Flower pics

Gardening seed catalogues arrive in the post in hoards in my house and they are a brilliant source for arts and crafts activities! We can talk about sizes and shapes of flowers, compare with what's in the garden, say which ones are our favourites, choose colours and even find animals in some of the magazines. The bigger kids can practice their cutting skills and everyone can do the glueing and sticking to make some really cheerful pictures that any fridge would be proud to display!

Planting time

It's a busy time of year for gardening! We had our lunch outside at the table and then did some planting. I showed my little girl the tray which I had started off with 2 bean seeds in each module I then asked her to copy and put the same number of beans into each square. She managed really well and could count how many she needed at the end.we then covered the beans with compost and she enjoyed this messy bit! When she comes back after the Easter holiday the beans will hopefully have germinated and she will be able to see the fruits of her labours.

Easter Bunnies

I love an excuse to do some making! I wanted to do an activity that would be suited to my under 2 year old and this was perfect! He could see it was a bunny and managed to put glue on and help choose and stick the eyes, ears, nose, teeth and whiskers! Very cute don't you think? I was very impressed with my 4 year old boy who drew and cut out all his own teeth and ears! How many things can you make with an old loo roll!?

We are sailing

The play boat in the playground at Furzedown is very popular with the small children while we do our school drop offs and pick ups. C (21 months) has learned how to climb in now and giggles with excitement at his acheivement and being able to join in with the bigger children. I think it must really help the transition to school because the little ones are already very familiar with the school environment and get to know the routine of going to school every day. Sometimes the little ones go into the classroom with me to see the big kids and help collect them. I think it's lovely for the teachers too to see the wee ones and get a sense of the other relationships that the children they teach have.

Celebrating Spring

We have been looking for the signs of Spring whilst on our travels out and about. My little girl wanted to make a spring picture. I got out the arts and craft box and asked her what should go in the picture. She wanted the sun, a birds nest with eggs in a tree and some flowers, so she had a go at practising cutting, and glued it all together to make a very pretty end result that she was very proud of and wanted to take home to show mummy and daddy. We talked about what happens in spring time and in the other seasons so it was a really good learning opportunity covering most of the early years areas of learning and development: personal, social and emotional development, understanding of the world, communication and literacy, physical development as well as expressive arts and design.