It’s raining, it’s pouring, but the babies aren’t snoring!

This week in the Nest, we have been having lots of fun exploring messy play, much like our friends in the Warren. We made some gloop using corn flour and water and decided to add lemon flavouring and colour to make it appeal to more of the senses. We have also incorporated balls, bowls, cups and whisks to splash and given the children an opportunity to actually sit in bubbly, glittery water. Although young, the children in the Nest can still expect a certain level of independence. The children were given an independence of choice and encouraged to explore the water in whatever way they wished. Some children wanted to put their hands in it and splash about whereas others were more than happy to climb straight in and have more of a paddle. Others weren’t keen and simply dipped their fingers in to the water.

Experiencing water outdoors last week was easy and this consolidated our learning further by allowing the rain to splash on our faces and hands and enable us to marvel at the rainwater meandering through the farm.

If you’d like to explore this further at home, try making rainbow puddles. You can do this by adding food colouring, powder paint or normal paint to puddles and watch them mix together. You could also add washing up liquid and splash around to make bubbles too.

If you’d like any other ideas please don’t hesitate to ask us. We are more than happy to help.

Have fun splashing…

Cat

Messy? We think, organised chaos!

The messy table in the Warren is used for a range of things. The main objective for our table is for our Warren children to experience different media and materials. These range from flour, pasta, shaving foam, glitter and compost to name but a few. The activities available at the messy table allow the children to develop and support skills such as fine motor skills, communication and language, mark making, exploring different textures and hand - eye co-ordination.

The adult role in supporting this learning may be to direct questions and / or provide commentary for the children, both of which will develop language and communication. Such as, “Can you tell me what it feels like?” or “Look, you’re pouring the flour from one cup to another.”

Do let us know if you try any messy activities at home that your children enjoy, for further inspiration please take a look at our Pinterest boards.

Laura

Welcome to The Warren

Firstly I would like to welcome all the new children and their families to The Warren. Our Blog will hopefully give you an insight into all the exciting things our children get up too during their time with us. Visiting the farm is an activity we engage in frequently as it offers the children a wealth of learning opportunities.

Such as:

• Gaining a deeper understanding of their immediate nursery environment
• Relating books in pictures to a real life context e.g. Gary the Goose, farm machinery
• Linking key concepts about the world in which we live e.g. wool comes from sheep, some foods grow in fields
• Negotiating uneven terrain and therefore developing their physical capabilities
• Splashing in puddles is simply great fun!

Although the rain may be getting some of us down it hasn’t dampened the spirits of our warren children who have very much enjoyed splashing in the puddles when out and about. The children run out of the door in search of the biggest puddle and laugh in excitement with their peers.

Louise

Herbalicious!

As Forest School is part of our ethos, we like to bring and do as much as possible in this sector to provide a range of opportunities for children to learn and explore outdoors. So for part of this week's activity, we got booted and wet suited up to go outdoors into the paddock. We took a small group out to explore the surroundings and to see what they could find. We turned over a few stumps to see if we could see any insects, and also stopped off to see Ed and Vince making progress on the fort. We made our way down to the pond where we sat on the decking just beside to see what was in there, whilst Louise scooped the water using a net to see what she could find, we then put the net full of pond goodness in a bowl for all the children to see. This activity boosted some of the children's communication and physical development as staff pointed out and pronounced the names of different animals in which some children tried to repeat. It also tested their physical ability as the ground was a different terrain, also the assault course challenged their thinking as to how they could navigate these different obstacles. Before heading back inside we spotted some different herbs (lavender, thyme, lemon mint, rosemary and mint), which we used our senses to smell and touch. We picked a generous handful of each herb and took them inside to use.

Our next activity was making several lots of play dough with our herbs we picked mixed into it, giving it a lovely smell. Firstly, we let the children touch the ingredients of the play dough and herbs so they could use their senses to touch, smell and taste the differences. We then broke up all the herbs which we sprinkled into the play dough mixture and gave it a stir to make it into the right consistency, which was done five or six times to have a range of smelly play doughs for the children to investigate. After the play dough had been made the children also used cutters do make different shapes and sizes focussing the children's use of their hand and eye coordination.

After this activity we also put the range of herbs in a easy access tray so the children could explore and investigate bring the outdoors in. A few children loved the smell of the lavender and would smell it quite a few times. We also decided to set out a creative activity to link in with this forest school, so we decided to do some herb sticking. The children decided which herb they would like to stick on the paper, but before sticking it down. All the children went home smelling delicious!

See you all next time,

Laura

Blackberry Baking Bonanza

A child I was observing had a spoon and fork in hand mixing food items, which made me think how I could further their development using different role-play activities. I decided to put out several cups, dried pasta and spoons, which they spent a long period of time filling and pouring from one cup to another. I also put out ice cubes with pasta, coffee granules and bits of lemon in them, so the children could explore and use their different senses as well as experimenting with the sensation of the coldness of the ice. The children really enjoyed the ice cube activity as they could use some of the cubes to draw with across paper, enabling them to figure out their dominant hand but with the other cubes they used their touch, smell and taste to differentiate what the ice cubes had in them. To see and remove what was in the ice cubes, some children pulled out bits of pasta using their fingers and others tried to snap the ice cubes in half. As the ice cubes started to melt they then used their fingers to spread the paint around paper, swirling, and splashing the droplets, experimenting with the mixture of colours.

Now the blackberries are ripe and ready to pick from the different areas around the nursery, we thought about an activity the children could be involved in both the making and eating. The children picked some blackberries ready for our cooking activity and tasted a few, meaning we had less than what we started with! We decided to make some cakes, which let the children learn and put into practice new skills, as well as begin to understand how we can use foods from naturally growing sources.

From doing this activity the children learnt and used a range of skills through feeling the different textures of the ingredients as each item was placed on the table for the children to touch, smell, and taste. Also the children developed physical development and gross motor skills from mixing the different ingredients together and separating bits of mixture into a tray to cook. Also, hand-eye co-ordination was developed as they iced their cakes using a spoon to smooth the icing over. The icing didn't last long though as soon as the children tasted it, it began to vanish! The cakes looked and smelt delicious and the children not only had fun making and eating them, but developed some important skills along the way.

We are already thinking about what other delicious creations we can make for budding little chefs!

Thank you for reading.

Laura