Top Tots Daycare

Our autumn theme can only mean one thing…an autumn nature walk at our local park and pond! 🏞️ We ventured out to the pond, a short walk away from the setting, and the children set to work on finding and ticking off items from their checklist 📋 our little explorers found all of them! ✅ We spotted plants, flowers, leaves, minibeasts, pinecones and (most excitingly) lots of ducks and birds! 🦆🦢 It was a great opportunity for the children to explore the pond and discuss the changes in weather they have noticed, as well as collect leaves and plants for autumn artwork 🍁🍂

Happy (belated) Bonfire Night! 🎆 Last week, we combined our learning surrounding bonfire night with a mark-making activity to support pre-writing skills and develop early literacy. We set up a colourful and sparkly tuff tray, put in some pre-writing mark prompts and let our preschoolers create their fireworks! Some of our little ones took it further and decided to write letters of their name, or draw faces. A fantastic firework activity 🎇🧨✍🏼✏️

Some more loose part play in the garden but make it bigger! As part of our learning on junk modelling and loose parts, we put out large loose parts into the garden this week (tyres, bricks, wheels, long rods, etc) and let the children’s imagination run riot! They created cars, towers, castles, rockets and more 🧱🛞🔨

What might look like a pile of junk to some, is an endless world of possibilities for children! We love loose part play because of all of the opportunities it gives to children - stacking, building, counting, measuring, twisting, arranging and more! Loose part play is great for developing early mathematical skills where children can assess which shapes they need for which purpose, as well as explore independent counting. It helps to broaden their imagination as they assign meaning to objects and enact their plan with a variety of resources 🪵🧊🥏

Washing cars is one of our children’s favourite activities - and ours too! Here’s why…squeezing sponges and using brushes strengthens children’s hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills, washing the cars teaches them to care for their resources, the children get to reenact real life experiences and (most of all) it’s great fun! 🧽🚗🧼

Sand is not just for the beach! It’s an incredible form of sensory play that promotes imagination, critical thinking and active learning. Our custom-built outdoor sand pit allows children the opportunity to engage in sand play all year round to feel, explore and create. It’s most definitely a popular attraction ! 🏖️🪏🪣

Our little ones bring the noise and the music wherever they go! From learning about and playing a range of instruments, to singing songs and creating drum beats during carpet time, to using spoons to play the outdoor music boards - there’s an opportunity for music everywhere! 🥁🪇🎷🪈

Our caterpillars in the baby and toddler rooms love using Lego and Mega Bloks to construct vehicles, buildings and more! Building with blocks is a great way to develop children’s hand-eye coordination and gross motor control, and helps children to develop their imagination and critical thinking skills 🧱💭

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Our butterfly class palaeontologists are hard at work discovering new species of dinosaurs and helping their eggs to hatch. They’re using their magnifying glasses and their curious minds to label and identify dinosaurs and explore their life cycles 🦕🥚🦖🔍