rapidly develop at this age, and we’ve encouraged this by playing dressing up – they particularly liked being chefs in our home corner – and doing pretend ‘parent’ play using the baby dolls and pushchairs.

Our new mud kitchen is proving a real hit

Younger babies explore sights, sounds and smells  

The younger babies have been exploring lots of lovely sights, sounds and smells. Some of the stimulating activities they’ve been up to include sensory play with crunchy rice krispies and wobbly jelly, as well as playing with sensory bags made up of glitter, paint and shaving foam. To practise mark-making, the first steps towards writing, we’ve been helping the babies dab marks with colour crayons, paints and blocks. We’ve also been learning about the animal world, exploring different textures, such as furry and smooth, and identifying different animals using photos.

Our younger babies have also enjoyed daily music and movement sessions, where we group together and sing nursery rhymes along with actions. All together now, ‘twinkle, twinkle little star…’

Our older babies’ colourful artwork

Here are some of the activities our children have enjoyed recently.

Pre-schoolers Spice up their lives!

The learning has been non-stop this month. As well as focussing on farm animals, including the udderly amazing art of how to milk a cow, we have been studying the difference between land and sea creatures. We have had lots of lively times too, dancing to the Spice Girls (a real favourite with the nursery team!), practising hurdle jumping and playing ball control games – all good for helping us develop strong hand/eye co-ordination skills.

In Silly Science, we made a soda bag explode (all safely, of course!) and had lots of fun making imaginative models for our junk modelling competition. The fun didn’t end there, as we also played in the mud kitchen, cooled down with water play, planted cress seeds and baked yummy scones, all in time for tea! Phew, what a jam-packed month!

Sploosh! Having fun with water.

Having an udderly fabulous time practising our cow milking skills!

Toddlers test out texture

Textured messy play has fascinated our toddlers over the past few weeks. We have made scented coloured playdough, traced with stencils and used the sand tray for mark making – our first foray into handwriting, don’t you know? We have also listened and looked at different types of instruments, which has been lovely and noisy, and have danced along to our favourite songs. We also treated the teddies to a wonderful teddy bears picnic in the glorious sunshine. What did they eat? Crackers and camembert (camem-bear) of course!

Our colourful hand painting.

Babies enjoy mark-making and duck feeding

Our younger babies have had a lovely messy time using toy cars and brown paint to make construction themed paintings. They have also been exploring different sounds using dry pasta and practising making marks with crayons and dipping their fingers in flour and water.

We also indulged in our babies’ favourite activity of going for a long walk to Windsor Castle and feeding the royal ducks! As the weather has been warmer, we have also spent time outside splashing about in water and footprint painting. To top it all off, we have been singing at the top of our lungs groovy action songs, like Wheels on the Bus.

Our older babies made the whole nursery smell amazing while making homemade shortbread. We have also been getting hands on with tactile sensory games, and there have been all sorts of things popping up in the sensory trays, including farm animals (the toy variety!) hay, flour and Weetabix. We have been super arty too. We have tried free drawing our family and spent time looking at the different colours. We’ve also spent time in the garden cooking up muddy delights in our mud kitchen and learning about the different wildlife and mini beasts you can find outdoors, including the ones to look at and not touch! Best of all we have had a ‘roarsome’ time playing with our dinosaurs in the playdough!   

Wibble wobble! Getting stuck into jelly play!

Messy play! The babies enjoying mark making in flour.

Here are some of the activities our children have enjoyed recently.

Prepared Pre-schoolers

Our rapidly growing team of pre-schoolers have been busy making apple crumble, filling the nursery with wonderful smells. Next up they have been learning about the lifecycle of butterflies, playing with the mini beasts and talking about where they live. A trip to feed the ducks was a favourite with everyone.

Leading up to the trip to Odds Farm, we have been making shiny pigs from old CDs, exploring different textures in the farm sensory tray, whilst talking about farming and farm animals.

We have also been exploring the ‘Oo’ sound and words with ‘Oo’ in them. Cool!

Our trip to Odds Farm – what a fab day!

Enjoying the tractor ride at Odds Farm.

No you mooooove! Playing with the toy farm animals.

Toddlers in action

Not to be outdone on the cooking front, our intrepid toddlers have made yummy chocolate biscuits and Weetabix breakfast bars! Jelly sensory play, along with shaving foam painting, has ensured we are in messy play heaven. Talking about and recognising our different emotions has been a good learning curve too.

Body painting with prime colours has engaged everybody, and we are currently exploring different animal habitats.

Yummy fun!

Babbling Babies

Our younger babies have been making and feeling their own play dough, creating marks in the sand tray, and using jelly for sensory play and taste. The fun never stops, we have filled the room with the noise of our musical instruments – playing shake, rattle and bang was a favourite!

Bubble wrap mark making with toy cars, exploring and using the new kitchen, shape sorting and lots of lovely dancing at circle time make for busy babies at the Riverside nursery.

Our older babies have enjoyed decorating themselves with rice krispies, cornflakes and flour in sensory play. Followed by free hand painting, gluing and sticking different textures. They have also been creative, building houses for our small world people. As the weather has been warmer, we have also had some fun outdoor water play.

The babies have also been learning to care for the baby dolls in our home corner, which as you can imagine, is very sweet to see!

Colouring in Easter eggs

Here are some of the activities our children have enjoyed this month.

Pre-schoolers enjoy Silly Science and sirens!

In Silly Science our intrepid pre-schoolers learnt to challenge their understanding through our experiments asking will it float, or will it sink? The children also made super yummy carrot cakes for their families. We also received a visit from a real-life policeman! The children asked lots of clever questions about his police car and siren.

Stop, police! Jemma in handcuffs!

Inspecting the police car

In literacy, the children have been learning about different shapes and exploring the letter ‘H’ and words beginning with ‘H’. Happy days!

Toddlers get messy and learn about shapes

Our toddlers have been getting stuck in to some messy shaving foam painting. The results were quite extraordinary! Their cookery skills have been tested as our budding little master chefs cooked up vegetable kebabs for everyone to enjoy for tea. The shape and colour exploration games have also been a real hit, along with playing with the animals in our Sensory jungle. The children topped this off by dancing and singing to their hearts’ content.

The children drawing outside

Babies get creative and feed the ducks

The younger babies have been exploring different animals and their habitats through sensory play. To support their fine motor skills, we have been hand painting, ice painting, sticking and gluing. Playing with soft blocks, building them and knocking them over, has increased the babies’ awareness of objects and the possible outcomes of their actions, as well as leading to lots of giggles!

Playing with moon sand has been fun and educational for our older babies, as they make and learn about shapes. We also went for a walk to feed the ducks in the park and enjoyed the onset of spring sunshine. Painting using our fingers, mixing colours and playing with the baby dolls have all featured in our activities, as well as circle time with flash cards to further support the babies’ learning.

Our hand painting