Moving Munchkins

Last week in Daisies, the children have been very creative.

Daisies have been busy doing some bubble wrap painting, where the babies painted the bubble wrap and then printed it onto some card. The babies enjoyed making marks with their fingers, and some preferred to use a paint brush, to save their hands getting messy!

Daisies have also made some lovely new sensory bottles! This is something that the children enjoyed helping with, picking up the sequins and putting them into the bottles. They loved the bottles when they were finished, shaking them and watching the sequins float around in the water. This is something you can easily do at home, using empty plastic bottles and filling them with all sorts of things, such as pasta, oats, glitter or water and food colouring. The babies will often spend lots of time playing with the bottles, so it is something that will keep them occupied!

The children have also been very vocal in Daisies! There have been lots of 'mama' and 'dada' and also some single words- 'baby' and 'ball'. It is so lovely when the babies start communicating with us! It is important to communicate with the children, making sure to repeat any sounds they make, having little conversations.

Hope you had a great weekend!

We hope you all enjoyed the little bit of snow, Dragonflies did! They ran straight out into the snow. The children loved the way it felt on their wellies and in their hands! There were lots of single words from the children such as "cold" or "snow". They didn't last much longer than 15 minutes as it was so cold but had great fun in that time!

Last week Dragonflies celebrated Chinese New Year where the children got creative, making beautiful dragons by colouring them in. These are hung up in the Dragonfly room.

Yet again Dragonflies had lots of creative messy play. The children showed good control when they used the cars in the paint to mark make. They pushed them back and forth to make different marks. You can do this at home with any everyday objects.

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend!

Incy Wincy Spiders had a great week last week!

The children have been very active, developing their physical development by crawling through tunnels. They even had a go at catching or push ball through too! Doing physical activities together support the children in developing their relationships with their peers. This is supporting by doing things such as passing ball, or smiling at each other.

Wincys have had a go at some puffy painting. The children mixed some paint in with shaving foam. There were a lot of comments such as ‘mix’, ‘mixing’, ‘more’, ‘foam’ and even a ‘shake’ the bottle. Incy Wincys enjoyed mixing colours together, using and dipping brush. They all enjoyed squeezing the foamy paint in their hands. The children explored the texture of the foamy paint. Incy Wincy were offered a variety of different colours to paint and experiment with, allowing them to practise their colour recognition.

At the end of the week, the children loved running outside in the rainy garden and splashing puddles. It was a bit windy and some children were asking "what's that?" Some of our Incy Wincys were lifting their hands in the air, feeling the wind blowing through their fingers!

Hope you had a lovely weekend.

Last week Busy Bees was all about exploring - from exploring creatively to exploring the ways in which our bodies could move.

The children also got the chance to explore a different kind of weather recently when snow came. This was not only beautiful to see but the children also got the chance to learn about why the snow was falling and where it comes from. You can do this at home to by simply observing the weather, where does the rain come from? Why do we hear thunder?

The children had a great time exploring how their bodies could move when doing baby yoga and taking part in leap. At home you could consider activities such as obstacle courses or a trip to the park to discuss how to move in a variety of ways.

Finally the children did a bit of creative exploration. This was done through painting experiences. This included some exciting blow painting. With some straws, water paint and instruction from Paul the children learned to move their mouths in such a way to blow the paint around the paper developing the muscles that encourage early language. You can do this at home simply with some straws and watered down paint.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Ladybirds have had a very energetic week last week.

The children have been practising baby yoga doing their best moves. They were all very good! Ladybirds also did a bit of leap where the children practised different moves. They did crawling, hopping on one leg and even practised squats. This kept the grown-ups on their toes too!

Ladybirds have also been getting very creative. The children did some bubble painting where they blew through some straws to make marks! This is linked to early language development, and is something you could do at home too further developing this. The children got even more creative and messy and had a go at some marble painting. They enjoyed moving the marbles around in a tray to make lots of marks, going both slow and gentle and shaking the marbles around quickly! The results were very pretty.

Hope you had a fabulous weekend.