Girton Village Day Nursery

Preschool Room - Week commencing 19th May 2025

It was World Bee Day on Tuesday so our lovely Becca brought in some of her bee keeping kit for the children to see, handle and try on. After lunch, we made bread rolls to eat with Becca's honey. We also made playdough bees which tested our rolling skills and hand-eye co-ordination. The tuff tray was bee themed and we filled honeycomb shapes with nectar collected from the flowers.

Following our interest in shops and ice cream vans, we turned the mud kitchen into an ice cream parlour. It was great fun crushing petals, scooping mud and decorating them with sticks and flowers. During sensory activities, we cut herbs to make potions and defrosted ice blocks to reveal the leaves and flowers inside them.

We had some rhubarb donated so the children decided they wanted to make a crumble. Cutting the rhubarb and crumbling the mixture with our fingers was an exciting task, but not as good as eating it!

During forest school, we hunted for numbered bees. Could we match them to their corresponding flower? This involved climbing trees, looking in plants and hunting through the grass. Your child may talk about it snowing because the white and pink blossom rained down on us when the wind blew.

Our ladybirds are now big and strong enough to move to the garden. We carefully moved them from their current habitat onto leaves and watched as they flew away.

The group learnt a lot of new words during Becca's session, such as smoker, hive, queen, pollen and honeycomb. They also looked at pictures of different types of bees found in the UK. Maybe you could share these pictures with your child and see what they can remember.

Preschool Room - Week commencing 5th May 2025

Our ladybird larvae have started to grow and are fascinating to watch as they move around their new habitat. Our interest in ladybirds has been reflected in many of our activities. In small group time, Red Group have been matching numeral and quantity using ladybird spots. We have also been drawing and painting ladybirds.

Gardening has been a strong focus this week. Many of the group have volunteered to water the vegetable patch and sunflower seedlings with either the hose of watering cans. Following our 'Jack and the Beanstalk' story, we had the opportunity to plant beans to create our own beanstalks. During a recent outing, we were approached by a neighbour and offered a variety of plants that they had grown from seed. We have been caring for these seedlings and in some cases planting them on into larger pots. To thank the kind lady, Red Group made and delivered a card.

During creative activities, we made puffy paint. Some of the group were able to activate the aerosol can independently whilst under close supervision. It took a lot of strength! You may see from the photos that we have loved messy play this week. Mark making and textural exploration were throughout investigated in the tuff tray.

At group time, some of the children have discussed their holidays and visits to the beach. Thank you to all of the Blue Group parents who have shared photographs of beach days to prompt this conversation with the youngest children. In the garden, we created our own beach in a tuff tray and hid shells in the sand.

Yellow Group have gained lots of confidence at the park. They can now use most of the equipment independently. We also enjoyed blowing bubbles and chasing them during an outing with Red Group.

If you have been successful with your planting at home, please send us some photos so we can talk about them with your children.

Preschool Room - Week commencing 28th April 2025

It's been a messy week in the preschool garden. We have been busy cutting herbs with scissors, pouring water and creating potions. We have also been exploring foam in the mud kitchen with whisks and other utensils.

During outings, we have collected grass and wild flowers for an art project. Some of the group had not experienced goosegrass before and it's sticky nature was fascinating. Back at nursery, it was interesting to see how different each child's frame was.

Our construction activities have including making walls and enclosures with bricks and play cement. How high can we get? Large scale construction has been popular in the garden as we create and recreate different obstacle courses with the large wooden blocks and planks then challenge ourselves to get from one end to the other.

The caterpillars and butterflies were very exciting but this week our new visitors have arrived. The ladybird larvae look very unusual and we are wondering why they are not red and spotty! We will continue to watch them as they enter their pupal stage and then emerge as beautiful ladybirds. The ladybirds have inspired our artwork, baking and counting activities. We have been painting and drawing ladybirds, making ladybird biscuits and matching the number of spots on each wing.

Hairdressers and baby care have featured highly in our imaginative play. The group have loved music and movement sessions this week, particularly playing 'Sleeping bunnies' and the other versions of the song.

The book library will be changed this week so there will be lots of different topics and characters to explore.

Maybe you would like to create a wild flower frame at home. Just make a cardboard frame and place strips of tape across the opening then let your child get creative with different materials.

Preschool Room - Week commencing 21st April 2025

We hope you had a lovely Easter break.

It may have only been a four day week but they have been packed with fun-filled activities.

Yellow group have been hunting for numerals in the forest this week and then matching the numeral they found to the correct number of sticks. Red Group have been challenging their gross motor skills and co-ordination when balancing on logs, placing branches to create dens and climbing trees! On the way home, they also practiced their ball skills by attempting to kick a football into the goal. A light frisbee was available for those who wanted to use their arms rather than feet.

Water play continues to be a strong interest so we have been experimenting with the channeling set and trays at different heights to transport water from one container to another.

We have refilled the planters and planted sunflower seeds ready for our annual display. Which one will be the tallest? We will be checking and measuring regularly to find the answer.

Our love of books has spilt over into our imaginative play. You will see some lovely photos of children re-enacting 'Room on the Broom' in the garden and retelling 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' with the characters and shaker bottles for associated sounds.

The Girton Nursery band have been practicing their repertoire and experimenting with different instruments. The musicians then provided the perfect opportunity for their peers to enjoy a spot of dancing.

It is very easy to make shakers at home by recycling plastic bottles or vitamin pots. Dried pasta, rice and pulses make a lovely sound when shaken. You may need to glue the lid to the bottle depending on the age of your child and the likelihood that they may be able to open the bottle and attempt to eat the contents!

Preschool Room - Week commencing 14th April 2025

We have perfected our observation and searching skills and are now the best egg hunts in the land! The children have had lots of fun completing hunts in the garden, preschool room, at the park and the forest. They are getting quicker and quicker at finding the eggs so you may need to think carefully if you are having a hunt over the weekend!

To boost the Easter spirit, we have made bunny ear headbands which demonstrating our amazing cutting and decorating skills. We also made butterfly pictures by painting on one side of a piece of paper and folded it to print on the other side.

This week has been a mixture of sunshine and showers so we got to explore some lovely puddles and had great fun splashing around in them. On a particularly rainy day, we enjoyed parachute games inside an were challenged to see if we could keep the eggs on top of the parachute. It was much harder than it looks!

We have started to prepare our vegetable patch for Summer by removing the weeds and digging it over. The children have planted a sunflower seed in their own individualised pot so we can compare growth and measure the seedlings. Eventually some will be coming home and others will be planted at nursery so we can enjoy the beautiful sunflowers.

The butterflies have all emerged out of their cocoons and we have all enjoyed watching them as they feed and fly around their new temporary home. Today, we released them on the green behind the nursery and one seemed reluctant to leave us.

Role play has been a strong interest this week. We have had picnics, shops, schools, reading groups, baby rooms and compared dressing up outfits. Getting in and out of costumes is excellent practice for both our fine motor skills and co-ordination.

Please continue to send us pictures of your Easter activities. The children have loved sharing them with practitioners and peers, and telling us what they were doing.

Have a lovely Easter weekend, and hopefully enjoy some sunshine. See you on Tuesday.

Preschool Room - Week commencing 7th April 2025

This week we have been very busy exploring Girton.

On Monday we went on a treasure hunt in the forest and had to look for clues and complete tasks, such as finding a stick the same length as our arm. It was very exciting when we found the first bunny and clue at the entrance to the forest and we had to stay focused to complete the trail. Afterwards we had our snack and climbed trees.

Yellow Group have also been on an Easter egg hunt. They had to use all of their observational skills to find the hidden eggs. Then they burnt off any excess energy at the park. It is amazing to see how their climbing and balancing skills have developed over the past few months.

We have also been out to look for look for objects of interest to stick to our nature pictures. Feathers, grass, flowers and small sticks were just some of the things we found.

Water play continues to be very popular. We have mastered using the water urn to fill containers and remembering to turn it off. Some children have also perfected the skill of turning the wheel to create bubbles with a rotary whisk. This takes significant co-ordination with both hands and strength to start the wheel in motion.

The cocoons around our caterpillars have started to harden and we look forward to seeing what will happen next week.

If you have an egg hunt, please send us some pictures for your child to share with the group.

Preschool Room - Week commencing 31st March 2025

We have been investigating the use of tools and equipment in our water play this week, such as operating the tap on a water urn, making marks on the chalkboard with wet brushes, using jugs and bottles to pour water down the channeling set and using whisks to create bubbles. In sensory play, we made ice creams with foam, investigated caterpillar land and played with gloop.

Our caterpillars are all safely in their cocoons now. We are watching them every day to see which one is most likely to break out first. The story of 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' continues to be popular and we have been using props to act out the sequence of events.

There have been many outings to the forest this week. Our aim was to revisit our signs of spring sheet to see if there were more things to see and hear. We had great fun spotting blossom, looking for buds and searching for Spring flowers. Afterwards, we let off steam at the park with a sociable game of football and explored the climbing equipment.

We have also investigated colour mixing with paint under cling film. We had to work hard to move the paint around with our fingers or tools, such as rolling pins, in order to mix the colours together. Bubble painting was great fun and created amazing effects on paper.

Have you got any signs of Spring in your garden or the area around where you live? We would love to hear about them at group time next week.

Baby Room - February and March 2025

It has been a busy couple of months in our baby room.

We have become masters of tower building, and demolition! You will see some photos of some of our very impressive towers here.

Sensory play has also been a popular activity, from crushing rice crispies with our fingers, sensory walks, moving sand from container to container and filling or emptying construction vehicles. There have also been small world environments to explore, such as a farm and dinosaur land.

We have been developing our gross motor skills in the garden and at the park. Many of us have now mastered using the slide independently and others can cross the planks without assistance. Dancing, action songs and parachute games have also featured in our favourite activities.

Fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination have been required to complete inset puzzles, put curtain rings on poles during heuristic play, operate the switches on pop-up and electronic toys, and of course when tower building!

We have also made dinosaur footprints with paint, used tools to manipulate or mark make in playdough, read lots of books, explored sorting by colour and perfected using the ride on toys and scooters in the garden.

Preschool Room - Week commencing 24th March 2025

Our minibeast hunts and developing caterpillars have proved to be very inspiring this week. The children have been fascinated by the insects they have found in the garden or when on outings. They requested to repeat our minibeast hunt with the clipboards so we have done this several times. It is amazing to see how their mark making and recording has come on since our seasonal hunt a few weeks ago.

We have been visited by several ladybirds and the children have been counting their spots and commenting on the different coloured wings that can be seen. We also went hunting for them in the long grass. This led to amazing art work of ladybirds hiding in the grass. We have also made egg box spiders and threaded pipe cleaner worms and caterpillars with pasta tubes or cereal hoops. Our insects are currently on display near the garden door if you would like to see them.

Our caterpillars have really grown and are starting to make their journey to the top of the tub ready to form chrysalids. We check on them every day and we will soon transfer them to the chrysalis station so they can start to harden.

Water play continues to be a popular choice for all groups in the preschool room. We have been making potions in the mud kitchen and playing with coloured or bubbly water in the water tray.

Our tactile play has been inspired by our love of plants and insects, such as planting flowers in pots and deciding if the creatures should be on top or under the soil. We have also continued to make worms and caterpillars with playdough, practicising our rolling motion to make cylinders or spheres.

Please can you bring in a legionnaires' hat with a flap to cover the neck, if we don't have one at nursery already, and sun cream of factor 50 or above. We ask that you apply a layer of sun cream before coming to nursery and we will top it up throughout the day.

Preschool Room - Week commencing 17th March 2025

Our visitors have arrived and the children have been fascinated by them! We have been studying the caterpillars and watching what they do as they crawl up and down the pot. They have grown significantly since they arrived so there is much excitement each day to see how much they have changed.

Our book of the week has been 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar'. The children have used many different skills to create caterpillars and butterflies in their creative work, such as drawing butterflies, painting different coloured ladybirds, winding pipe cleaner around a stick and adding googly eyes, and rolling playdough into different coloured balls to create body segments. At snack time we even used strawberries, grapes, raisins and banana segments to create caterpillars.

During forest school, we have done extensive bug hunts. We looked under rocks, leaves, in the grass, dug in the mud and searched on trees and plants. Every insect was ticked off the checklist. This was so much fun that we repeated this outings several times.

In cooking, we tested our kneading skills when making bread rolls for tea. We weighed, measured, poured and mixed the ingredients, kneaded the dough and rolled it into similar sized balls. When they were cooked we opened them up and added some yummy fillings. They were so tasty!

Water play was lots of fun in the sunshine as we used jugs, funnels, watering cans and the channeling set to move water from container to container. There was also an indoor car wash when the weather changed. We demonstrated our kindness and excellent sharing when using the popular equipment.

We also threaded penne pasta onto string to create bracelets and decorated them with paint and glitter. A large delivery box proved to be very popular as a den and when playing 'What's in the box?' with our peers.

What insects can you find in the garden or when you are out and about at the weekend?

The book library has been updated and there are now a few interactive packs with toys or puzzles. Please help yourself.

Preschool Room - Week commencing 10th March 2025

It has been National Science Week so the children have had lots of opportunities to do their own experiments. We have made exploding cola volcanos, felt tip rainbows, colour mixing Skittles and lava lamps. We have also put talc on our hands and seen what happens when we dip them in water, mixed bicarbonate of soda with vinegar and food colouring to see it froth, made floating marks and investigated static with balloons.

Red Group have been to the forest and made imprints of objects they found in playdough. They had snack in the den and climbed trees. In food preparation, they made banana muffins and buttered their crackers for tea.

Yellow Group have also been to the forest and local park. They have been investigating what will float or sink in the water tray.

When we have not been experimenting, the Preschoolers have been playing with foam, used different methods to move rice between containers and built obstacle courses.

If you would like the details of any of our experiments to do at home, please let us know.

Preschool Room - Week commencing 3rd March 2025

Oh beautiful sunshine, we have missed you!

This week, we have outside in the garden or off on outings appreciating the Spring sunshine. Water and tactile play have been a strong focus, perfecting our pouring skills as media is moved from one container to another. We have also been washing the cars and bikes as part of our role play.

Yellow Group have been building up their stamina and focusing on their listening skills during outings over the past few weeks and are now able to venture as far as the forest. We had a great time using sticks to make marks, exploring dens, climbing trees and throwing leaves in the air. Forest school will become a regular occurrence and themes will develop over the coming weeks.

Tuesday was Pancake Day and we had great fun creating our favourite pancakes at snack time with fruit, jam and syrup. We compared the taste of orange, lime and lemon to see what we liked best. We also created our own pancakes with playdough and made good attempts at tossing them. Catching them was a bit tricky! In the garden, we made two obstacle courses and had pancakes races.

Thursday was World Book Day. The children brought in their favourite books to share with the group and those who wanted to dressed up as a character. At group time, we talked about what we liked about the book. In tactile play, we have been making Gruffalo crumble, porridge for Goldilocks and the Three Bears and stomping dinosaurs in chia seed gloop. Pipettes were used to add colouring to white gloop and we watched as colours merged and swirled around.

Our science experiments have involved making our marks float. First we drew on the back of a spoon, then we gently submerged it in water and to our amazement, the mark floated off the spoon into the water. Why not try this experiment at home!

Creative activities have included reflection art, where we paint on one half of the paper and fold it over to print on the opposite side. We have also drawn and painted our favourite book characters.