Enchanted Wood Preschool- Little Nest

🐿️Squirrels 🐿️

This week in the Squirrels room, we have been diving into our exciting summer theme ☀️🌻⛱️, hoping to coax the sunshine back!

Our highlights included a fantastic sensory tray walk, where the children used their bare feet 👣 to explore a variety of textures. We stomped through squishy baked beans 🫘, soft, chilled carrots 🥕, and fluffy icing sugar, finishing with a refreshing water tray to wash our feet. While a few were hesitant at first, with a little adult encouragement, everyone loved squishing their toes in the trays!

We also explored delicious summer flavors with a tasting tray. Using tongs and scoops, the children picked up and tried pineapple 🍍, mandarins 🍊, and pasta shapes. This was a wonderful way to encourage everyone to try new foods while developing their fine motor skills.

For some active maths fun, we played a bucket-and-beanbag game. The children practiced throwing beanbags into buckets, counting to three with each throw while using number visuals 🔢 to support their mathematical understanding.

We truly hope the sun makes an appearance for the weekend ahead. Have a wonderful break, and we will see our lovely Squirrels next week! 🐿️

🐰Rabbits🐰

☀️This week, the Rabbits have been exploring a variety of exciting summer-themed activities that have encouraged creativity, exploration, and learning through play.

🎨☀️We enjoyed painting paper plates to create bright and cheerful sunshine pictures choosing their own colours and exploring different ways to paint them. This activity helped to develop their fine motor skills while allowing their creativity to shine.

🍓🍎The children also took part in making their own delicious fruit salads. They carefully helped to prepare the apples and then added crushed biscuits, raisins, and colourful sprinkles to create a tasty summer treat. This activity provided opportunities to explore different textures and tastes, and allowed the children to show their cutting skills.

🏖️Our messy play trays were transformed into beach-themed sensory experiences, filled with foam for the sea and crushed cereal for the sand with bucket and spades, boats and fish for the children to dig, scoop and pour. These sensory trays help to support the children's language development, curiosity, and understanding of the world around them while providing lots of opportunities for imaginative play.

🍗Our role-play area this week was our BBQ where the children enjoyed pretending to cook food and serve these foods to their adults. Through role play we are helping them to develop their communication and social skills.

We are incredibly proud of how they have engaged with each activity, building their confidence, communication and fine motor skills. Well done Rabbits on another great week.☀️🍎🏖️🎨🌈

🦉🦊Owls & Foxes🦉🦊

☀️ This week, the Owls and Foxes have been thinking about summer as we notice the change in season! ☀️

Exploring different ways to regulate our body temperature when the weather is warmer has been the focus of our week. Through mark-making activities, we talked about the clothes we might wear to keep cool in the sunshine, with our teachers modelling key vocabulary such as hat, shorts and sunglasses 🧢🕶️

We also visited the Little Nest Ice Cream Shop, where we used our communication boards to choose which ice cream we wanted to make and enjoy. We selected our favourite flavours, sprinkles and sauces, and were very excited to get stuck in! Working alongside an adult, we scooped the cold ice cream from the tub before using our pincer grip to carefully add our chosen toppings ✨🍦

Water play was another big highlight of the week! We loved tipping and pouring water in and out of different containers, with some of us even climbing into the water tray and tipping water over our heads to cool down! To extend our interest in water play and food exploration, we added a variety of fruits including lemons, limes, strawberries and grapes. This helped us explore different colours, smells and flavours while engaging our senses💧🍎

We also incorporated role-play into our summer theme. We carefully applied sun cream to our dolls to help keep them safe in the sun, and we enjoyed making pretend ice creams using foam, sprinkles, scoops and cones. We then fed our delicious creations to our baby dolls, developing our imagination and nurturing skills along the way☀️👶🏼

The children also enjoyed creating their own ice cream cone crafts using sponges and a variety of colourful paints. They were encouraged to independently choose the colours they wanted to use by selecting them on an aided language board, verbally or by tapping their preferred choice. This provided a wonderful opportunity to develop communication and decision-making skills while expressing their creativity. The children were highly engaged throughout the activity, eagerly exploring different colours and textures as they stamped and painted their unique ice cream creations🍦🎨

The Owls and Foxes also took part in a cooking activity this week, making their very own fruit salad yoghurt. The children showed fantastic independence throughout the session, developing both their fine motor skills and important life skills. Using child-friendly knives, they carefully chopped a variety of fruits before adding them to their yoghurt creations. They were proud to make their own choices and enjoyed placing the ingredients into their bowls creating a delicious and healthy snack to enjoy. It was wonderful to see their confidence grow as they explored new foods! 🍓🍇

What a wonderful week in the Owls & Foxes!✨

🦔⭐️ Hedgehog ⭐️🦔

This week’s theme was Summer. Although the weather took a turn for the worse as the week went on, the children have thoroughly enjoyed their first week back after half term, exploring a wide range of summer-themed activities and sensory experiences.☀️🌻🍉⛱️🕶️

The children worked hard on their fine motor skills while creating beautiful starfish pictures. With support, they spread glue and carefully placed Cheerios onto their starfish’s, developing hand strength and coordination.⭐️🐟🤏

We also enjoyed a fun sensory activity searching for fish hidden inside frozen ice cubes. The children explored the different textures of the wet, cold ice, and some even enjoyed tasting it, helping to support their oral sensory needs. 👄🧊❄️🐟

When the weather was a little brighter, we made the most of our outdoor space and explored the water tray in the garden. This provided wonderful opportunities for the children to play alongside their peers, practise turn-taking, and develop their sharing skills.💦⛲️😀

Another favourite activity was our melted ice cream sensory tray. The children explored the wet cornflour-and-water mixture, observing how the thick, gloopy texture changed into a liquid when picked up. This sparked lots of curiosity and interest 🍦❄️🫠

The children also enjoyed creating their very own ice creams through edible sensory play, exploring a variety of textures, smells, and tastes in a safe and engaging way. 🍦🥣😀

The Hedgehogs enjoyed making fruit yoghurts during this week’s cooking session, exploring a range of different fruits as they created a special treat to take home. One of our Hedgehog “wow moments” this week was a child trying yoghurt and discovering that they enjoyed it – a fantastic achievement that we were all delighted to celebrate! ⭐️🍌🍎🍓🥭

Throughout the week, the children participated in a wide range of adult-led focus activities, delivered on a one-to-one or small-group basis. All activities are supported with visual aids and aided language boards to encourage communication and language development. These supports are modelled by staff and are embedded into daily practice to help develop the children’s speech, language, and communication skills. 😀👄📝

We have loved seeing the children settle back into nursery routines after half term and look forward to another exciting week of learning and exploration ahead! 😊

🐿️ Squirrels 🐿️

This week, we kicked off our first week back after half term by celebrating Carnival and Pride Week! Our wonderful children dove headfirst into the celebrations, embracing a range of messy, musical, and sensory activities.

🌈 Giant Rainbow Painting
We rolled out massive sheets of white paper to cover the floor and let the children get completely hands-on—and feet-on! The children used their hands and feet to spread bright paint and create gorgeous, unique patterns. As they mixed the paint, adults modeled color names, helping the children connect language to the vibrant visual changes around them.

🪘 African Drumming with Mango Tree
We had a fabulous, high-energy music session that got everyone moving and grooving. Some children loved dressing up and wearing masks, while everyone proved to be absolute naturals at banging the drums and singing along to the songs. This was a brilliant session for rhythm, coordination, and building confidence through shared group singing.

🍓 Sensory Fruit Rainbow Tray
We created a beautiful, edible rainbow in our sensory tray to practice fine motor skills and explore new textures. We filled the tray with a variety of colorful fruits like oranges, grapes, bananas, and strawberries, surrounded by visual cards to help the children identify each one. The children practiced their pincer grip to pick up individual pieces and used spoons and forks to build up their cutlery confidence.
This was a wonderful, pressure-free environment for children who find different food textures challenging. We were so proud to see some very brave children smelling the fruit, touching it, and even happily giving it a taste!

A massive well done to all our amazing Squirrels for such a joyful, creative, and brave week. We are so proud of you all! ⭐️

🦔⭐️ Hedgehogs ⭐️🦔

This Weeks theme was Pride & Carnival ✨🌈🎶
This week, our theme focused on Pride and Carnival, celebrating inclusion, joy, and the recognition of diversity in all its forms. Through a variety of engaging activities, we encouraged curiosity, respect, and a sense of belonging, helping every child feel seen, valued, and proud of who they are. ⭐️😀

We were delighted to welcome a very special visitor from Mango Tree this week. The children had the opportunity to express themselves through music and dance, beating drums to the rhythm of the music and immersing themselves in the vibrant carnival atmosphere. Many children enjoyed dressing up and embracing the carnival spirit, creating a wonderful celebration of culture, creativity, and self-expression.💃🎶🥁🪇

Our theme also provided lots of opportunities to explore colour in different ways. The Hedgehogs developed their colour recognition skills through sorting and matching activities while building their vocabulary. Children used aided language boards to make requests and further develop their communication skills throughout the week. 🟩🟥🟨🟦

Things got a little messy as we explored a variety of colourful paints using our bodies and a wide range of resources. Some of our Hedgehogs eagerly jumped straight in, exploring the paint with their hands and feet. Others chose to use tools such as paintbrushes, rollers, and cars to create marks and patterns, while some preferred to observe from the sidelines and engage in their own way. We loved seeing each child explore and participate at their own pace. 🎨🫟🖌️🧑‍🎨

The children also created beautiful carnival-inspired masks, decorating them with a variety of materials and colours. This activity supported the development of fine motor skills as the children used their fingers and thumbs to pick up, place, and stick different resources onto their masks. 🎭🎨🧑‍🎨

As always, we thoroughly enjoyed our weekly sessions with Jo Jingles and Victoria, as well as Babyballet with Miss Laura. Through music, movement, and dance, the children expressed themselves creatively while developing their attention, listening skills, and ability to engage in activities for longer periods of time. 🩰🎶🎤

What a colourful, joyful, and inclusive week we've had! We are so proud of all our children and the wonderful ways they continue to explore, learn, and celebrate themselves and others. 💜🌈🎭🥁

🦉🦊 Owls & Foxes 🦉🦊

This week the Owls & Foxes have had a fantastic week of learning and celebrating Carnival & Pride 🎭🌈

The children enjoyed making their own carnival-themed masks using feathers, dabber pens and stickers. They explored different colours, textures and materials to create their unique designs🎭🎨

We were delighted to be joined by Mango Tree, where we banged our drums to the rhythm of the music and celebrated together. Some of the children and staff even dressed in colourful carnival outfits, helping to bring the vibrant atmosphere to life!🪘🎶

The children also explored a sensory tray filled with cereal and zoo animals. They demonstrated wonderful imaginative play, taking the animals on a carnival parade, dancing, singing and creating animal sounds. We also enjoyed learning about different animals through Jo Jingles, encouraging communication, listening and engagement🦁🐘

In our cooking activity, the children made their own colourful pizza wraps. They used their senses to explore a variety of ingredients including peppers, sweetcorn, cheese and tomato purée. Some children independently spread the tomato purée using a knife, developing their confidence, fine motor skills and independence🫑🧀

The children also enjoyed a colour-matching activity, where they matched coloured blocks to the correct coloured bowls. During the activity, we introduced and reinforced key vocabulary such as same, different and matching, supporting the children's understanding of colours and early mathematical concepts🎨🔢

Everyone got creative making their own rainbow using cotton wool, pipettes and coloured water. The children used their fine motor skills to carefully squeeze the pipettes, watching the coloured water drip onto the cotton wool to create beautiful rainbow patterns. This activity encouraged hand-eye coordination, concentration and creativity🌈💦

Our children had a wonderful sensory learning experience exploring a variety of colourful fruits and vegetables arranged in the shape of a rainbow to celebrate Pride. Through touching, smelling, sorting, and discovering different textures, colours, and shapes. It was fantastic to see their curiosity, communication, and confidence grow as they explored the vibrant rainbow together⭐💚

To finish off our Carnival and Pride celebrations, the children explored a colourful musical instrument tray filled with bright scarves and their favourite instruments, including drums, shakers, bells and a piano. We danced, sang and moved along to carnival music, celebrating together through music, movement and self-expression🎵🥁

It has been wonderful to celebrate diversity, creativity and self-expression while supporting the children's learning through fun, engaging and meaningful experiences🌈❤️

🐰 Rabbits 🐰

🌈🎭 This week we have been celebrating Pride & Carnival Week, and the Rabbits have had a fantastic time exploring bright colours, creativity, and new experiences through a range of fun and engaging activities.

🎭 The children enjoyed making their own colourful carnival masks. They experimented with paint, stampers, and a variety of different materials to decorate their creations. This activity encouraged creativity and imagination while also helping the children to develop their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and independence as they selected and applied their chosen resources.

🌈 In our messy tray, the children had the opportunity to explore a rainbow of different foods. They tasted a variety of colourful fruits and vegetables, encouraging them to be adventurous and try new flavours, textures, and smells.

🎨 Throughout the week, we also enjoyed lots of colourful mark-making activities using paint and different tools. The children mixed colours, and enjoyed creating their own artwork using their fine motor skills.

🍕 The Rabbits also took part in a cooking activity to encourage turn-taking, and sharing with their peers. Together, they made their own delicious pizzas using wraps, tomato purée, cheese, sweetcorn, and peppers. The children enjoyed choosing their toppings and tasting them as they picked what they wanted.

⭐ We are so proud of all the children for their enthusiasm, creativity, and willingness to try new experiences and tastes throughout the week. They have shown fantastic listening skills, confidence, and teamwork while taking part in all of our Pride and Carnival celebrations.
Well done, Rabbits ⭐🌈🎭🐰

🐿️ Squirrels 🐿️

This week our Squirrels have had a wonderful time exploring activities they truly enjoy.

During our child‑initiated week, the children loved our under‑the‑sea water tray filled with sea animals and bubbles. This was fantastic for developing their fine motor skills as they searched for the animals, and it gave adults the chance to model and name the different sea creatures. 🐠🌊🐳🐙🪸

In our jelly bowl, we hid the children’s family photos for them to find. This supported their ability to recognise familiar faces. With spoons and pinchers available, the children practised scooping and gripping — great for strengthening those fine motor muscles. They also had the chance to taste, smell and touch the jelly, which many of them really enjoyed. 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒🥄🪼

The children also explored our tasting tray, which included grapes, bananas, raisins, strawberries and oranges. Using knives, spoons and forks, they practised scooping, cutting and picking up the different fruits. They loved exploring the textures, smells and flavours of each one. 🍌🍊🍓🍇

In our gloop messy tray, some tall, scary dinosaurs got stuck! The children used their fine motor skills to pull them out of the gloop, enjoying the sensory experience as they felt the texture and rubbed it between their fingers. Adults modelled dinosaur names and sounds, supporting the children’s communication and language development. 🦖🦕

Squirrels also had another brilliant week of Jo Jingles and Baby Ballet. We explored different instruments and listened carefully to the sounds they made. In Baby Ballet, Miss Lara gave the children a magical parachute ride, sliding them gently up and down — they absolutely loved it and were full of smiles. 🩰🧑‍🩰🥁🪇

A huge well done to all our amazing Squirrels this term. We wish all our families a joyful and sunny half‑term. 🐿️😊☀️💚

🐰 Rabbits 🐰

This week the Rabbits have been exploring lots of exciting activities inspired by the children’s interests! 🎨✨

They have thoroughly enjoyed painting using a variety of different objects such as toy vehicles, brushes, their hands, pens and stampers to create unique marks, patterns, and textures. It was wonderful to watch them experiment with colours, movements, and techniques while expressing their own creativity and ideas. Activities like these help to develop imagination, communication and hand-eye coordination. 🖌️

👃✋ They also explored our messy sensory trays that was filled with a range of exciting smells, textures, and materials. They explored new scents, and used their hands and tools to mix, scoop and pour. Sensory play encourages children to use their senses to learn about the world around them while also supporting language development, curiosity, problem-solving, and imaginative play.

💪✏️ We have also been practising our fine motor skills through a variety of engaging activities. These have included squeezing, pinching, mark-making, using tools, and manipulating small objects to strengthen the muscles in their fingers and hands. Developing fine motor control is an important part of preparing children for everyday tasks such as drawing, writing, fastening clothes, and self-care skills.

We are so proud of all our children for their enthusiasm, engagement, and willingness to try new experiences throughout the week. 😊✨