Little Jem's ChildCare

This week we enjoyed an exciting “Under the Sea” theme and explored a variety of sea creatures through fun, hands-on activities. The children investigated sea animals in the sensory tray, using their senses to explore textures, colours, and different creatures found in the ocean. They also matched toy sea animals to picture cards, developing their recognition, communication, and problem-solving skills 🌊🐋🐠🐡

The children had great fun using the soft fishing rod to catch coloured fish, supporting their hand-eye coordination, turn-taking, and fine motor development🎣

Creative activities included making fish and jellyfish crafts, as well as sea-themed paintings, where the children explored colours, textures, and different ways to express themselves artistically 🐟🪼

We talked together about how fish live under the sea and discussed other sea creatures that live in the ocean, encouraging curiosity and extending vocabulary 🦈🐙🪸

The children also enjoyed listening to a range of sea-themed stories during group time, including Clumsy Crab and Sneezy Shark, helping to support listening skills, attention, and language development🦈🦀

Outdoor play continued to be a favourite, with the children enjoying bikes and scooters to develop their physical skills and coordination. They also spent time drawing with pens, encouraging mark-making and creativity.

This week our tiny caterpillars arrived, and we are very excited to watch them grow and transform into butterflies! 🐛🦋

We enjoyed lots of creative activities linked to our caterpillar theme. The children made caterpillar crafts using paper plates to create wiggly bodies, and they used pom-poms and paint to print colourful caterpillars onto leaves🖌🖍

Our Hungry Caterpillar sensory tray was a big hit, filled with twisty pasta, magnifying glasses, and toy caterpillars and butterflies for the children to explore🐛🦋

We also retold The Very Hungry Caterpillar story using felt boards and story props, encouraging communication, imagination, and storytelling skills 📖

Alongside our themed activities, the children had lots of role play fun in the home corner kitchen. We also practised our fine motor skills through drawing activities and learning to use scissors safely and carefully✂️

We also picked our countries for our world cup sweepstake, each child picked two countries each and the winner will get a special football themed prize ⚽️🏟

Last week the children explored the importance of keeping our teeth healthy and learning about healthy foods. The children enjoyed a variety of fun and engaging activities linked to oral health and healthy eating 😁🥗

We practiced brushing teeth using our dentist role-play toys and talked about how to keep our teeth clean. The children matched healthy foods to “good teeth” and unhealthy foods to “bad teeth,” helping them understand which foods help keep our bodies and teeth healthy. They also had great fun brushing the dinosaurs’ teeth using toothbrushes, toothpaste, and water🥕🥒👍
🍬 🍭👎

For a creative activity, the children painted yellow teeth white using toothbrushes and paint, developing their fine motor skills while learning about cleaning teeth 🦷🖌

We listened to stories about healthy eating and enjoyed playing the lunch box game, choosing foods that are good for us 📖

Outdoors, the children explored the garden, digging in the stone pit and using the loose parts to build and create 🪏⚖️

We also enjoyed a baking activity where the children helped make delicious cheese biscuits, encouraging independence and turn-taking skills 👨‍🍳

The children showed wonderful enthusiasm throughout the week and enjoyed learning through play and hands-on experiences.

Please check the toy list of recall products.

Full list of 39 products recalled over sand asbestos fears with schools closed We have made a list of all the items containing sand that have been recalled this year due to possible contamination with asbestos

We follow the new safer sleep guidelines from the government.

This week the children explored the colours red, yellow and blue through a variety of fun and engaging activities. They enjoyed learning about colour mixing and discovering how new colours can be made by combining the primary colours together 🟥🟨🟦

The children took part in a sensory tray activity using oats with hidden red, yellow and blue objects. This supported their sensory development as well as encouraging problem solving and fine motor skills while searching and exploring 🌈

During creative activities, the children practised using paint brushes carefully to paint inside the lines and experimented with mixing colours to create new ones. They also made colourful shapes using red, yellow and blue stickers, helping to develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor control 🖌✏️

The children enjoyed colour sorting activities using everyday objects, building their understanding of matching, sorting and recognising colours in the environment around them 🎈🛵🧶

Story time focused on books with lots of colours, including The Colour Monster. The children talked about feelings and emotions linked to different colours and explored how the Colour Monster felt throughout the story 😀☹️😡😱

The children also spent time outdoors developing their physical skills by blowing bubbles, using the slides and riding on ride-on toys. These activities encouraged coordination, balance and lots of active play 🛝🚲

This week the children explored the life cycle of a frog through discussions and engaging activities.
They enjoyed reading a variety of books about frogs and developed their early maths skills by counting frogs and matching quantities to the correct numerals. The children also strengthened their fine motor skills by creating their own frog pictures 🐸

In addition, they experimented with colour mixing, combining blue and yellow to make green, linking this to their frog theme 🟦+🟨=🟩
Sensory play was incorporated as the children had great fun playing with toy frogs in slime.

The week also included a visit to the local park, where the children practised holding hands and learned about road safety, discussing when it is safe and unsafe to cross the road 🛑🚦🚸

Last week in, we explored our growing topic by planting cress seeds and learning about how plants grow. The children also enjoyed painting beautiful flowers, using a variety of colours and techniques to create their own spring-inspired artwork seeds🌱🌷

For Earth Day, we made paper plate Earths using blue paint for the oceans and green tissue paper for the land. This helped the children learn about looking after our planet while developing their fine motor skills through painting and sticking🌍

To celebrate St George’s Day, the children created their own shields, decorating them with paint sticks and colourful stickers. They also made dragons using toilet paper tubes and red tissue paper, which encouraged creativity and imaginative play while linking to the story of St George and the Dragon🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

We also spent lots of time in the garden, where the children enjoyed role playing with the doctor’s kit and tools, riding bikes, climbing on the slides, and developing their physical skills through active outdoor play. These activities supported teamwork, communication, confidence, and imaginative learning.

Last week, we learned about mini beasts. We talked about where they live, what they eat, and how they grow.
We went on a bug hunt walk and found spiders, ladybirds, woodlice, and bees. The children enjoyed looking closely at the different bugs and discussing where they might live 🕷🐝🐞🪲
We sorted the bugs into groups depending on whether they had legs or not, and whether they had wings or not. This helped us develop our observation and sorting skills 🐜🪳🐛🦟
We also got creative by making different bugs using paints, glue, and stickers. The children loved designing their own mini beasts and talking about their features.
In our sensory play, we explored toy bugs hidden in the soil tray, which encouraged curiosity, imagination, and hands-on learning.

This week was national storytelling week 📚. So we have spent the week looking at our favourite stories.
What the ladybird heard 🐞, going on a bear hunt 🐻, the very hungry caterpillar 🐛, and the gruffalo 🐭.
We made crafts, went on a bear hunt sensory walk putting our feet into lots of different textures from the story, and had a great visit out to the library to find more stories that we enjoy.
We have also had some new little ones join us the last two weeks, who have settled in wonderfully thanks to all of our bigger children making them feel so welcome ❤️