Play2Day Nursery

Summer started off very hot for all of us! Within all three rooms children have explored ice and water play to help keep them cool. Staff in Darling Ducks have used this as an opportunity to build vocabulary with words like splash, tip, pour, and more. In Little Owls, the children have developed their fine motor skills as they used pipettes in the water and their gross motor skills as they broke ice with hammers. In Friendly Foxes, the children have explored mathematical concepts such as full and empty when playing in water. While exploring ice the children have shown great understanding of the World as staff asked them questions like "when does ice melt quicker when it's hot or when it's cold?' The children have then be able to answer why it melts quicker when it's hot.
Throughout June, the children have been appreciating the new resources in the garden as they provide extra shelter from the sun and more opportunities for water play. We have adapted routines to ensure outdoor play happens during the cooler parts of the day.

*HOT WEATHER*

Hi everyone,
With the amber weather warning in place for extreme heat Monday to Thursday this week, please be assured that we will be following the government guidelines to make sure that the children & staff remain safe whilst we experience hot temperatures. We will be continuously monitoring the situation and making key decisions on whether it is safe to go outside.

To help, we kindly ask that all children bring in their sun hats, have sun cream applied before arriving & wear loose fitting, light coloured clothing that covers their shoulders.

Please could they also bring a change of appropriate clothes in their bag in case they need changing throughout the day.

We will be encouraging the children to drink plenty of water and will top up their bottles regularly & reapply suncream as required.

For the safety of your children, if they do appear to be struggling in the heat we will contact you.

We hope you all are enjoying the weekend and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday ☀️

Teaching young children about road safety is crucial in preventing deaths and serious injuries. Brake, the road safety charity, reported that an average of nine children under the age of seven were killed or seriously injured on the roads of Britain each day in 2022.
During May, we focused on road safety with the children in Friendly Foxes and Little Owls. To explore road safety, the children engaged in a variety of activities, including crafts of cars, road signs and traffic lights, engaging in small world road and pedestrian scenes and learning a song about road safety. This opened up conversations about how we walk near roads, what signs mean and other ways we can keep ourselves safe. We hope supporting parents to teach their children about road safety ensures the children are safer on the roads.

Last Wednesday, we celebrated National Bee Day at nursery 🐝💛
The children enjoyed lots of exciting bee-themed activities throughout the day, including creative crafts, sensory play, fine motor activities, and learning all about our little buzzing friends.
🐝🖤💛
It has been a lovely day full of learning, laughter, and busy little bees! 🌼🐝

April has been another busy month....

Throughout the nursery, the children have been exploring what changes occur at this time of year.

This has included the Darling Ducks getting outside for longer periods of time to experience the warmer weather. The babies were keen to participate in the release of butterflies. It was great for their speech as staff introduced new vocabulary like 'flutter'. Some babies were keen to share this experience with others using short sentences.

In Little Owls, the children have created flower pictures through a variety of means such as stamping forks to make tulips. Not only did the children get to be creative but it opened up conversations about the growth of plants.

Whilst in Friendly Foxes, the pre-schoolers have been keen to watch the caterpillars turn into butterflies. Many of them showing their understanding of a butterflies' life cycle and learning new words like 'chrysalis'. Their interest in bugs extended into the garden where they have been keen to go on bug hunts. They have also been helping plant cucumber, pepper and tomato plants ready for them to produce goods later in the year.

Did you know?
Once a month on a Thursday, Suffolk Libraries Mobile Service comes to outside Play2Day Ipswich. Each time it visits, several children get to go on the Library bus to return and select new books for us to borrow.
We want to encourage a love for reading so introducing children to new stories and non-fiction books for the children to explore is important to us.
It offers the children new experiences as they may not have visited a library before or been on a bus.
If you would like to visit the mobile Library Bus, please follow the link below to see the different locations and schedules:
https://suffolkcommunitylibraries.co.uk/visit/mobile-libraries/?search=&pg=12

Can you believe we are over a quarter of the way through 2026!
March has been a busy month. The children have been looking at Spring and all the different changes we see at this time of year. Each room created a mother's day card to celebrate the important women in our children's home life. As the month drew to an end, we started to explore the topic of Easter. The children were getting very excited about receiving some chocolate eggs! 🍫🍫