Nära Horton Children's Nursery

📚✨ World Book Day Fun in Rising 3s ✨📚

We had some amazing costumes in our Rising 3s room for World Book Day! The children loved looking at all their friends’ outfits and sharing the wonderful stories they brought into nursery. During group times and throughout the day, we enjoyed exploring lots of different books together. One of our favourites was Toddler! 📖

We also had lots of fun discovering The Hungry Caterpillar. The children talked about all the delicious things the caterpillar ate before drawing their favourites and decorating them. We then worked together to create our very own colourful caterpillar! 🐛🎨

It was a fantastic day full of stories, creativity and imagination and we had a blast! 🌟

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📚🚂 World Book Day & Sensory Fun in the Toddler Room🌟

Last week, our toddlers had a wonderful time celebrating World Book Day! They came dressed as their favourite storybook characters, including:

🦉 The Gruffalo
🐀 The Highway Rat
🐛 The Very Hungry Caterpillar
🐯 The Tiger Who Came to Tea

The children’s excitement in showing off their costumes and sharing their favourite books from the book corner was truly delightful. We also enjoyed reading the stories they brought from home, making it a memorable day full of fun and learning!

Our fun didn’t stop there. The children also explored a train track tuff tray activity filled with rice. We arranged the track in a circle with trains and buildings, all covered in rice. The children loved filling the tracks with rice and pushing their trains through it, watching the grains tumble back into the tray. Some even explored the rice using their senses, feeling the grains slide through their fingers.

It was a lovely morning of storytelling, creativity, and sensory play! ✨

🌸🎨 Creative Fun in Baby Room ✨

Last week was full of artistic exploration as our babies had a wonderful time painting with flowers!

They enjoyed choosing their favourite colours and experimenting with different techniques, from stamping to dragging the flowers across the paper. The little ones created some truly beautiful masterpieces, showing off their creativity and developing fine motor skills along the way.

It was such a joy to see their curiosity and imagination in action! 🖌️💛

🔍 Tipi Adventures 🌟

This week, our pre-schoolers had a fantastic time with an “I Spy” tray!

We gathered a variety of objects from around the room and showed the children how to play. They were excited to take turns using the magnifying glass to inspect the tray and describe an object for their friends to guess.

After a few rounds, we were so impressed with their attention to detail, discussing colours, shapes, and even the first letter of each object! It was a wonderful display of teamwork, vocabulary, and observational skills. 🫧✨

🤲 Makaton Sign of the Week 🌿

This week our sign of the week is “mud”! With the children loving time outside in the garden and exploring mud painting, it felt like the perfect choice.

To do this sign, use your hands in a downwards, grabbing motion, just like squelching in mud. Such a fun way for the children to connect language, movement and their outdoor play experiences! 🫙✨

🌿 Forest School at Nära Horton 🎨

This week at Forest School we had great fun mixing mud with paint!

The children eagerly gathered mud and added it to their paint, exploring the new textures and describing it as “mushy” and “slippy.” It was wonderful to see their curiosity as they experimented and discovered how the materials changed when combined.

Their creativity really shone through too. Remembering our previous Love Monster activity, some of the children chose to fold their paper in half to create their artwork. A a lovely example of their growing recall and exploration skills.

A messy, creative and very enjoyable Forest School session for everyone! 🌳✨

☀️🌿 Sunshine, Laughter & Outdoor Adventures at Nära Horton 🌿☀️

Last week, our Tipi children were absolutely relishing the beautiful sunshine in our big garden, and made the very most of every golden moment! 🌞💛

Spending extended time outdoors created so many opportunities to strengthen physical development. We’ve seen confident tree climbing 🌳, brilliant teamwork as children kicked balls back and forth ⚽, and some fantastic balancing skills on our obstacle course 🤸‍♂️✨ Their coordination, core strength and resilience have truly been shining through.

A definite favourite moment? Placing a large tube at the top of the hill, carefully climbing inside, and then calling on their friends to give them a gentle push down! 🛝😄 The squeals of laughter echoed across the garden! Not only great fun, but a wonderful way to build cooperation, turn-taking and trust in one another 🤝💫

We love watching our Tipi children challenge themselves, support each other and embrace outdoor learning with such confidence and joy. Long may the sunshine continue! 🌈🌼

Strong hands lead to confident writers. Playful fine motor activities build vital foundations. ✋

🐞 Rising Threes Explore Ladybirds🌿

Last week, our Rising Threes enjoyed a morning of counting and exploring ladybirds! 🌱 They did a fantastic job spotting and counting the spots on each ladybird, supporting and encouraging one another along the way 🔴⚫

Using their imaginations, the children even created little houses for the ladybirds, hiding them under green “rice grass” 🌾 It was wonderful to see their creativity and curiosity in action ✨

A lovely mix of hands-on learning, early maths, and imaginative play 💚

🌸 Baby Room Flower Fun 💦

Last week, our babies had a wonderful time exploring a flower water tray! 🌼 They loved examining the flowers, touching the petals and leaves, and watching all the colours and textures up close 🍃✨

The babies were captivated by splashing and swirling the water, mesmerised as the flowers danced around with every movement 💦💖

A lovely way to encourage sensory exploration, curiosity, and early learning through play! 🌱💛

🐾 Toddler Room Animal Tracking Fun🐞

Our toddlers had an amazing time exploring animal tracking through pottery this week! 🎨 They created clay tiles on metal trays, picking their favourite animals from a basket and making impressions in the clay. We talked about the sizes of the tracks: “big stamping” and “small stamping”, sparking curiosity and lots of conversation 🐘🐇🐢

The fun didn’t stop there! We also printed horse footprints with brown paint 🐴, pretending the horses were racing through muddy puddles all over the page.

Outside, we welcomed some ladybird friends 🐞 in our garden, carefully observing them on our hands before placing them gently down. The children also enjoyed jumping off the assault course and helping each other safely by holding hands 🤝

A wonderful week full of hands-on discovery, creativity, teamwork, and laughter 🌱💛