Earlswood Early Years

This week we have enjoyed a range of textures in the red playdough such as lentils, pine cones, leaves and sequences. Playdough activities encourage our fine motor skills when rolling, squeezing and the use of playdough tools.
In the book corner we have looked at a range of books and props such as hand puppets or soft animals encouraging language development when repeating words or sounds.
The littler babies have enjoyed walking and crawling in the garden to find the balls. we have enjoyed exploring the shaving foam in the tuff tray, using glue spatulas to spread and make marks in the shaving foam, the children started to use their fingers and whole hands and introduced cars into the foam, and we looked at the tracks they left behind.

Over the past two weeks the Saplings have definitely been showing off their creative side as we have focused on ' Goldilocks and the three bears' and ' The Gruffalo'🌳🐻🐹
In the garden we have spent time painting and colouring in the bear family using lots of different mediums and working on our fine motor skills while doing this! The Saplings were serving porridge to our teddy bears using lots of different scoops and different size bowls, they matched the correct size bowls to the different bears🍧 We also used frozen paint lollipops to draw on the fence🎨 Megan created a lovely woodland themed tuff tray so we could pretend to be in the forest with the Gruffalo and all the creatures!
In our room over the past couple of weeks we have focused alot on our literacy, the Saplings traced letters, words, different type of lines and also animals😃 We played with the connecting straws creating shapes, houses and much more! We have completed lots of puzzles , the Saplings are brilliant at matching up the right domino's with eachother too🦓🦒

This week in little acorns we have had lots of fun exploring different textures in the tuff tray with shaving foam and cornflour, cereal and blue sand. The older children have enjoyed making marks in a variety of ways throughout the week and have had the opportunity to use different mark making tools.
We have had lots of fun in the garden with practising balancing over the bridge. Little Acorns have investigated many different water activities this week with glitter, bubbles and coloured water.
the babies have enjoyed the ramp and slide in the room, copying familiar phrases like ready, steady go. In the tuff tray the children enjoyed bathing the dolls with bubbles, enjoying the sensory experience of the texture of the bubbles and the strawberry smell

This weekLittle Acorns have enjoyed playing with the foam ramps and cars, the wooden car garage and small world figures in the aeroplane following their own interests with the small world and vehicles. Lots of the children explored the natural baskets with a range of materials and textures. In the role play area lots of cups of teas were made.
In our tuff tray we rolled blue playdough also using good fine skills learning to roll with rolling pins.
Our younger babies had fun with the basket of musical instruments making movements and sounds.
We have been out to our garden where sensory play was set up in the tuff trays. We explored the blue sand tray filled with chrome pots and pans for filling and emptying.
Our water trays were a blue glitter ocean sea theme filled with sparkling glitter and sea creatures the other tray was filled with water and coloured scoops and jugs.

To celebrate the Commonwealth Games coming to town this weekend and following the interest that many of our Saplings have for sports and ball games we decided to set up some of the sports in the garden for the children to try. 😊 We had lots of fun playing badminton🏸 and basketball🏀 as well as table tennis 🏓 and races through our tunnel. We learnt how to play the games we hadn't done before like passing and throwing a rugby ball!They all really enjoyed it and had a good go at everything, some did really well too and won their games (perhaps some future athletes!)🏅 🥈🥉

This week in Little Acorns have enjoyed a blue peppermint scented playdough, we used rollers and stampers to mark make onto the dough and our hands and fingers for sensory play.
We have enjoyed the wooden slope and push along toys.
The children enjoyed making sand pictures with glue and coloured sand.
In the construction area we have played with the bricks and wore our builders hats looking at our reflection in the mirror whilst dressing up, we had choice of a number of tabards and workmen high vis jackets to try on.
In the role play area plenty of pretend cups of tea and fruit have been played with for our imaginative play.
Our circle time was singing our favourite nursery rhymes and actions.

Acorns have had a wonderful week at nursery, despite it being a little too hot at the beginning of the week. We enjoyed some wonderful ice and water play, we watched as the ice cubes slipped out of our fingers, and we used our cups and pots to scoop up the coloured water and watched as we poured it back into the tray. We explored our animal names and sounds using our tuff tray filled with green sand and farm animals, we practiced neighing, mooing, and oinking! We also enjoyed practicing making lots of fun shapes with our playdough, we made burgers, sausages, and pizzas! We explored our roleplay kitchen, using our play knives and chopping boards to chop up our food and then cooked it in our pots and pans before serving up our yummy food for our friends to eat! We made some wonderful paintings using our new paint dabbers, using lots of bright colours! We also enjoyed some fun in the garden towards the end of the week as the temperature cooled down a little. We splashed around in our water tray, we climbed up and down our ramp, and we pretended to talk to our friends on our phone tubes. We read some books in the sunshine, and we practiced our facial expressions in the mirrors!
We also had some new additions to our room this week, Caterpillars! As next week we will be looking at The Hungry Caterpillar as our book of the week, so we have got some caterpillars to help nurse into beautiful butterflies! Stay tuned to see how they turn out!
See you next week Acorns!

The Saplings have had a lovely couple of weeks in their room and in the garden😇 Last week we were still reading the three little pigs as our book of the week, the Saplings helped Charlotte and Faye create one of the three little pigs houses and then used the foam bricks to mark make with paint on the outside of the house🏠 We created a tuff tray full of lots of different sensory play to make the pigs farm the Saplings loved this especially getting messy with the angel delight mud🤩 The children also decorated their own three little pig houses with straw and glitter! Our book for this week is ' Down by the cool of the pool' so we have lots of water play and animal activities🏝 A lovely way to cool down on one of the hottest days was having ice play out, we filled a tray with ice water and lots of frogs and fish🐸 The Saplings cut out their own frogs and then had a frog race with eachother which was so much fun! We also had a lovely tuff tray In the garden with lily pads, a fountain, nets and frogs , they had so much fun with this trying to catch the animals with the nets and it was really enjoyable for a hot day🥰🌞

This week in little acorns we have been exploring the coloured sand and the marks we can make it using the paintbrushes. We had lots fun exploring the marshmallow moon dough and testing out the textures and shapes we could make. We kept cool this week by exploring ice cubes, and splashing as they melted

It is going to be another hot week ahead please can we remember to apply sun cream to your child each day before nursery. Can you also remember to bring their water bottles to keep them hydrated 🔥 🌞

The Saplings have had a brilliant week we have been busy exploring our story of the week the "Three Little Pigs" the children have been building houses using straw, bricks and sticks. To support the children with their mathematics we have been measuring and using different shapes to draw our own house designs. We loved using our senses to play with the pigs in chocolate mud 🐷
We have been practicing our "huff" and "puffs" using straws to make bubbles and then later in the week making huge bubbles with hoops!
During our circle times we have been looking at our new sounds and learning how to re-tell and act out the story of the three pigs.
Amy has been helping us play bingo which has been a huge hit and a game that we keep asking to play again and again 😃
On Thursday we even made a house so big we could fit inside! We then decorated this using our role play bricks to print with paint!
Enjoy the weekend and we will see you all next week.

Eid Mubarak to all those celebrating 🌟

This week the Saplings have had a wonderful time enjoying the sunshine and our story of the week 'Cowboys Can Be Kind'🤠 We have been focusing on how to have kind hands and what good sharing is. We had great fun designing our own listening ears to wear for circle times 😃
In the room this week Claire supported us in circle time to practice our listening skills by matching the animal pictures to the sounds, we also loved the colour hunt game!
In the garden this week Saplings have spent lots of time doing water play washing the cars and washing up in the mud kitchen. The potion station has been moved and new resources added which we have loved exploring😎 The Saplings practiced their ball skills by seeing how many balls we can get into the tyres by moving closer and further away!
Have a great weekend and we will see you all next week for another fun week, exploring the the 'Three Little Pigs' story.

This week in little acorns we have had lots of fun playing with the cars and our new car garage. The babies enjoyed exploring the moon dough experimenting with the new and different textures it provided. The babies enjoyed the sensory balls in the garden and lots of splashing in the water. We had lots of fun with our new bubble machine, popping and catching all the bubbles and singing tiny turtle.

The Saplings have had a brilliant week full of lots of free play, circle times, dancing, singing and much more!
In the room the Saplings have enjoyed creating different masterpieces with colourful playdough each day, they like making food out of the playdough and serving it to their friends😇 The children took time to admire themselves in the mirror then draw their interpretation of their facial features which was lovely to see. During circle times over the past week the Saplings have so much fun and have improved massively on certain skills such as their listening and communication😊 CIaire has done some lovely circle times for us focusing on farm animals and the zoo, the children identified the animals when they were mentioned in 'The Zoo' book🦁 We also focused on our literacy skills as the Saplings have been writing their own names and they are progressing amazingly!
Outside in the garden this past week have had lots of wonderful sensory play with many different textures and have enjoyed sorting different objects into certain areas in the tuff trays😎 One of the Saplings came in and asked us kindly if we could make blue ice cream! So that'd exactly what we did we created our own ice creams in the garden with shaving foam and cornflakes as sprinkles🍦The Saplings showed off their wonderful artistic skills when they helped Shelley create a real life rainbow fish!!

Acorns have had a wonderful week a nursery. We have enjoyed manipulating and shaping different coloured playdough, using our hands, cutters and rolling pins. We used fruit to print patterns on paper; created our own monsters using glitter, sequins, string and glue; practiced our maths skills by completing puzzles and enjoyed a large circle time where we took it in turns to pick a song, and did the hand gestures along with our friends. We spent time exploring some new sounds with our musical instruments, shaking and tapping along with our friends. We spent time mark making on some coloured card, using lots of different crayon colours, creating fun shapes and lines. We enjoyed our roleplay kitchen, pretending to cook some yummy dishes for our friends. We also spent time reading some books in our cosy corner, like Old MacDonald, and The Gruffalo!
In the garden we loved exploring our reflections in the mirrors, we started to talk about our facial features. We also enjoyed exploring a cornflake tuff tray, pouring and crunching it. As usual, we adored splashing in the water tray, once again practicing our pouring skills (and getting very soggy in the process)! We climbed through, and on top of our caterpillar tunnel, and we also found a lot of enjoyment in the drain pipes, making games of rolling balls and cars into a sticky hair gel and glitter tuff tray!
This week we explored our book of the Week, Stick Man. We really enjoyed looking at all of the wonderful pictures, and practising the different rhymes as we went along. Next week we will be exploring The Postman Bear!

This week Little Acorns have had lots of fun with the sunny weather and they loved their time in their little paddling pool making lots of splashes🌞 We enjoyed exploring the citrus fruit ice discovering textures and smells🍊🍋 We have enjoyed having snack out in the baby garden in the afternoons. We loved the pop up tent and tunnel with all the ball pit balls!

We enjoyed a special treat of ice lollies in the garden today! 🌞 ⛱ 🍦

This week the Saplings have a wonderful time celebrating national smile month and healthy eating week😃
In the room this week we have been very creative making lots of artwork, all the Saplings made their own mouth with lovely teeth and they even made their own toothbrush!! The children completed activities to really help their fine motor skills and they all did brilliantly😊 We also had a lovely Hungry Caterpillar filled afternoon which the Saplings loved🐛 Claire very kindly read us the book and following this the Saplings spent time doing a food treasure hunt in the garden and after collecting all the food they brought it back in and separated it all into colours😇
In the garden this week Saplings have spent lots of time doing water and ice play which has also helped them cool down during this sunny week☀️ We tried to break fruit out of ice blocks and just had an amazing time splashing around with our friends😎

This week Little Acorns have explored the book area, reading some of our favourite books, which helps with their language and communication skills. Little Acorns have also been enjoying crawling through our new caterpillar tunnel in our baby garden which improves their gross motor skills. Babies have also sat together on the garden mats playing with our sensory toys relaxing in the sun and playing with parachutes, watching as the balls bounced on the top as we shook it. We have also explored the water trays in our baby garden with lots of splashing! Little Acorns enjoyed a fun activity called 'catching fish' in the tuff tray including cornflakes and shells. We have enjoyed tower stacking with foam blocks, pouring with pots and pans in the sand pit and playing with wooden coloured shapes. Babies did daily circle time with singing and instruments which improves their communication and language further! We have also enjoyed exploring some colours, this week we looked at the colour purple, playing with all the purple objects we had in our suitcase. In little acrons we have been making father day cards, exploring the sensory feeling of paint using our hands. We enjoyed making marks in the flour with paint brushes and our fingers. Some babies have really enjoyed climbing up and down the slide in the room this week, experimenting with different techniques to reach the top.

We are really enjoying our brand new baby garden! :)

This week Acorns have enjoyed lots of fun activities, as well as the wonderful hot, sunny weather we've had! We enjoyed playing with some red, coconut scented playdough, as well some deep blue playdough. We used our textured rolling pins to make patterns in the dough, and we cut out lots of different animals using our cookie cutters. We spent time doing some Father's Day cards using some paint and glitter to put a dinosaur on the front of the card, as well as painting some salt dough dinosaurs to send home! We also enjoyed sitting in our reading corner and reading some of our new books, such as The Flying Bath, Picnic Express, and our book of the week, Exactly Like Me. As we read through our book of the week we used our soft animal toys to practice their names, and colours, as well as the noises each animal might make. We tried to put our wooden puzzle pieces back on to their poles, making sure they all fit together nicely.
Even though it has been a little hot this week, we have managed to enjoy some time in the garden (all suncreamed up of course!) We climbed through our colourful caterpillar tunnel, and practised throwing balls through some hoops! We watched as the glitter inside some of the balls separated as we shook them, filling the inside with lots of pretty colours. We then spent time splashing and pouring water from the water tray, some of us getting a little wet! We also enjoyed some mark making using some paintbrushes in a tray of sparkly flour to draw some fun lines and shapes.
Next week's story of the week will be The Koala who could!
See you next week Acorns!!!

We are proud to announce our new under two's garden is now open!! Just in time to enjoy this lovely weather 🌞

This week Acorns have enjoyed lots of wonderful activities. We practised driving our toy cars around our airport and parking garage, making beeping noises as we went along, and practising some new words, such as Car and Plane. We tried drawing some beautiful flowers, and scary monsters with our crayons, using lots of different colours. We have explored our roleplay area, trying on different outfits and pretending to cook some delicious food in the kitchen. We sat down in our cosy corner and read some of our favourite books, and we also enjoyed choosing some of our favourite nursery rhymes from our song bag and singing them with our friends. We have enjoyed some messy play, stomping the dinosaurs through our mud pit made from cornflour, cocoa powder, and water. We enjoyed the sound it made, and also watching the mud splash around as we moved the dinosaurs through it. Acorns also played in our new garden, we enjoyed crawling through our new colourful caterpillar tunnel, as well as trying to slot some balls through the holes on the side. We then splashed around in our water play tray, scooping up the water and pouring it back in! We also enjoyed shaking some balls filled with glitter and watching as the glitter spread out inside the ball, which also helped us learn some new colours! We loved splashing our hands in the tray full of glittery water and shiny objects, watching as the light bounced off of them! We tried to spot the horses in the next field through the fence and practiced our horsey noises too. We also really enjoyed shaking our new parachute and jumping underneath it, as well as watching the balls bounce on top of it as we moved it around.
See you next week Acorns!

Little Acorns last week have enjoyed Goldilocks and the Three bears, we read the story and enjoyed a activity where we had three different sized bears, bowls and spoons with cereal mixtures for sensory play.We played in a yellow coloured coconut scented tuff tray filled with bugs and cornflour. Enjoyed our Dear Zoo display.
Outside Little Acorns have enjoyed lots of sand and water trays, building blocks, hoops and balls, even a teddies bear picnic with our snacks.
Lots of fine motor skills activities such as aqua draw mark making mats and playdough.
Happy birthday to Arlo over the weekend.
This week we look forward to Jubilee celebrations please wear red,white and blue if you would like to.
Jubilee party day on Wednesday.

This week Acorns have enjoyed an extremely busy week! We have enjoyed some mark making using colourful crayons and paint markers to colour in our Union Jack flags ready to decorate the nursery for the Queen's Jubilee next week. We spent time in our cosy corner doing some reading and singing some of our favourite songs from our song bag. We also enjoyed playing in a dinosaur swamp tuff tray, stomping the dinosaurs through the cereal, listening to the different soumds they made. We also enjoyed playing with our playdough, pretending to make lots of yummy food for our friends to eat! We also made ourselves a car garage and ramp out of a cardboard box to run our cars up and down!
We also spent time in the garden, enjoying some sparkly water play, splashing the boats along in the water. We lined up some wooden planks to walk along to practice our balancing, as well as climbing through the tires and along the baskets. We also enjoyed playing with our phone tubes, talking to our friends through the phones! We pretended to be painters, and went around painting the fences using our paintbrushes and buckets of water. We also searched through the sand tray for buried treasure, and enjoyed scooping and pouring the sands using our spades and buckets!
Have a great weekend Acorns, and we look forward to celebrating the Jubilee with you next week!

Happy Friday😀!!!

The Saplings have had a fantastic week spending lots of it in the garden enjoying the sunshine 🌞 In the garden this week we have lots of messy play which the Saplings really love, the children started of the week bathing their babies in soapy water and also cementing the bricks together with shaving foam! The Saplings spent lots of quality time with their friends in the garden drawing on the whiteboards and writing their names😇 We also did lots of painting with brushes and our hands with lots of lovely colours!! The Saplings really enjoyed spending time scooping the sand and using the sea creature shaped moulds. The Saplings creates their own potions in the garden and really enjoyed using the measuring instruments to pour these out and into the potion station😊 The mud kitchen was also one of the Saplings favourite activities this week!
In our room this week we have been working on our fine motor skills by spending time using the peg boards, the Saplings also love creating patterns and shapes with the pegs! Jess created an under the sea playdough table this week and the children have loved mixing playdough with shells and little sea creatures 💙 We spent time completing puzzles this week which gives them a lovely sense of achievement when finishing😇 As the start of the Jubilee begins the Saplings have created amazing pictures of the Queen using shapes, glitter and shiny gems, we will be doing lots of Jubilee themed activities in the coming week👑! Every morning this week the Sapkings have had a lovely circle time, saying good morning to all their friends, reading books and singing our favourite songs😊
Have a lovely weekend everyone!!

Little Acorns have enjoyed lots of fun splashing in the bubbles, fish and boats. We also added lavender to our scented potion station, citrus fruits were added such as oranges and limes. Lots of outdoor fun in the sun, enjoying garden time playing football, babies sitting together in the sand tray. Little Acorns explored 6 different sensory tubs filled with 6 different textures and smells such as custard, bugs in the mud, sand and coconut shells, lavender, citrus and dry crunchy cereal mix.

For our fine motorskills we used playdough tools to roll, cut and stretch blue coloured dough. Our colour of the week was BLUE. Little Acorns also played with the musical instruments, dance ribbons, creating lots of music and movement.
See you next week Little Acorns!

This week Acorns have enjoyed some wonderful activities, and have spent lots of time enjoying the sunny weather at the beginning of the week! In the Acorns rooms this week we have enjoyed exploring our Book of the Week, Handa's Surprise. We explored all of the different safari animals in the story, looking at Zebras, Giraffes, Elephants, and Antelopes, trying to learn their names, and all of the different noises they make, as well as the different colours of their coats. We also used this story to explore some new fruit we hadn't seen before, such as Mango, Guava and Avocado, looking at all of the different colours they were. We also enjoyed playing in our roleplay section, using the kitchen to prepare some yummy food for our friends, and putting on our construction clothes to build some big towers using our building blocks.
Acorns also spent lots of time out in the garden this week enjoying the sunshine, we enjoyed some water play, washing our babies in some soapy water to make sure they were clean. We also enjoyed messy play this week, using shaving foam to stick our construction bricks together to build our walls! We had lots of physical play this week, kicking the balls around the garden and chasing after them, as well as rolling the hoops to our friends and trying to catch them. We also enjoyed playing some tag with the Saplings, and looking over the fence to say hello to the horses in the field next door!
Have a wonderful weekend Acorns!