Over the past weeks the Burrow children have spent lots of time at the pond with their nets. It’s been great to see what is in the pond this time of year as most pond life have left the pond for the winter. It also acts as a great comparison to introduce the concept of seasons and change.

We spoke about the decking around the pond and the fact that wood becomes slippy when wet and the need to walk carefully and slowly to avoid accidents.

Once we had finished our snack and our tea I went through the pond rules with the children which as you could imagine are very important when near water with little ones. Here are the rules:

We lie on our tummies when at the pond edge
We walk around the decking to sit on the bench or put our findings in a bucket
We stay out of the pond. The pond is for wildlife and we need to respect that. We get to investigate it by using nets.
It was great to test the children’s listening and understanding when it came to our pond rules, and more importantly we all stayed dry.

The children were completely mesmerised when finding pond life with their nets. For a lot of children this would have been the first time they had experienced this kind of activity so it was great to be the first to see their little faces when they found something. At this time of year unfortunately there isn’t much living in the pond so we had 2 weeks of finding lots of snails and dragonfly larvae. Once we have found them we put them in a bucket so we could investigate them further when we had finished pond dipping. This activity was great to observe the gross motor skills of the children and their balance as they stretched to reach what they wanted.

Over the weeks the children’s perception of the pond and the hazards it brings has really reminded us as staff that although these children are still young, they are still capable of understanding and measuring risk successfully at an age appropriate level. Seeing them lying on their tummy, investigating and discussing seasons and life cycles has been very rewarding and being party to witnessing them join ideas and thoughts up about the world is fantastic.

Next week we will find ourselves at the pond again but this time making boats, so bring your sea legs to nursery!

Thanks for reading

Lauren