Enchanted Wood Preschool- Little Nest

🦉🦊 Owls and Foxes 🦉🦊

This week the Owls and Foxes have been celebrating their loved ones for Father’s Day (FUDGE Day). FUDGE is an acronym that incorporates Fathers, Uncles, Brothers, Grandads and Everyone else in our lives who act as a role model to us💚

We created cards for our loved ones using pens, stickers and dabbers, developing our fine motor skills and creativity. We also explored paint through fingerprint printing to make a special keyring to take home - choosing what colour paint we wanted to use through pointing or using our aided language boards 👔🎨

We engaged with a “We Love You to the Moon and Stars” themed sensory tray with moon and star shapes, encouraging us to explore different textures, shapes and tastes!⭐🌙

Adults supported us to explore the interests of their loved ones, such as cars and building. We developed our joint attention skills through using ‘Ready, Steady, Go!’ with our cars, and counting the blocks as we built them - with a lot of us enjoying the cause and effect nature of these activities! 🚗🧱

We also had lots of fun exploring foam beards through imaginative play, as we ‘shaved’ the foam away from printed faces in our sensory trays!🧔🏽🧔🏼

Our story of the week ‘The Emperor’s Egg’ focused on father figures and the important people who care for us. To extend our understanding of the book, through photographs we explored our own family relationships - with some of us recognising our loved ones instantly!📚🐧

To end the week, in cooking we made pasta salads to take home and share with our families. We did an amazing job at practicing our fine motor skills to put the ingredients into our bowls using our fingers or spoons! 🥗🥄

What a super fun week! We would like to wish our families a wonderful weekend celebrating their Father’s, Uncles, Grandad’s and Carers💚

⭐️🦔 Hedgehogs 🦔⭐️

This week, the Hedgehogs have been busy exploring a range of exciting activities centred around our Father’s Day theme. The children thoroughly enjoyed taking part in meaningful experiences that encouraged creativity, communication, sensory exploration, and self-expression.👨🏆⭐️

The Hedgehogs especially loved getting creative and making something special for the important people in their lives. The children worked hard to create beautiful handmade Father’s Day cards, carefully decorating them and putting lots of love and thought into every detail. Alongside their cards, they also made a special keepsake gift – a little reminder for their loved ones to keep close and cherish every day. It was wonderful to see the children expressing their affection and pride through their creations. 🎨🖌️🧑‍🎨

During our weekly cooking session, the children made a delicious vegetable pasta salad. This activity provided fantastic opportunities to explore a variety of textures, smells, colours, and tastes. The children enjoyed helping to prepare the ingredients, practising their independence skills, and engaging in sensory exploration while developing their confidence around food.🧑‍🍳🍎🥒🥗

We also had another fantastic Baby Ballet session with the wonderful Miss Lara. Every child was fully engaged throughout the session, participating with enthusiasm and plenty of smiles. Baby Ballet offers so many benefits for our children, including developing coordination, balance, body awareness, and confidence. Most importantly, it provides a safe and enjoyable environment where the children can express themselves through movement, music, and imaginative play. It is always a highlight of our week, and it is lovely to see each child flourish in their own unique way. 🩰🧑‍🩰🎶

Throughout the week, the children have continued to develop their communication, social interaction, and sensory skills through a range of play-based activities linked to our theme. We are incredibly proud of all the Hedgehogs for their enthusiasm, creativity, and willingness to explore new experiences.
We hope all of our families have a wonderful Father’s Day weekend and enjoy the special surprises the children have worked so hard to create! ⭐️

🐿️ Squirrels 🐿️

This week we have been celebrating “Fudge Day” honoring Fathers, Uncles, Dads, Grandads, and everyone else in our lives who act as role models, supporting and caring for us. 💙💚🩵

We have made lots of lovely presents 🎁 and cards for them to say thank you 🤗 for always being there for us. We used our fine motor skills to paint, 🎨 draw, and place stickers onto ties 👔 and special keyrings. 🔑

Some of our Daddies were able to make it to our Father’s Day "Stay and Play"! They joined in with our circle time ⭕️⏱️ and watched us choose the songs we wanted to sing. 🎶 We also showed off our soft play area and explored the room together. We loved having our Daddies in with us for a little while, 😊 and I think they did too! 🥰

We all enjoyed playing in our special “Love you to the moon 🌙” messy tray, where we had to look 👀 to find our special person’s picture hidden in the different coloured cereal. 🥣 🫟🫟🫟

We are so looking forward to celebrating with all of our families this weekend! 🩵

🐰 Rabbits 🐰

💙 This week our Rabbits have had a wonderful time celebrating the special fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, and loved ones who play such an important role in our children's lives for Fathers Day (FUDGE DAY). FUDGE is an acronym incorporating Fathers, Uncles, Brothers, Grandads and Everyone else who act as a role model to us. 💙

🎨We have explored a range of engaging and meaningful activities, where our Rabbits were able to express their appreciation and develop new skills.

🎨We enjoyed getting creative as we designed and made our own Father’s Day cards. They carefully chose colours, decorations, and stuck a meaningful message to their cards. This activity encouraged creativity, fine motor development, and self-expression.

The children explored a variety of themed sensory trays. They investigated different textures, materials, and resources, using their senses for smelling and feeling different textures of food and materials. Sensory play supports language development, problem-solving, concentration, and social interaction, while providing opportunities for children to learn through hands-on exploration.

🥗We also had our cooking session where our children prepared a delicious pasta salad. They practised important life skills such as following instructions and taking turns while mixing ingredients to create their delicious pasta. Best of all, they enjoyed tasting their finished creation.

🐰Well done Rabbits what a great week we have had. We would like to say a huge thank you to all our families and wish you a wonderful weekend celebrating their Father’s, Uncles, Grandad’s and Everyone who cares for us.
💙 Happy FUDGE Day from all of us! 💙

🐿️Squirrels 🐿️

This week in the Squirrels room, we have been diving into our exciting summer theme ☀️🌻⛱️, hoping to coax the sunshine back!

Our highlights included a fantastic sensory tray walk, where the children used their bare feet 👣 to explore a variety of textures. We stomped through squishy baked beans 🫘, soft, chilled carrots 🥕, and fluffy icing sugar, finishing with a refreshing water tray to wash our feet. While a few were hesitant at first, with a little adult encouragement, everyone loved squishing their toes in the trays!

We also explored delicious summer flavors with a tasting tray. Using tongs and scoops, the children picked up and tried pineapple 🍍, mandarins 🍊, and pasta shapes. This was a wonderful way to encourage everyone to try new foods while developing their fine motor skills.

For some active maths fun, we played a bucket-and-beanbag game. The children practiced throwing beanbags into buckets, counting to three with each throw while using number visuals 🔢 to support their mathematical understanding.

We truly hope the sun makes an appearance for the weekend ahead. Have a wonderful break, and we will see our lovely Squirrels next week! 🐿️

🐰Rabbits🐰

☀️This week, the Rabbits have been exploring a variety of exciting summer-themed activities that have encouraged creativity, exploration, and learning through play.

🎨☀️We enjoyed painting paper plates to create bright and cheerful sunshine pictures choosing their own colours and exploring different ways to paint them. This activity helped to develop their fine motor skills while allowing their creativity to shine.

🍓🍎The children also took part in making their own delicious fruit salads. They carefully helped to prepare the apples and then added crushed biscuits, raisins, and colourful sprinkles to create a tasty summer treat. This activity provided opportunities to explore different textures and tastes, and allowed the children to show their cutting skills.

🏖️Our messy play trays were transformed into beach-themed sensory experiences, filled with foam for the sea and crushed cereal for the sand with bucket and spades, boats and fish for the children to dig, scoop and pour. These sensory trays help to support the children's language development, curiosity, and understanding of the world around them while providing lots of opportunities for imaginative play.

🍗Our role-play area this week was our BBQ where the children enjoyed pretending to cook food and serve these foods to their adults. Through role play we are helping them to develop their communication and social skills.

We are incredibly proud of how they have engaged with each activity, building their confidence, communication and fine motor skills. Well done Rabbits on another great week.☀️🍎🏖️🎨🌈

🦉🦊Owls & Foxes🦉🦊

☀️ This week, the Owls and Foxes have been thinking about summer as we notice the change in season! ☀️

Exploring different ways to regulate our body temperature when the weather is warmer has been the focus of our week. Through mark-making activities, we talked about the clothes we might wear to keep cool in the sunshine, with our teachers modelling key vocabulary such as hat, shorts and sunglasses 🧢🕶️

We also visited the Little Nest Ice Cream Shop, where we used our communication boards to choose which ice cream we wanted to make and enjoy. We selected our favourite flavours, sprinkles and sauces, and were very excited to get stuck in! Working alongside an adult, we scooped the cold ice cream from the tub before using our pincer grip to carefully add our chosen toppings ✨🍦

Water play was another big highlight of the week! We loved tipping and pouring water in and out of different containers, with some of us even climbing into the water tray and tipping water over our heads to cool down! To extend our interest in water play and food exploration, we added a variety of fruits including lemons, limes, strawberries and grapes. This helped us explore different colours, smells and flavours while engaging our senses💧🍎

We also incorporated role-play into our summer theme. We carefully applied sun cream to our dolls to help keep them safe in the sun, and we enjoyed making pretend ice creams using foam, sprinkles, scoops and cones. We then fed our delicious creations to our baby dolls, developing our imagination and nurturing skills along the way☀️👶🏼

The children also enjoyed creating their own ice cream cone crafts using sponges and a variety of colourful paints. They were encouraged to independently choose the colours they wanted to use by selecting them on an aided language board, verbally or by tapping their preferred choice. This provided a wonderful opportunity to develop communication and decision-making skills while expressing their creativity. The children were highly engaged throughout the activity, eagerly exploring different colours and textures as they stamped and painted their unique ice cream creations🍦🎨

The Owls and Foxes also took part in a cooking activity this week, making their very own fruit salad yoghurt. The children showed fantastic independence throughout the session, developing both their fine motor skills and important life skills. Using child-friendly knives, they carefully chopped a variety of fruits before adding them to their yoghurt creations. They were proud to make their own choices and enjoyed placing the ingredients into their bowls creating a delicious and healthy snack to enjoy. It was wonderful to see their confidence grow as they explored new foods! 🍓🍇

What a wonderful week in the Owls & Foxes!✨

🦔⭐️ Hedgehog ⭐️🦔

This week’s theme was Summer. Although the weather took a turn for the worse as the week went on, the children have thoroughly enjoyed their first week back after half term, exploring a wide range of summer-themed activities and sensory experiences.☀️🌻🍉⛱️🕶️

The children worked hard on their fine motor skills while creating beautiful starfish pictures. With support, they spread glue and carefully placed Cheerios onto their starfish’s, developing hand strength and coordination.⭐️🐟🤏

We also enjoyed a fun sensory activity searching for fish hidden inside frozen ice cubes. The children explored the different textures of the wet, cold ice, and some even enjoyed tasting it, helping to support their oral sensory needs. 👄🧊❄️🐟

When the weather was a little brighter, we made the most of our outdoor space and explored the water tray in the garden. This provided wonderful opportunities for the children to play alongside their peers, practise turn-taking, and develop their sharing skills.💦⛲️😀

Another favourite activity was our melted ice cream sensory tray. The children explored the wet cornflour-and-water mixture, observing how the thick, gloopy texture changed into a liquid when picked up. This sparked lots of curiosity and interest 🍦❄️🫠

The children also enjoyed creating their very own ice creams through edible sensory play, exploring a variety of textures, smells, and tastes in a safe and engaging way. 🍦🥣😀

The Hedgehogs enjoyed making fruit yoghurts during this week’s cooking session, exploring a range of different fruits as they created a special treat to take home. One of our Hedgehog “wow moments” this week was a child trying yoghurt and discovering that they enjoyed it – a fantastic achievement that we were all delighted to celebrate! ⭐️🍌🍎🍓🥭

Throughout the week, the children participated in a wide range of adult-led focus activities, delivered on a one-to-one or small-group basis. All activities are supported with visual aids and aided language boards to encourage communication and language development. These supports are modelled by staff and are embedded into daily practice to help develop the children’s speech, language, and communication skills. 😀👄📝

We have loved seeing the children settle back into nursery routines after half term and look forward to another exciting week of learning and exploration ahead! 😊

🐿️ Squirrels 🐿️

This week, we kicked off our first week back after half term by celebrating Carnival and Pride Week! Our wonderful children dove headfirst into the celebrations, embracing a range of messy, musical, and sensory activities.

🌈 Giant Rainbow Painting
We rolled out massive sheets of white paper to cover the floor and let the children get completely hands-on—and feet-on! The children used their hands and feet to spread bright paint and create gorgeous, unique patterns. As they mixed the paint, adults modeled color names, helping the children connect language to the vibrant visual changes around them.

🪘 African Drumming with Mango Tree
We had a fabulous, high-energy music session that got everyone moving and grooving. Some children loved dressing up and wearing masks, while everyone proved to be absolute naturals at banging the drums and singing along to the songs. This was a brilliant session for rhythm, coordination, and building confidence through shared group singing.

🍓 Sensory Fruit Rainbow Tray
We created a beautiful, edible rainbow in our sensory tray to practice fine motor skills and explore new textures. We filled the tray with a variety of colorful fruits like oranges, grapes, bananas, and strawberries, surrounded by visual cards to help the children identify each one. The children practiced their pincer grip to pick up individual pieces and used spoons and forks to build up their cutlery confidence.
This was a wonderful, pressure-free environment for children who find different food textures challenging. We were so proud to see some very brave children smelling the fruit, touching it, and even happily giving it a taste!

A massive well done to all our amazing Squirrels for such a joyful, creative, and brave week. We are so proud of you all! ⭐️

🦔⭐️ Hedgehogs ⭐️🦔

This Weeks theme was Pride & Carnival ✨🌈🎶
This week, our theme focused on Pride and Carnival, celebrating inclusion, joy, and the recognition of diversity in all its forms. Through a variety of engaging activities, we encouraged curiosity, respect, and a sense of belonging, helping every child feel seen, valued, and proud of who they are. ⭐️😀

We were delighted to welcome a very special visitor from Mango Tree this week. The children had the opportunity to express themselves through music and dance, beating drums to the rhythm of the music and immersing themselves in the vibrant carnival atmosphere. Many children enjoyed dressing up and embracing the carnival spirit, creating a wonderful celebration of culture, creativity, and self-expression.💃🎶🥁🪇

Our theme also provided lots of opportunities to explore colour in different ways. The Hedgehogs developed their colour recognition skills through sorting and matching activities while building their vocabulary. Children used aided language boards to make requests and further develop their communication skills throughout the week. 🟩🟥🟨🟦

Things got a little messy as we explored a variety of colourful paints using our bodies and a wide range of resources. Some of our Hedgehogs eagerly jumped straight in, exploring the paint with their hands and feet. Others chose to use tools such as paintbrushes, rollers, and cars to create marks and patterns, while some preferred to observe from the sidelines and engage in their own way. We loved seeing each child explore and participate at their own pace. 🎨🫟🖌️🧑‍🎨

The children also created beautiful carnival-inspired masks, decorating them with a variety of materials and colours. This activity supported the development of fine motor skills as the children used their fingers and thumbs to pick up, place, and stick different resources onto their masks. 🎭🎨🧑‍🎨

As always, we thoroughly enjoyed our weekly sessions with Jo Jingles and Victoria, as well as Babyballet with Miss Laura. Through music, movement, and dance, the children expressed themselves creatively while developing their attention, listening skills, and ability to engage in activities for longer periods of time. 🩰🎶🎤

What a colourful, joyful, and inclusive week we've had! We are so proud of all our children and the wonderful ways they continue to explore, learn, and celebrate themselves and others. 💜🌈🎭🥁