Meadow Day Nursery

🐞 Ladybird Marvellous Mathematicians! 🔢

After discovering a real ladybird outside, our Toddler 3 children took their curiosity back indoors and extended their learning through some ladybird maths! 🐞🌿

The children explored numbers 0–5, matching the numbered cards to the correct ladybirds by carefully counting the spots. Through hands-on play, they practised one-to-one counting, number recognition, matching and comparing quantities. 🔢👏

There was lots of mathematical language along the way, including “more,” “less,” “how many?” and “same,” encouraging our children to become confident communicators as they shared what they noticed. 💬

We love following the children’s interests and turning those spontaneous discoveries into meaningful learning opportunities — our little ladybird certainly inspired some Marvellous Mathematicians today! 🐞✨

🐝✂️ World Honey Bee Day – Cutting, Gluing & Sticking ✂️🐝

Our Toddler 3 children continued their World Honey Bee Day exploration with a fantastic cutting, gluing and sticking activity! The children carefully cut around honeybees and flowers before choosing, arranging and sticking their pictures to create their own individual collages. 🌼💛

As Logical Learners, the children problem-solved where to position their different pieces and made their own creative choices. Our Motivated Movers developed fine motor strength, hand-eye coordination and control as they carefully manipulated scissors, glue and paper. ✂️🙌

Our Confident Communicators chatted about their creations, shared ideas with friends and practitioners and continued developing new vocabulary including honeybee, wings, antennae, flowers, pollen and nectar. 🗣️🐝

A creative experience bringing together early scissor skills, communication, decision-making and an understanding of the natural world. 🌍🌸

🐝💛 World Honey Bee Day – Playdough Exploration 💛🐝

Our Toddler 3 children continued their World Honey Bee Day learning with a wonderful hands-on playdough experience! Using yellow and black playdough alongside real flowers and natural materials, the children created their very own honey bees, carefully thinking about their shapes, stripes and different body parts. 🌼🐝

As Logical Learners, the children problem-solved how different shapes and pieces could be combined to represent a bee. Our Motivated Movers rolled, squeezed, pinched and shaped the dough, strengthening those all-important fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. 🙌

The children were also fantastic Confident Communicators, sharing their ideas and using new vocabulary such as honeybee, wings, antennae, stripes, pollen, nectar and flower as they created and explored together. 🗣️🌸

Learning through doing, creating and discovering! 🐝🍯

🐝🌼 World Honey Bee Day - Magnifying Glasses 🌼🐝

Our Toddler 3 children have been buzzing with curiosity as they explored the wonderful world of honey bees! Using magnifying glasses, bee models, photographs and books, the children looked closely at the different features of bees and discovered more about these important little pollinators. 🔍🐝

Through hands-on investigation, the children became Logical Learners, noticing similarities and differences and making connections with the natural world. They developed as Confident Communicators, using new vocabulary including honeybee, bumblebee, wings, antennae, pollen, nectar and hive, while our Independent Individuals confidently made choices, shared their discoveries and led their own exploration. 🌸🍯

A fantastic opportunity to encourage curiosity, questioning and a love of learning while discovering why our bees are so important! 💛🐝

☀️💦 Cooling Cucumber Spa Day! 💦☀️

With the warm weather continuing this week, our Preschool children enjoyed a refreshing cucumber-themed sensory experience! ✨

The children explored cool water, ice, cucumber slices and mint, using their whole body senses to investigate different textures, temperatures and smells. Of course, no spa day would be complete without cucumber slices for our eyes! 🧊🌿

A fun and calming way to cool down, explore our senses and enjoy hands-on learning together. 💚✨

😊💭 Self-Aware Superheroes 💭😊

Our Toddler 2 children have been exploring emotions, facial features and what makes us unique through a fun, hands-on activity. 🪞

Using mirrors, mark making and interchangeable facial features, the children created their own faces while recognising and talking about different emotions. This supported our Self-Aware Superheroes to begin understanding and expressing how they feel, while developing communication, creativity, fine motor skills and logical thinking. 🥰

💚 It’s okay to feel your feelings!

🐘🎨 World Elephant Day 🌍🐘

Our Preschool children have been celebrating World Elephant Day, inspired by the colourful story Elmer! 🌈📚

The children explored colour, pattern, shape and texture as they created their own elephant artwork using paint and collage materials. They also had lots of fun with bubble painting, blowing elephant trunk bubbles and watching the different patterns and marks appear – supporting creativity, breath control and fine motor development. 🫧🎨

Our elephant playdough habitat encouraged the children to investigate natural materials, explore different textures and use their imaginations to recreate an elephant habitat. Through conversations and play, the children developed new vocabulary and talked about elephants, where they live and the natural world. 🌿🐘

A wonderful hands-on experience developing our Confident Communicators, Independent Individuals, Motivated Movers and Logical Learners throughout their play and exploration. 💚

🧊 Cool Science 🧊

Our Toddler 3’s have been keeping cool in the warmer weather with a hands-on ice cube and white paint investigation! 😎

The children explored how the ice felt, watched it melt and change, and discovered what happened when it mixed with the paint. This encouraged our Logical Learners to investigate cause and effect, while developing curiosity about temperature and change.
As Confident Communicators, the children explored new vocabulary including cold, frozen, melting, slippery and wet, sharing what they could see and feel. 🌡️

Our Self-Aware Superheroes also became more aware of their bodies as they recognised and communicated how the cold ice felt against their hands.
A lovely sensory science experience filled with curiosity, communication and hands-on discovery! 🧊🔬🤍

🦁 World Lion Day 🦁

To celebrate World Lion Day, our Toddler 3’s explored lions through photographs, animal figures and creative painting. The children carefully observed the lions’ manes, faces, colours and features, using new vocabulary such as lion, lioness, cub, mane, roar, wild and habitat while talking about where lions live and how we can care for animals. 🦁🌍

Using paintbrushes and sponges, the children created their own lion faces, experimenting with colour, texture, marks and shapes while strengthening their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. They counted and positioned features such as two eyes, two ears and one nose, made choices about their creations, shared resources and proudly talked about their finished lions. 🎨🐾

Through this hands-on experience, the children developed their communication, creativity, mathematical thinking, physical skills, confidence, independence and understanding of the natural world, while learning about an amazing wild animal. 💛🌿

🎉🌟 HAPPY 15 YEAR ANNIVERSARY, HANNAH! 🌟🎉

Today we are celebrating an incredible milestone for our wonderful Hannah – 15 years at Meadow Nursery 💚

For 15 amazing years, Hannah has brought so much care, dedication and passion to Meadow Nursery, supporting countless children, families and colleagues along the way. 🌿✨

We are incredibly lucky to have Hannah as part of our Meadow family and want to say a huge thank you for everything she has given over the years. 💐

Please join us in congratulating Hannah on an amazing 15 years of service! Here is to many more happy memories at Meadow! 🥳🎈💚

Happy 15 Year Anniversary, Hannah! 🎉💐👏