Lilypads Childminders

What an amazing week we’ve had. We have been developing our skills using the hand drill to make wands. We had a go at threading leaves which we found tricky because they were fragile. We have explored parks, met some horses, developed our strength and stamina running up big hills, we have used our imagination using magnatiles and blocks to build. We have created wonderful gifts for our daddy’s for Father’s Day. We have also been closely watching our caterpillars eat, grow and transform into butterflies. Today we released the butterflies that had come out of their chrysalis. We were very brave and gentle holding them.

Finally some great weather so of course we visited the beach and had the most amazing time.

A snippet of our week; the children are constantly learning and developing without really realising because we have such a fun time! We have been developing our gross and fine motor skills through a range of activities. We have been on many nature walks where we have looked closely at wildlife and bugs; we even found an ants nest. It was fascinating to watch them work as a team to move their eggs around to protect them.

I’ve not posted in a while but here’s a snippet of what we have been up to over the last 2 weeks.

What a fantastic first week back after Easter. We have been developing hand eye coordination through water play, building with blocks at the forest as a team, making a mud slide and taking risks trying challenging tasks like climbing and balancing on trees. We have worked on our fine motor skills using playdough, worked as a team to create and build a zoo for the animals and been on our weekly balance bike practice. We learnt to use the microscope to look at bugs close up and loved using the interactive globe to learn about animals from around the world.

The children had a fabulous time completing the Easter egg hunt. The children read and listened to clues to find the next eggs and loved finding their final surprise.

We celebrated National Science Week by doing lots of experiments. We made balloon rockets. It was so exciting watching them shoot along the string and we learnt this happens because the air rushes out of the balloon and pushes it along. We then worked as a team to stretch elastic bands over a watermelon. It was great watching the watermelon change shape as it was being squeezed and then watching it explode. We also explored mixing bicarbonate of soda with vinegar and observed the fizzing reaction it made. We also made laver lamp by adding drops of food colouring to oil and adding a vitamin c tablet. We noticed the fizzing of the tablet made the drops of colour whizz around the glass.

We had an amazing day celebrating World Book Day. We read The 3 little pigs and had a go at build houses for the pigs and pretending to blow them down. We planted our own magic beans and read stories about sea creatures while fishing in the water tray. We made book marks and designed our own book covers.

This week at Forest school we built a tent, rolled tyres down the hill, zoomed down the hill on the sledge and made a rope swing with a log we found. We also made heart wands to celebrate Valentine’s Day. We also had a very exciting morning spent on the train. Before we walked to the station, we discussed how to keep safe while walking along the road and how to keep safe on the platform while we waited for the train. We have also been developing our building skills with a range of resources and practiced our balancing and risk taking skills. Lastly we visited a museum. We loved how interactive it was; the children particularly enjoyed learning about mosaics and finding out how to do coin rubbings.

We have been getting in the Christmas spirit over the last few weeks doing lots of fine motor Christmas crafts and developing gross motor skills at new parks and forests.