Muddy Ducks Nursery

Today we celebrated Astrid’s birthday!
Astrid had a pink Disney princess cake; it was delicious!
We had a lovely picnic lunch.

Happy fourth birthday Astrid!

Do you recognise these wellies?! We gave our wellies an airing today as it was a bit damp this morning! 💦

However it brightened up for us to enjoy a lovely picnic lunch, and celebrate Astrid’s birthday! Lookout for Astrid’s birthday pictures later!

Term starts Monday 7th September! See you then 😎

Check out this smile! Liberty was so excited today as we celebrated her birthday. Liberty bought in a pink cake complete with a tiara. We sang Happy Birthday and Liberty had lots of cuddles with Birthday Bear. 🎂🥳🎂

The party continues! Today we celebrated Lisa’s birthday!

We all listened to Birthday bear sing his special birthday song, and we enjoyed sharing Lisa’s cake. Happy Birthday Lisa! 🥳 🎈

Today we celebrated Helen’s Birthday!
We gave her some pretty flowers and enjoyed sharing her chocolate cake! Happy Birthday Helen! 🎈
Watch this space; it’s birthday central at Muddy Ducks this week! 🥳

We also had fun washing dolls, playing with the dinosaurs and playing with our role-play BBQ.

Mark making comes in lots of different forms. Today, we saw children making marks with large paint brushes, small chalks, crayons, and even sticks in the sand.
These early marks are a crucial step to writing and more detailed drawings.

Today we headed outside bright and early before it got too hot! We enjoyed reading ‘One is a snail, ten is a crab” a great book that Imogen bought for us! It talks about the number of feet different things have and multiples; 10 crabs is 100 feet! 🦀

We also had some tomatoes with our tea from Lyn’s garden 🪴 🍅

No filters needed! What a glorious day we have had!
We had a lovely picnic lunch under a shady tree, whilst watching the boats on the lake! There were sailing boats, power boats, canoes, paddle boards; so much to see! The children on the lake were really enjoying their sailing lessons; we enjoyed watching them capsize!

We also stopped to feed the ducks! 🦆 Have you noticed at this time of year all of the ducks are brown? That’s because the Daddy ducks are moulting!

The RSPB says “Males lose their breeding plumage, including their showy green head feathers, and grow new brownish feathers (called their eclipse plumage) once the breeding season is over, making them resemble females. Look closely though and you can tell the difference: males still have their greenish-yellow beak, while females have a brownish-orange beak.
So why do these usually dapper ducks bother with this drab disguise? It’s all down to the way they moult. Unlike most birds, ducks lose all of their wing feathers in one go, which means that they’re temporarily unable to fly until the feathers grow back. This quite literally makes them sitting ducks for predators, and so it pays to swap their eye-catching plumage for something a little more understated that will help them blend in.
By autumn, Mallards will be back looking their best, with males sporting shiny new emerald head feathers!”

We’re always having such a good time outside we often don’t show you what we do inside!

We have lots of equipment that the children can choose from;
• in the carpet area we have lots of different animals, vehicles and construction toys. We love building ramps for the cars and enclosures for the animals.
• we have a wide range of jigsaw puzzles; from huge floor puzzles to peg puzzles, there are many to choose from and something to challenge everyone.
• mobilo, the bright coloured construction toy, is always a favourite. We see the children’s dexterity and creativity evolve over time, with more elaborate models being made.
• ⁠Books; we adore books and have so many to choose from. The animal factual books are a favourite at the moment. We have books in all areas of the nursery, not just the book corner!
• Role play area; we spend lots of time in here, looking after our babies, making meals, and dressing up.

Our toys can be transported around the room encouraging the children’s imagination and creativity; often there is a picnic in the book corner! Today the yellow step was being used to contain the police figures!