Educational Programme 2018

What We’ve Been Up To!

Here are some of the activities our children have enjoyed in the past few weeks.

Pre-schoolers practise balancing and explore new letters and sounds

A wonderful time has been had by our creative pre-schoolers painting with rainbow sponges and crafting self-portraits. Our budding little chefs have really excelled themselves too producing garlic bread and carrot cake, practically a three-course meal! In Jolly Phonics the children have been practising sounds, including ‘Nn’, ‘Pp’ and ‘Hh’. The children also brought in objects from home that represent these sounds for our interactive ‘show and tell’ session. In Silly science we’ve been blowing up balloons, exploring how a rain gauge works and looking at lung capacity. Finally, for Physical Fun lots of energy has been put into playing the parachute game, running races, and a special Halloween themed Spider Web balance game.

Toddlers enjoy noisy play and making Remembrance Day poppies

This month we have been encouraging talking by playing with the nursery Jack in the Box and indulging in noisy play to really let rip with sound! We’ve also focused on finger and thumb movements, practising picking up smaller objects with tweezers to help develop hand eye coordination.The toddlers controlled and moved their bodies with pass the ball, the ‘freeze’ on the spot game and intricate ribbon dancing to music. Art has been especially fascinating including nature painting, texture rubbing and making pretty red poppies and candles to mark Remembrance Day.

Babies explore colours and sharing stories

Our babies have loved our Super Sensory activities by rummaging through colour baskets and treasure baskets, which included lots of eye-catching glittery objects. Encouraging babbling has been key with the ‘make a story’ activity, singing and rhymes. As always, the children have loved sharing books and stories as a group.
Finally, we engaged our ‘messy fingers’ by making coloured ice cubes, sticking collages, and enjoying rainbow bubble play!

Theo learning about lung capacity

One of our Remembrance Day poppies

Remembrance Day candle

Some glittering autumn leaves

A dazzling firework painting

We were busy bees in September. Here are some of the activities the children enjoyed.

Pre-schoolers Practise Phonics and Silly Science

September saw a real spurt of creativity from our eager pre-schoolers! They started in style by painting colourful self-portraits (bet you can’t guess who is who!). Next, they made decorated artwork with conkers and pine cones. And we’re certain that Paul Hollywood would be super proud of our little chefs; they’ve cooked up a storm these past few weeks, including chocolate chip cookies, Greek vegetarian kebabs and gorgeous cupcakes – yum, yum!

Our pre-schoolers progress with our Jolly Phonics programme continues to impress us. The children have been practising the sounds ‘Ff’, ‘Aa’ and ‘Tt’. We also encouraged them to bring in objects from home that represent these sounds for a group ‘show and tell’ session, everyone contributed, and we shared some brilliant words. In Silly Science we have been getting fizzy with explosion coke and Mentos! The children have also experimented with mixing oil with water and talked about their observations of some groovy lava lamps. In physical fun we have explored dance and general movement with energy and agility!

Acorn Art!

Colourful Rainbows!

Toddlers Learn About the Word ‘Go!’

Believe it or not, at times we do need to encourage talking with our toddlers! The feature word in September was ‘Go!’. To help with this we encouraged the children to talk about parties, in particular, fun birthday parties they have shared or attended. Next, we practised tricky finger and thumb movements through clothes peg sorting, lego matching and posting objects into a special pot.

Our toddlers also got lively moving about with hoop painting, several rounds of the bean bag game and our old-school favourite, hop scotch! Art cleverly linked to music and the children created their own musical instruments. A very quiet time indeed!

Babies Explore Touch and Slime!

Our babies enjoyed a raft of super sensory activities last month, including a touchy-feely wood basket, a ‘sense of smell’ basket (lots of sweet and strange scents in there!), and a ‘will it float?’ basket. We used peek-a-boo to encourage babbling and to teach the importance of sharing by practising taking turns. Art introduced edible finger painting, texture painting, and best of all, delicious edible slime!

Here are some of the projects the children have been enjoying over the last few weeks.

Pre-schoolers whizz up treats and practise phonics

This has been a super creative time for our biggest-littlest folks, starting off with musical instrument making. A very noisy and rewarding time was had by all! Next the pre-schoolers spoilt their families when they donned their chef hats to make yummy lemon biscuits, spinach and cheese muffins and even hot cross buns.

To prepare for school we have been working with the children on their Jolly Phonics, practising sounds, including ‘Ee’, ‘Mm’, ‘Dd’ and ‘Gg’. To support this the children brought in objects from home representing these sounds for Show and Tell. For breadth Silly Science involved making cup telephones and exploring things that float. Despite the heat we’ve managed some gentle physical fun too, a favourite was the Helicopter High Fives game. Ask your little one to show you how it goes!

Our Pre-schoolers’ Beach themed Summer Display – Check out those colourful crabs!

Home Corner received a make over – including a lovely countryside view.

Toddlers get to grips with gripping

We’ve been encouraging the toddlers talking with interactive games such as Jack in the Box and practising taking in turns to promote healthy sharing and kindness to others. We’ve also been ensuring dexterous fingers and thumbs by working hard at picking up objects, such as beads and spaghetti, as well as using clothes pegs to grip small items.

For coordination and exercise, the toddlers have had great fun playing passing the ball, walking the line and ribbon dancing. We’ve also explored the world through art with nature painting, muddy puddle painting (when muddy puddles appear!) and spray painting.

Our toddlers’ colourful artwork

More artwork

Even more artwork! (We told you the toddlers have been super creative!)

Babies explore the super sensory world

The babies love to explore and what better way than through some super sensory activities. Each week we’ve been filling baskets with tactile objects to help the babies explore a wide range of materials, including light, heavy, magnetic and touchy-feely items. We’ve also encouraged happy babbling and interaction through games such as peek-a-boo and practising taking turns.

Excitingly the babies took their first writing steps by making marks on paper. They’ve also been getting arty with balloon and water painting. The babies have also enjoyed some very gooey business – making edible slime and cloud dough! Their favourite activity though is being out and about in nature, and we’ve taken several trips to Alexandra Gardens to explore, play and feed the ducks.

Some of the babies’ artwork

The babies’ sparkly stars display