Small Explorers

Bbbrrrrrrrr 🥶 it was a cold one this morning so we went to Little Bears toddler group before making some snowflake pictures and having fun in the ball pool.

The children made their snowflakes by using masking tape to make the pattern then painting over it. They lived peeling it off and seeing what they had made.
We talked about the frost outside and how cold it was as we worked.

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LET THEM NAP! ❄️💤

Here are 5 benefits for letting babies and toddlers nap in the cold fresh air!

1. Better sleep: the cold air helps babies and toddlers sleep better, deeper and longer. It also helps them fall asleep easier even once they are older.

2. Less illness: children who sleep outdoors spend less time in dry, recycled air which can allow the flu, virus and common colds to easily spread among the children.

3. Improved learning: children ho sleep better are more rested and they can benefit from improved alertness and better cognitive performance.

4. Calmer babies: by spending more time in nature, looking at the beauty and smelling the fresh air, children who sleep outdoors benefit from nature’s calming effect.

5. Healthy habits: by spending a lot of time outdoors from a young age, children can internalise these habits early on in their lives which can help them become healthier adults.

“The health benefits of children just being outdoors and physically active is enormous and there is no evidence that any harm occurs provided babies are well-wrapped and not cold. It’s about having a common-sense approach.”

(Dr Rahul Chodhari of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health)

Today we made ramps and added 'ski's' to the little people and the children had great fun making them ski down the ramps!
We talked about how we can use ski's in the snow and ice to get around or we can race down hills.

We also had our snowman pictures out for the children to be creative. We looked at big and small.. compared shapes and counted as we created our snowmen.

More cold play as we explored frozen orbeeze in the arctic tray. The children enjoyed breaking up the ice and feeling the orbeeze as they melted.
We used safety knives to cut and chip the ice.

A very cold morning! We had fun exploring outside. We went for a walk to see what happens to the environment when it's so cold! 🥶
The boys had lots of fun looking closely at the frost and ice. We found some frozen puddles and we were discovering all about slippery ice.
They tried breaking it up by stamping and using sticks etc.

We practiced our gross motor skills, lots of climbing and balancing on the small walls around our walk.

We also found frozen worms which one of the children lovingly warmed up and put in a new home (although it was way past saving!)

Today we enjoyed some art. Decorating hats and mittens as we talked about the cold and how we can keep warm.
There were some excellent creations as we practiced pencil skills, colouring, peeling stickers and using glue to add sequins and other items.

A simple but engaging tray with some winter snow and dinner artic animals.

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The children had a fantastic morning exploring rice and herbs in the tuff spot. They all enjoyed scoping, filling and tipping/pouring. We enjoyed smelling the lovely herbs 😍

Lots of fun 'dressing' or 'making' a snowman on sticky back plastic. Not only did they have fun putting the cotton wool on but just add much fun taking it off again! And repeat 🤣

We froze some small world people in I've cubes so they could go ice skating on our ice rink!
This developed into talking about the ice melting and changing into water. Then we used the pipettes to fill the snowmen.

Yesterday we had a snow plough tray. Lots of fun trying to scoop up the 'snow' and tip it into the lorry. Practicing coordination skills and building muscle control.

Today we had a porridge tray. Lots of fun counting, measuring, scooping, pouring and mixing.
We looked at the effect adding the milk had on the porridge oats. Some of the children joined in discussing the story Goldilocks as we compared the size of everyone's portion and talked about hot food etc.

Colour changing snow/ice cotton pads.

The children love using pipettes to suck up water then notice the effects as we squeeze the water out onto the pads.
We stayed with blue but then we added other colours to see what happened when we missed the colours on the pads.
The children then used the pipettes to suck up loose water and refill their pots, noticing the glitter as it reflected the light
Once they had soaked all the pads some of the children noticed they could squeeze water out of them and stayed to fill his pot by squeezing the pads, this developed into putting the pads into the pots and we talked about cause and effect as they pushed down the water would squeeze out then when they let go the pads would absorb the water.

Lots of muscles being used... Lots of talk about colours and actions... Lots of fun.

A cozy winter zone for January.

This month we will be exploring winter, looking at all things cold, how we keep warm and what happens when cold things warm up 🥶

We're ready for 2023.

We've been quiet on here but only because we've been so busy the last few weeks...
I won't post any pictures of the gifts the children have made yet but here's a glimpse of some Christmas fun we have had.

Children in need tea party with cake decorating, tea, orange and lemon slices for the tea too 😍😍

Today's nursery rhyme is BINGO.
Here is the link
https://youtu.be/0IvC6fZYGMM

After toddler group we had lots of fun with a messy farm tray, real soil and a small world farm. We also had letters and practiced some phonics, finding the letter for our name and singing dinner phonics songs as well as BINGO... Counting the claps each round.

Forgot to take the after pictures!!

World Nursery Rhyme week

Today's nursery rhyme was 1,2,3,4,5 Once I Caught A Fish Alive it can be watched here:
https://youtu.be/9ir_l7qTiZ4

Today we had a little pond tray with fish and numbers so we could catch our fish and look at numerals. The children aged lots of other animals and we also ended up with bubbles!

This afternoon we had a fish tank with little fish we had to try and catch with tweezers. Then we counted how many fish we had caught!

World nursery rhyme week

Today is The Big Ship Sailed on the Ali Ali oh.
Here is the song we have sung and watched today.
https://youtu.be/NekVJgnDzfk

And our trays we explored, lots of small world play opening up conversation and developing ideas. Sensory fun with orbeeze and lose parts.

We finished our rememberance week by visiting a local church. They had some little games and activities for the children to do and then we observed the silence.

The Baby's Day's app for Android is currently not working. It will hopefully be fixed soon please bear with me.

We had red play dough poppies today.... I got carried away and didn't take many photos!
Then we had mandala pieces to make poppies and patterns.

Today we all worked together to make a large poppy to display. We coloured and glued lots of red items to cover the poppy. We remembered the reason we were decorating the poppy and we were looking at the colour red but talking about the different properties of the materials.
We also had fun peeling the glue off our hands after!
The children are proud of their poppy hanging on the wall.

With all the rain we went puddle jumping again!

This afternoon we had a red rice poppy tray. The children always enjoy rice and will scoop, pour, fill and empty for hours... They added dggers, spoons, cups and bowls!

Our poppy fields from yesterday.

We started a week of remembrance activities.
We watched the cbeebies shorts about remembrance Day which allowed for some simple conversations around remembrance and why we use poppies.

Then we had a tray full of cereal and some sand. We built some battlements and added solders and poppies to play.
The children enjoyed lots of sensory play as they scraped, crushed and tasted the cereals. We had imaginative play as we rescued the soldiers from the island and we had problem solving as we built and balanced with the wooden platforms.

This afternoon we talked about our theme again before looking at pictures of poppy fields before painting our own and then having free painting.

How much fun can we have with a box of sparkling bits!

Lots!

Scooping, tipping, counting, comparing... We recognised shapes and items. We used them to create pictures and make up stores.
We learnt our colours and talked about size...

We also made some fireworks pictures with paint and marbles!
Learning about cause and effect, patterns, shapes and more colours.

A wet and windy day! We took the opportunity to play in the rain, lots of puddle jumping, splashing and fun.

We were looking at fireworks today, we watched a short cbeebies clip showing what fireworks night is and how to keep safe. We watched the fireworks and listened to the different sounds.
Whilst making our own fireworks pictures with chalk and black paper, we made the different sounds...pop, bang whizz, crackle... 🎆🎇🔥

We used sensory bottles looking at sparkles and colour.

Welcome back.. Happy Halloween 🎃👻

We enjoyed some Halloween chalking at the park this morning followed by arts and crafts, Lego building, music and games including pin the spider on the web...🕷️🕸️
Stay safe and have fun tonight 🍬🍬

This afternoon we explored the light boxes, using leafs we looked at the colours and shapes.
We learnt how to change the colours using the colour paddles and noticing the effects.
We used our maths skills to compare size and shape, counting the points etc.

But the most fun was when we took turns to change the lights and make them flash!

This morning we were busy looking at autumn colours with spaghetti!
Lots of cutting using scissors and knives and forks. Building co-ordination and fine motor skills.
Lots of sensory fun as we felt the cold slimy spaghetti and we talked about the different colours we found.
The children were trying to thread the spaghetti through the colander.

Pumpkins, golf tees and hammers.... If we go!

Developing hand eye coordination, fine motor skills and gross motor skills, using tools and building essential muscles in their hands required for writing skills at school.
Also most importantly.... Fun!

Autumn bug hunting tray. Lots of fun hiding the bugs in the leaves and sticks. We explored different textures, looked at colours, talked about bugs and insects.. Where do they live, what do they eat?
We caught bugs and looked closely at them with the magnifying glasses.
We also looked at size and shape.

We collected more leaves, acorns, sticks and conkers and the children washed them, counted them, looked at size and shape, talked about colours before making their own Autumn shaker bottles.

A little snapshot of our day... A lovely walk to toddler group, puddle jumping, leaf kicking, finding lorries, cars and cranes..
Then lots of fun exploring at toddler group.

This afternoon we were looking at patterns and shapes as we done some leaf rubbing. We also had the pattern squares to rub.

Autumn leaves. Looking at colours, shapes and patterns.
Building muscles in our hands with the scissors and hole punchers.
Developing co-ordination and essential skills for writing.

Gelli Baff Autumn tray.
Sensory fun for all ages. We were squishing and squeezing the gelli baff, scooping and pouring.. Talking about full and empty, texture and colour. We had leaves and conkers, looking at shape colour, pattern and counting.
Lots of finger workouts going on today.
Please be reminded that conkers are poisonous and require extra supervision.

Turned into a sunny day after all the rain so we made it to the park to practice lots of physical skills.
Then a walk around the pond and some outdoor jumping before lunch

This afternoon we used our leaves that we had collected to make sun catchers.
We looked at the colours and talked about what we were doing, sticking, pushing, colouring etc.
We looked at the circle shape as we decorated.
They were very happy when we hung them in the window and we could see the light shining through.

A lovely morning at the park enjoying the autumn sunshine then back to explore our autumn play dough table.
We made lots of different autumnal animals using the beans, lentils, pasta, pine cones, sticks and leaves.
Lots of muscle development for the little hands and fingers, developing fine motor skills and co-ordination.
We were talking about actions, and creations as we played.

The weather was fabulous so we went for a walk to explore nature.
We found a digger and a dumper which the children were so excited by we could have stood there all morning!
We found lots of colourful leaves and flowers. We felt the grass, moss and the tree bark
We blew dandelion clocks and collected lots of pine cones, conkers, leaves and sticks 😍