Holding Hands Preschool

😁🌤️🌸 Fun in the garden with our little learners 😁🌤️🌸

They have been using their feet to kick the ball and watching closely to see where it went so they could chase after it. The children definitely enjoyed practicing their football skills ready for the upcoming World Cup football matches ⚽️

Some of our friends explored the scooters and did very well balancing on them and trying to push themselves along 🛴 It was lovely seeing our new walkers looking around the garden and using our outside walker truck and push along cars to help them further explore the area 🏡🌳

The water tray was a favourite with our friends. They enjoyed the smell of the minty water as we had put fresh mint leaves from our allotment into the tray 🍃 The children loved filling and emptying the pots, pans and containers, pouring them down the guttering from one tray to another 🪣💧

😎☀️ Feeling hot hot hot 😎☀️

As the weather has been hot this week the children have been making the most out of our indoor spaces and trying to keep cool. Both the butterfly 🦋 and caterpillar 🐛 room have had lots of activities available for the children to enjoy and get involved with, we have had so much fun !!!

In the butterfly room 🦋 the children had fun engaging with the duplo car wash. They enjoyed squirting the cars with raspberry shampoo and giving the cars a scrub with the paint brushes and tooth brushes. Then we used lovely cold water to wash off all the bubbles 🫧 to reveal the shiny, clean cars underneath ✨

Some of the children then discussed how they go to the car wash with their parents and watch the big brushes spinning around to clean their cars 🚗🪣🧽 It was lovely hearing the children sharing their real life experiences alongside their play 😁

Both the butterfly 🦋 and caterpillar 🐛 room also loved exploring the paints and using the play dough cutters, duplo bricks and paint brushes to create shapes, patterns and marks 🎨 🖌️

In the caterpillar 🐛 room the children enjoyed experiencing the texture of the paint and experimenting with how to hold the paintbrush & playdough cutters, practicing their palmer grip. They used their hands as well as the paintbrushes to move the paint around and felt it slipping on top of the tinfoil.

This open ended activity was designed for the children to explore and experience the transformative effect of their movements on the paint and tools to make marks and patterns.

To all those wonderful daddy's, uncles, grandads, family friends and more 🫂

We are so lucky to have you as our role models and forever friends in our lives ☺️

Hope you all have a special day today but remember we love you always anyway 💜💛

☀️ Come and join us at summer club 2026 !!! ☀️ 3rd August - 21st August ☀️

Where everyday is an adventure and the fun never stops. Summer club is an opportunity to explore and grow within a lower pressure environment which helps accelerate early childhood development 🌻

Summer club encourages the promotion of social interactions, building self esteem and prevents learning regression over the long summer break 😁

Joining summer club can be a great opportunity for our friends to prepare for the transition into a new school year or for a jump into a new beginning at school in September. It helps to keep a school like routine and allows their confidence to grow 🏫🌱

Spaces available now for 2 - 7 year olds. Contact us now as spaces are limited 📞💻📱

Our friends in the caterpillar room had fun exploring the multi - sensory experience of paint. The grown ups dropped blobs of paint onto the paper and let the children choose how they wished to explore and feel the paint 🐛 🎨

Some children loved feeling it and moving it around with their hands while others chose to use their feet. The children then had a go at strengthening their palmer grasp and fine motor skills by holding the paint brushes and moving the paint around the paper 🎨✋👣

This activity was also a lovely introduction to our colours and began to show the children that we can mix colours together to make new ones 🟥🟧🟨🟩🟦🟪

Activities with open ended opportunities give the children the freedom to explore and uncover new experiences ! ✨

"Marshmallows for Martians"

Wow! What an amazing tray based off of one of the children's favourite books, Marshmallows for Martians.

The children enjoyed squirting shaving cream into ice cube moulds and putting them in the freezer to help create the effect of marshmallows.

Once outside we popped the 'marshmallows' out of the ice cube trays and the children loved holding and squeezing them, they then watched as the frozen chunks melted back into soft shaving cream.

We also had lots of resources in the tray for the children to create their own Martians and Characters with. The children had fun using the shaving cream as glue to stick their creations together.

This tough tray heavily focused on the transformative effect on their materials and what they can create.

The benefit of the children engaging in cause and affect activities encourages the individual to understand that they can be active participants in the world and not just passive observers.
Understanding that their actions can cause a reaction is what motivates children to move, vocalise and interact with the world around them.

Farmyard Fun for everyone !!!

The children had so much fun with our sensory farm yard. We created a farmyard with mud made from ready brek porridge and chocolate powder and straw/hay made from weetabix🐄🐎🐖🐑🐓

The children helped us to collect grass and flowers to feed the animals with. It was wonderful seeing the children's imaginations flowing when creating different scenarios with their animals and making all the different animal sounds to match them. 🐮🐷🐔🦆

A few of the children began to sing "Old Macdonald had a farm" while playing with their friends. It was lovely to hear them singing together and holding up the animals that they wanted to be on their farm as they sang.

This tough tray was so much fun and created many learning opportunities for our little friends such as;

- Helping expand their cognitive development by sparking critical thinking and understanding of spatial awareness. We did this by allowing the children to arrange miniature fences, barns and animal habitats and by discussing how to keep the animals safe in their enclosures.

- Growing our social and emotional understanding by creating a space for the children to pretend to care for the animals and work on a farm, allows for empathy and nurturing behaviours to flourish. It also brings a sense of responsibility over the animals and when playing with others, allows for sharing, taking turns and negotiating storylines to take place.

"Don't stop Digging !"
This week the children showed a large interest in the Danny Go song "Don't stop digging" and enjoyed singing it while in the sandpit area.
We took inspiration from their interest and created a construction, digging tough tray and the children absolutely loved it.
Our children loved pretending to be construction workers and using all the different trucks, lorries and equipment to dig through the dirt and mud🚛🚜
To make it a bit more exciting we created the mud and dirt by mixing tea and coffee into the sand to create not only a wonderful smell, but a perfect environment to dig in and drive their vehicles through. 🪏🚧🚦
It was amazing to see the children's imagination come to life and for some of the children to bring in their own experiences into the play. 🚜🚛
Such as, children witnessing the HS2 developments and the large trucks and plant vehicles driving around our local area.
Some children also discussed different jobs their family members do within the area of construction, helping to deepen their peers knowledge of occupations around us. 🪏🚧🚦

The children had so much fun creating their own jellyfish while practicing their numbers and colours and also strengthening their fine motor skills.
It was amazing to see the children choosing their own coloured beads and threading them through the pipe cleaner legs and counting them as they went.
Maths is often seen as just memorising numbers in a pattern but in early years it is far more than that.
Maths in early years is part of our play and fun activities, from touching, moving, sorting and counting objects - through to filling and emptying jugs and cups, to even singing songs including shapes and numbers.
Maths is everywhere in early years and its so exciting to see the children learning everyday.