Puddleducks Nursery

Parenting is the subject of strong opinion, at the heart of it all is that there isn’t a one size fits all approach. Over time researchers have identified several parenting styles, hands off, gentle, stern, each with its own philosophy and potential impact on children’s development. We all want to ‘get it right’ don’t we? The slides show the differences between each. Which style are you?

What a busy Tuesday we had! 🥞🐴🧧🥠🧑‍🍳🇬🇧🥢♥️ It’s easy to incorporate real life experiences into our play, here are two examples of some activities we were partaking in on Pancake Day and Chinese New Year! We made our own pancakes to eat, as well as, exploring tuff trays inspired by the day! We tasted noodles and other traditional chinese food and explored the texture of the noodles, attempted to use chop sticks and spoke about the meaning of the Year of The Horse! What a fun time ♥️

PARENTS EVENING NOVEMBER 2025
🤍 Raising money for Bee Connor 🤍

Bee has stage 4 triple-negative breast cancer that has recently spread further to her brain and spine.
Bee has 3 gorgeous girls, all of which have started their education here at Puddleducks.
They are 6, 4 and 3 years old and they have been by her side throughout this journey.
Last year NICE declined funding of Enturtu -a life extending drug used for secondary breast cancer in England, and to self-fund they need to raise £120,000!
This drug could mean Bee and her children have more time to spend together.

Press the link below to donate

https://www.gofundme.com/f/get-bee-enhurtu-and-give-her-more-time-with-her-girls

Thank you to Filly Fizz for providing the drinks and to our team for doing what you do best!

See you next time,
The Puddleducks Team

🍂🧺 Our new Pumpkin Patch Mud Kitchen 🎃🌾Super easy to replicate and creates so many learning opportunities with a fun pop of Autumn.

Today one of the girls from our team set up this lovely autumn tuff tray! It opened up a vast amount of learning opportunities for the children and is easy to recreate. Swipe to see how to do this yourself and what the learning impacts can be! 🎃🍂🪾

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 🧛🏽‍♀️🎃🕷️
swipe through or see below some activity ideas for practitioners and for at home for those who celebrate the spookiest month of the year

Sensory and Science
PUMPKIN INVESTIGATION
🎃exploring inside the pumpkin, scooping out the seeds, feeling the different textures
🎃counting the seeds
🎃testing the seeds to see if they float or sink
POTION LAB
🧪gather jars and fill with various things, such as; baking soda, vinegar, food colouring, glitter and natural items (leaves and herbs) mix and observe the fizzing or colour changing reactions
SHADOW AND LIGHT PLAY
🔦using torches and halloween cut outs (bats, ghosts, pumpkins, witches and
cats, etc) create shadows behind the cut outs onto a wall

Fine Motor and Problem Solving
SPIDER WEB SEARCH
🕸️Use twine, tape or string to stretch across the tuff tray lor tub if you're at home), in a spider web design
🕸️hide spooky and autumnal objects underneath the web shape
🕸️using large tweezers, the children will pick out the objects
PUMPKIN HAMMERING
🎃stick long 'hammerable items into the top of a pumpkin
🎃children can use sticks or wooden spoons / poles to hammer and bang the objects down into the pumpkin

Nature and Creativity
NATURE WANDS
🪄children go on a nature walk and collect as many sticks and autumnal items they can find
🪄then using the sticks and the items, they create their own 'magic wand'
LEAF GHOSTS
👻children go on a leaf hunt, finding the biggest and most ghost like shaped leaves
👻when you're home, together paint the leaves white and add spooky ghost faces

Imaginative Play
SPOOKY STORY BASKET / SPOONS
📖using props or painted wooden spoons to act out some spooky favourites or use the props and spoons to read along with the story
DRESSING UP
🧝🏽‍♀️the halloween classic - fancy dress! universally fun and can pretend to be whatever you like, spooky or not

And just like that they’ve all left for BIG school! Class of 2025 we will miss you all. Wishing you so much luck on the next stage learning journey. ❤️🎉⭐️🎓