Caterpillars Childcare

Our wonderful world of colour, was the theme for this week at Caterpillars. We have been exploring the work of artist Kandinsky and created our masterpieces by forming concentric circles onto card and canvas for our art gallery wall display. Even our younger pre-schoolers were able to form accurate circles to create their artwork 😃 wow! We have been discovering the fabulous Autumn season and harvest vegetables and then recreated our Harvest display using natural resources such as acorns, leaves, pebbles and green beans! We also created our own 2D formations of ourselves too! We have travelled to France and Spain on our magic carpet and learnt to count in French and Spanish! Little Caterpillars have been super busy too, learning to drink carefully from beaker cups (how clever they all are) creating their cute 'leaf' hedgehogs and practicing fine motor skills using glue sticks. They have all had the best time in their ball pit this week too, especially the emptying of it !!😂 Wishing you all a very happy weekend🥰🥰

We've been rushed off our feet recently at Caterpillars!! Porridge oats and Goldilocks and the Three Bears helped us all enjoy this traditional fairytale and learn about volume and weight, even our littlest Caterpillars were intrigued by the weighing scales! Caterpillars also created bears faces using their imagination and 'loose parts' whilst Little Caterpillars were busy outside painting their communal masterpiece on a shower curtain! (as you do!). The fun continued with our cereal and stones building site which helped us with our counting whilst Little Caterpillars were busy as they carefully and skilfully created beautiful leave printings. Harvest festival is well under way as Caterpillars children learn about gathering produce and other food items and the act of kindness in sharing them with others who are in need. Caterpillars will be gratefully receiving donations over the next few weeks for the local food banks. We painted pictures of apples by discussing their shape and texture and used real apples to help us paint our beautiful artwork for the wall gallery. So many happy, happy memories being created every day at Caterpillars ❤❤

In memory of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022) much loved and admired across the country and globally for a historic 70 years of dedicated service - We thank you

Surprise Little Caterpillars !! you will just love your brand new cosy carpet we have had fitted for you over the weekend 😍😍.
Our new 'role play' area has also now been delivered, so that our littlest caterpillars can have the best time ever, in their natural 'home sweet home' environment, creating happy and special memories together ❤❤

A huge thank you !! from all of the children at Caterpillars, our brand new playhouse has finally arrived and been built thanks to all the money raised at our Summer fete and we have all had the best time playing in it ❤❤
Caterpillars and little Caterpillars have been very busy over the last few weeks creating frog ponds with jelly! singing nursery rhymes and enjoying our hand knitted puppets, having the best time in our huge new black out sensory den! baking cakes at our teddy bears picnic, making ice-creams with shaving foam and so much more !!! It is so much fun at Caterpillars with all our friends - wishing you all a very happy weekend 🥰🥰

GOOD LUCK!! 😃😃to all of our wonderful summer 2022 leavers on your first day at school this week!! You will all have the most amazing time and we will be thinking of you and remembering you all with many many fond and happy memories -keep in touch !!🥰🥰

A great big THANK YOU to you all for supporting our fete after last weeks Sports morning. In an hour you all helped to raise a whopping £650...amazing !!! The children have chosen a big wooden outdoor playhouse which we will be having built for us over the coming weeks for all of the babies, toddlers and children to enjoy, and this fundraising will certainly help.
As always we thank ALL our families for being so wonderful-we wouldn't be Caterpillars without you 🥰🥰
Wishing you all a very happy weekend 😀😀

Wishing our wonderful 'leavers to school' all the very best, we will miss you all very much ❤❤. We hope you enjoyed your gifts and graduation pictures and your special leavers party...it was so exciting having these amazing creatures visit us and our families at Caterpillars on Friday evening for our farewell party - take good care and keep in touch !! 🥰🥰🥰

A massive "WELL DONE YOU DID AMAZING!!!" 🥳🥳to all of our very special Caterpillars children for taking part in their sports Day today - our first one at our beautiful premises, we are all very proud of you 😀😀😀😀
Thank you so much to all of our wonderful families for coming along today to watch all the children, we are sure you will agree they did amazing. Thank you also for supporting our morning fete-we hope you all enjoyed the day as much as we did-wishing you a very happy weekend
🥰🥰

We have been so busy over the last few weeks at Caterpillars!! We made garden planters by re-cycling our old garden sheds, we painted them and Little Caterpillars and Caterpillars have been busy tending to their home grown lettuces, radishes, tomatoes, cucumbers and strawberries...look how they have grown!! We all went to the moon and created our own footprints in the moon dust! Little Caterpillars had the best time in their ball pit and created beach pictures with sand and Caterpillars explored mark making when they created their own fossil prints with the salt dough we had made. We love creating happy memories together in our ❤Caterpillars family ❤

Happy Fathers Day to all our wonderful dads and grandads, past and present...enjoy your very special day 🥰🥰

Caterpillars have been busy bees this week learning all about bees, how they make honey. We talked about one of our favourite characters Winnie the Pooh and how he loves to eat honey! In mathematics we explored repeat pattern and made created our own bees. We then use potato mashers to make more bees for our hive! Little Caterpillars have been exploring early 'self care' skills and practiced 'teeth brushing' with toothpaste and water-we all LOVED this activity!! Wishing you all a happy weekend ❤❤

Who knew spagetti and jelly could be so much fun!! Caterpillars and Little Caterpillars have been busy this week with green spagetti and green jelly!! Little Caterpillars practiced forming straight lines by following the number 1 and enjoying the texture of spagetti, whilst Caterpillars learnt about the various stages and changes that take place when making jelly. We all then created our very own frog pond with the jelly and spagetti we had made! It was such fun and we talked about how many things were green to match our spagetti and jelly! We also gathered twigs and bracken from our outdoor areas to make the birds a nest, we then made paper birds and watched them 'flap' in our garden trees. It has been so lovely to watch all of the babies and children playing and learning together and sharing experiences -such happy times in our Caterpillars family ❤❤

Caterpillars have been busy this week creating 3D structures from natural resources and learning about world famous landmarks. We learned some wonderful new words such as 'massive, enormous and gigantic' and then built our very own gigantic landmark using pallets and building blocks! In our 'natural world' sessions we planted grass seed for our minibeast play trays , grew our own cress and worked as a team to develop our outdoor lawned areas. In our science discussions we talked about how spagetti changes when hot water is added, and then created letters in our phonics sessions with the cooked spagetti!! Tea-time is always so much fun when we all contribute to making it. ..anyone for pizza?!- wishing you a wonderful weekend
❤😍

Little Caterpillars have had the best time this week flying to the moon 5,4,3,2,1 blast off!! and enjoying playing with their space toys...oh, and then tearing up the silver foil afterwards!! We practiced our gross motor skills with the footballs and scored many goals!! Our outdoor sand trays proved great fun too for sensory skills and mark making😃-wishing you a very happy weekend from all our 'Little Caterpillars'🥰🥰

THANK YOU !!😍😍to all of our wonderful families for supporting our last fundraiser - we finally had the large climbing/wall/slide /den (for indoor and outdoor use) apparatus arrive!!...the children absolutely love it !! ❤❤

we have had a very busy week at Caterpillars planting our cress seeds and creating grass seed trays to use for our 'small world;' animals (watch this space!). We have challenged our mathematical thinking and explored 'doubling' up to 10 using the ladybirds in our 'bug hotel'. We also had great fun with all our friends gathering natural resources to create our large 'bug habitat. Wishing you a wonderful bank holiday weekend ❤❤

Little Caterpillars have had the best fun this week challenging their hand, eye co-ordination skills with their new toys, when trying really hard to stack vertically, using small cubes. We also enjoyed creating marks in 'messy play' and experiencing movement in our new outdoor swing apparatus. Wishing you all a very happy bank holiday weekend ❤🥰🥰

HAPPY EASTER !! we hope you have all enjoyed a wonderful weekend...we have been so amazed by all of the fabulous Easter bonnets that have been entered into our Caterpillars Easter Bonnet parade competition-the attention to detail that has gone into each and every bonnet is truly amazing-thank you so much to all of our wonderful babies, toddlers and children for taking part. ..there were so many... here are some of them, don't they look amazing!!🥰🥰

Our little Caterpillars have had the best fun this week practicing their focused attention and fine motor skills whilst searching for Easter Eggs! They have also been busy making their Easter cards...we hope you enjoyed the gifts and cards (made by your little 'Easter chicks' 🥰) Have a wonderful Sunday everyone ❤❤

Caterpillars have been getting into the Easter swing this week, learning about the Easter story and being creative making fluffy chicks, bunny cards, choccy cakes and potting spring flowers....we hope you enjoyed receiving them have a wonderful weekend everyone
❤❤😃

Happy fun filled times for our Little Caterpillars as they explored all of the new resources they have had this week! We have been developing our sensory skills by playing with paint on our hands and making painted marks ( not all of which ended in the trays !) We also explored the textures of citrus fruits in warm water and enjoyed the fabulous smells of the lemons and limes 😃 Wishing you a lovely weekend ❤❤

A beautiful sunset at Caterpillars after another fantastic fun filled week...sun hats on Monday and woolly hats by Thursday!...but that didn't stop our fun outdoor play...we all had the best time playing with our special friends and we learnt our phonics sounds by creating them with loose parts and sounding them out. Wishing you all a happy and peaceful weekend ❤❤

Happy Mothers Day to all of our amazing mummies, past and present - you are all loved and appreciated very much by your little ones ❤❤❤

Caterpillars have been so busy over the last few weeks learning about the homes and habitats of creatures in our natural world. We created 'homes' for our bugs and birds and then had fun making framed patterns using natural resources. On shrove Tuesday, our 'little Caterpillars' had the best fun playing in the flour! ( very messy!!) and Caterpillars talked about and wrote some of the key ingredients needed to make our own for snack. World book day was a fabulous opportunity to spend time sharing favourite books with our friends and our 'Little Caterpillars' also enjoyed mark making with silver foil !! Happy times have been had making the best memories here at Caterpillars ❤❤

Red roses, water and a big ball pool...what's not to like!! We have all had the best time this week, our budding Caterpillars artists have been busy creating their rose paintings and little Caterpillars have been experiencing water play, learning how to wash their hands and creating fun memories with friends in the big ball pool !! Have yourselves a wonderful weekend ❤❤❤

Wow! another busy, fun filled week at Caterpillars! We have continued to celebrate the Chinese New Year of the Tiger as the traditional celebrations move towards the Chinese Lantern Festival next week. Caterpillars children enjoyed creative play, as they practiced their 'fine motor skills' to create these wonderful Chinese cherry blossom trees. We made a restaurant and cooked up and served our very own traditional food! Little Caterpillars learnt about 'tigers' and enjoyed being in the jungle as they pretended to be tigers! We have been watering our spring bulbs and look how they are growing! We were very lucky to have some new kitchen role play toys bought for us which we enjoyed playing with...anyone for coffee?! We have also been exploring number bonds up to five and Caterpillars and little Caterpillars have also been enjoying the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We read the story to the big daddy bear teddy, and enjoyed sensory play with the porridge oats! A very happy weekend to you all ! ❤❤

Isn't it amazing what you can do with recycled bed 'wood slats!!' Caterpillars have had the best time this week creating car ramps and tracks using old bed slats and recycled packaging as a multi story car park! In science we have explored reflection in water and talked about the textures of the shells and rocks we could see. Natural calming resources helped us make sense of our mathematical learning this week and we also had great fun practicing brushing our 'in house' set of teeth !! to understand the importance of oral care and prevention of tooth decay. Little Caterpillars have had great fun 'down on the farm' singing songs and learning actions and Makaton signs for Old McDonald and even created their very own farm scene to enhance their learning. We wish you all a peaceful weekend ❤❤

Who knew a winters morning could look so beautiful! We have had the best week enjoying walks in the winter sunshine and playing and exploring outdoors in the mud kitchens. Caterpillars have been learning how to form letters in phonics lessons and look at our experiments we did with salt and paint!! We also learnt about taking care of things that may break, and had the best time playing so carefully with our friends and real 'china' tea set! "anyone for a cuppa!" Little Caterpillars have been exploring body parts and learning about self care. They had a wonderful time bathing their babies, pointing to body parts such as eyes and nose and even helped their babies brush their teeth ! Wishing you all a very happy Sunday ❤❤

What happy times we have all had at Caterpillars this week! We made our very own Antarctic habitat with the frozen ice we discovered in the outdoor trays. Little Caterpillars had the best time mark making with lentils on the light up boards and exploring reflection, whilst caterpillars recreated the story of Stickman and gathered their own twigs to recreate Stickman! Wishing you all a very happy weekend ❤❤

We hope you have all enjoyed receiving your special festive sacks full of all the gifts and goodies hand crafted for you , by all of our wonderful children and babies. This week we have all enjoyed festive 'fun filled' christmas games, crafts and activities. Little caterpillars enjoyed sensory play and worked together to make their little christmas snowmen (so cute!) whilst Caterpillars were busy working together to construct their own interpretations of christmas trees, using natural wood resources. We all love sharing these precious experiences together in our 'home sweet home'. We would like to take this opportunity to wish all of our wonderful families both past and present, a very Merry Christmas...have the best time ever !!! 🥳🥳❤❤

Look at the beautiful winter sunrise we watched at Caterpillars this week ...and so begins another day filled with fun, laughter and love in our 'home from home' here at Caterpillars - happy weekend to you all 😃😃

Thank you!! Caterpillars children and little Caterpillars babies and toddlers have been busy raising money for Children in Need this week by wearing odd socks and Pudsey outfits ❤❤ Little Caterpillars have also been busy having fun exploring natural treasures, whilst Caterpillars children have searched for hidden pirates treasures, "Ooh arrrhhh me hearties!" We have also been learning about the natural habitats of animals and created our own jungles. In our experiment sessions, we looked at the concept of light and shadow, talked about this weeks full moon and had great fun with our light up board...another fun packed week of learning through first hand experiences. Wishing a wonderful weekend to you all 😃😃

"Lest we forget" Caterpillars children have been learning about the relevance of poppies for Remembrance Day this week and have been busy creating their own poppies. Our little Caterpillars even demonstrated how clever they were too when creating their own poppies for our 'poppy field'. We watched a lovely child friendly cbeebies video called 'Poppies' to help children understand about poppy day, which they really enjoyed -follow the link below so they can watch it again and share it with you -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/watch/poppies
wishing a very happy weekend to everyone ❤❤

A massive thankyou!! these are just some of the many kind donations from our wonderful families that have really helped others in need, living in our local area. We have delivered them safely to local foodbanks and will be collecting for them again over the next week or so if you can help - thank you so much ❤

What a busy week! we gathered autumnal cuttings and created beautiful floral displays for our classroom, we made coloured 'Spooky Spagetti !' the 'little Caterpillars' loved it!! and explored the texture, feel and smell. The we made our 'mummy lamps' (using old jars with bandages and tealights) and had great fun lighting them up in the dark!! Trick or treat goody pots were really fun to make too, especially our googly eyed cakes !! Then after listening to the story of 'The Little Red Hen' we made our own bread and had it for our tea...delicious !! Wow! we even got to see two beautiful rainbows ! Another fun filled week with all our lovely friends at Caterpillars...we wish you all a wonderful weekend😍😍

Harvest Festival week has offered such wonderful first hand experiences at Caterpillars. We created our very own farm shop and learnt about all of the different vegetables and compared size, shape and colour. We learnt what a 'root' vegetable is and watched the farmers harvesting the potatoes in the field right next to our garden!! We even tried to build our own tractors using the numicom resources! Our babies and toddlers in 'Little Caterpillars' explored their home made 'touchy feely' sensory bags, filled with soft pumpkin and seeds, and tried to work out where the lights were coming from! ...Can you help us? the children at Caterpillars will be collecting for the local foods banks from next week, so please could you help them by kindly donating what you can - thank you so much and best wishes for a lovely weekend 😃😃

who knew rolling sprouts could be so much fun! Caterpillars enjoyed fun filled experiments by squirting primary colours of paint onto card and rolling the sprouts around a tray. It was such fun watching the paints change colour. Caterpillars also remembered their learning about Elmer the elephant and enjoyed creating their very own patchwork patterns. We also had fun looking at our reflections in the mirrors and creating our own faces using natural resources, practicing number formation and making music with the drums..wishing you all a happy weekend 😃😃

Elmer the Elephant has been the 'star of the week' at Caterpillars! We have all enjoyed listening to stories about how Elmer felt different from all the other elephants and we talked about our feelings and how it is kind to care for one another and help one another feel 'special'. We also talked about how we can learn to manage our own emotions. Continuing our Elmer the elephant topic, we practiced mark making in our 'green jungle sand!' and enjoyed being creative when drawing our own Elmer. Our 'little Caterpillars' have enjoyed being creative with mark making too, using paint to create their own interpretations of Elmer. We have even enjoyed our group activities under the gazeebo between the downpours!! Wishing you all a very happy weekend 😃😃

...All things sunflowers! What a fun week we have had exploring the life cycle of a sunflower and painting our own beautiful sunflowers van Gogh style! Caterpillars have created such wonderful masterpieces don't you think? Even the little Caterpillars in the baby and toddler room created their very own masterpieces and have been busy making hand printed sunflowers. In our 'imaginary workshop' we used natural resources to create large scale sunflowers on the patio in our beautiful new garden-lots of happy fond memories being made already ❤wishing everyone a very happy weekend 😃😃