Orchard Barns Nurseries

Just two weeks to go until our Christmas Fair. Come along and join in with the festive fun....and maybe get to meet Santa!

Orchard Barns is growing their team! Are you an experienced or newly qualified SENDCO? Then we would love to hear from you. Email your CV or call for an informal chat about the role.

Are you a Room Leader looking for a new challenge? Come and join the wonderful team at Orchard Barns Ardleigh. Email your CV or call for more information about the role.

Snail! (Called Beau) 🐌

The Toddlers found a snail in the outside classroom, so we watched it move very slowly from one side of the tray to the other. We spoke about the shell being it's home and tried to feed it some leaves to eat! The children were very interested and watched the snail for a long period of time. Showing great curiosity in understanding the world around them showing care and concern for living things and their environment.

BENDY BEANS YOGA 🧘

We had Bendy Beans back this week and the children were very excited to see Nicole again! We started off singing 'shake your sillies out' and passed the bowl around as usual.

Our book this week was 'Ten in the Bed' so we looked at the different animals and did the poses for them (Hedgehog, Crocodile and Sheep). We then put the animals on the parachute and shook them around!

We finally sung 'Sleeping sheep' as the children laid underneath the parachute. What a lovely session.

Please come along and join us for some Festive Fun. Bring a friend too 😀

A visit from the Librarian! 📚

Preschool were very lucky to have a Librarian come and visit them.

The Librarian spoke to be children all about the Library and what the Library is. She explained all parts of the story books, such as the author, what each label represents on the books, and even read them a selection of stories from the library including the children's favourites; 'The Tiger who came to Tea' and 'Shark in the Park'. The children really enjoyed the session and listened beautifully to every story book she read to them. They even looked at books with braille, and learnt about braille and how it helps children who are blind, to read. The children used their fingers to follow the brialle to see how it felt.

Well done Preschool, let's have fun and join the library ourselves!

𝗢𝗮𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗥𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗥𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗲𝗹 🍪

Preschool has been very busy this morning making cookies with Rachael.

In two separate groups, the children took turns weighing out each ingredient with help and support from Rachael and Faith.

They started by talking about each ingredient, and if they were able to identify them. The children did well with this but needed some help with understanding the difference between the white sugar and the flour.

Then they used the scales to weigh out the ingredients before adding them together to mix. Some of them even had a really good try at cracking open the eggs into the jug. Great work!

Once all the ingredients had been measured out, we mixed them together and then scooped out a spoonful of mixture each and placed them onto the baking sheet on the tray.

Faith showed the children a bag of sultanas and asked the children if they knew what they were. The children did well but noticed they looked like raisins. So Faith and Rachael explained they are like raisins but are called sultanas. Each child then tried a sultana and used great describing words such as sweet, yummy, chewy, and like grapes.

Rachael then took the cookies up to the kitchen to bake them in the oven. The children will all enjoy them at home later. Yummy!

Ingredients in case you would like to make them at home:

𝟭 𝗰𝘂𝗽 𝗨𝗻𝘀𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗕𝘂𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 (𝟮 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗸𝘀, 𝘀𝗼𝗳𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗱, 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘀)
𝟭 𝗰𝘂𝗽 𝗗𝗮𝗿𝗸 𝗕𝗿𝗼𝘄𝗻 𝗦𝘂𝗴𝗮𝗿 (𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱)
⅓ 𝗰𝘂𝗽 𝗚𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘂𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗦𝘂𝗴𝗮𝗿
𝟮 𝗟𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝗘𝗴𝗴𝘀
𝟭 𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝗩𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗮 𝗘𝘅𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁
𝟭 ½ 𝗰𝘂𝗽𝘀 𝗔𝗹𝗹-𝗣𝘂𝗿𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘂𝗿
¾ 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝘁
𝟭 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝗕𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗼𝗱𝗮
𝟭 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗶𝗻𝗻𝗮𝗺𝗼𝗻
¼ 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝗡𝘂𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗴 (𝗳𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗵𝗹𝘆 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱)
¼ 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗽𝗼𝗼𝗻 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗖𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗮𝗺𝗼𝗺 (𝗼𝗿 𝗴𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗿)
𝟯 𝗰𝘂𝗽𝘀 𝗥𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗢𝗮𝘁𝘀 (𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁)
𝟭 ½ 𝗰𝘂𝗽𝘀 𝗥𝗮𝗶𝘀𝗶𝗻𝘀 𝗼𝗿 𝗦𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗮𝘀

Fireworks! 🎆

On Monday the Preschool children had been joining in with activities based around fireworks.

They created their own fireworks display using playdough and pipe cleaners. They twists the pipe cleaners using their fine motor skills, and create different shapes to add to the playdough. They also used paint and toilet roll tubes to dab onto their black paper to make fireworks in the sky. The children all spoke about how they went to see fireworks at the weekend with their families. Some of them went to displays where they had to wrap up nice and warm in their coats, hats, gloves and wellie boots, and some of them stayed in their house in the warm and watched them out of their windows.

They used lots of describing words such as 'bright, colourful, loud, sparkly' and even made some loud 'bang!' noises to explain the sounds.

Well done Preschool! Sounds like you all had a fab weekend around fireworks!

Jumping in puddles!

After the amount of rain we had recently, the children were really interested in the size of the puddle that was out in the big garden. So we all decided to get on our waterproof coats and wellies and go and explore the puddle! Before going outside, we all spoke about how to be safe (no running in case it's slippery and not splashing if our friends are close by in case they don't want to get wet) and then we were ready to go!

The children had a great time gliding, stomping, splashing and jumping in the puddles around the garden, seeing how deep the puddles went and where the water went when they splashed (in their boots!) ☔

Halloween! 🕸️🕷️👻🎃🧛🦇

Last week the children at Orchard Barns Ardleigh enjoyed coming in dressed up as all different characters (we've had witches, skeletons, bats and... BAT WOMAN!)

They danced to Halloween music, made scary spider handprints and looked for skeletons in the sand!

We also all enjoyed a Halloween themed menu, made freshly by our on-site chef. Yummy!

Preschool's Clay Pumpkins 🎃

Last week the Preschool had been busy making clay pumpkins in preparation for Halloween with Faith and Destiny.

Each child had a small clump of clay. They then used their hands to mould the clay into a ball. An adult the cut off pieces of string so the children could wrap them around the ball of clay and tie them in a knot at the top. Some of the children needed help with this, but all had a great try!

Once they had added a few pieces of string around their ball of clay, they then selected a cinnamon stick each and added them to the top of the clay as the stem part of the pumpkin.

Once the pumpkins had dried, we removed the strings and the children had created and made their very own pumpkin.

Well done everyone!