Babies and Toddlers Learn About Themselves and The Gruffalo

The Nursery’s littles ones have been exploring the theme ‘myself’, as well as learning about that big hairy beast, The Gruffalo.

One important topic for all babies and toddlers to get to grips with is themselves. Our ‘Myself’ theme encourages little ones to learn about themselves, each other and what makes us each special and unique.

In Art, the babies and toddlers have made ‘my mirror’ and enjoyed lots of free art using their fingers and toes. They’ve also had fun making mouse headbands and their very own Gruffalos (some of which look very fierce!). Well done children!

Our littlest ones have also been cooking up a storm – so far, they’ve made apple crumble, scones, multicultural people biscuits and cheese straws. Nom nom!

To help the little ones explore different textures and materials, we’ve put out several sensory play stations in the baby and toddler room. Along with lots of sand and water play filled with different water toys, stations were filled with rice and lentils, shaving foam with paint and pasta shapes.

In preparation for developing reading and writing skills, we’ve been practising our phonics and learning the names of different key body parts. Come on altogether now, ‘Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes…’

We’ll update you with more baby and toddler news here soon!

One of our beautiful mirrors

One of our beautiful mirrors

One of our mouse head bands - so we can chase the Gruffalo!

A mouse head band – perfect for chasing the Gruffalo!

Some of our free art painting

Some of our free art painting

Babies and Toddlers get to know the Gruffalo!

The Babies and Toddlers enjoy The Gruffalo.

‘A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood…’

During the last few weeks, our youngest children have been learning all about The Gruffalo, the classic story by Julia Donaldson. The tale follows a mouse searching for hazelnuts and his hairy encounters with a cunning fox, an eccentric owl and slippery snake.

The question is will the Gruffalo save the mouse from becoming their dinner…after all there’s no such thing as Gruffalo!

As well as being read the story, our babies and toddlers have enjoyed lots of Gruffalo-themed fun, including painting Gruffalo faces on paper plates, making mouse headbands – so they could act out the story – and creating puppets of all the main characters.

They’ve also whipped up some tasty Gruffalo culinary delights such as, Gruffalo pizza faces – with scary olives for eyes – Gruffalo crumble and owl-shaped sandwiches. Yum, yum!

Squeak, squeak! Our mouse headbands

Squeak, squeak! Our mouse headbands