Tots 2 Toddlers

Last week was Story Telling week! The children enjoyed celebrating a different story each day, chosen by the children. We had the Gruffalo, Stickman, Jack & the Beanstalk, We're Going On A Bear Hunt & The Hungry Caterpillar. Take a look at some of the fun activities that linked in with these too. On Monday, we made our own version of the mouse out of play dough, using different materials to make his features. We also enjoyed a 'Gruffalo Crumble' sensory tray, Muddy Footprint...s messy play and Gruffalo themed number & quantity matching with the pegs. On Tuesday, we enjoyed making our own Stickman out of our forest school finds and we made our own Family Tree's too, which brings a close to our 'All About Me' topic. You can currently find our Family Tree's on our bunting! The children really enjoyed planting their Magic Beans on Wednesday, as well as some beanstalk threading, working our fine motor skills as well as some child initiated number and quantity matching too. We also explored shape, space & measures when using the junk modelling and created some amazing castles to live at the top of our beanstalks! Thursday we had to be super sneaky, as we went on a bear hunt! We didn't manage to find a real bear, however we did see some bear prints outside! We also had a messy table for our toy bears to go through, as well as making some bears with our play dough. Friday saw us food tasting lots of different fruit and vegetable (which also ties in with our new being healthy topic!) We found the pickled gherkins and "leaves" (also known as lettuce) were the least favourites, where as the strawberries, swiss cheese and even salami were winners! We also created our own story books, these are hanging up on the Discovery Mat board! Enjoy some of our photos and get ready for some being healthy challenges coming your way soon!
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As part of promoting British Values, we celebrate a range of different cultures and festivals. In Caterpillar room this week we have been celebrating Chinese New Year, welcoming in the year of the pig! At the beginning of the week we made playdough and used spices to make it scented; cinnamon and star anise. We also had jelly messy play, in the colours of the Chinese flag. The children loved exploring this, and used Chinese containers and chopsticks to role play eating it! Ou...r cooking activity this week was making fortune cookies, which went home with children at the end of the day. Children added the ingredients and mixed the batter. As it is the Chinese year of the Pig we used the toy pigs to print paint. Another art activity was decorating dragon masks. Today's snack was a variety of Chinese food which the children loved trying! They had noodles, curried noodles, egg fried rice, prawn crackers, sweet and sour sauce and spring rolls.
新年快乐 - Happy New Year! Here is a link to some activties you can do with your child at home to celebrate this festival - https://www.activityvillage.co.uk/chinese -new-year-crafts
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With the cold weather, we all know a long comes a few bugs, and washing hands efficiently is key for prevention. We are showing the children this video to encourage independent healthy practises, perhaps you could share this with them too. :)
https://www.nhs.uk/Video/Pages/how-to-was h-hands.aspx…

It's a snowy kind of day ☃❄️

This week Caterpillar room have been celebrating storytelling week! All the babies love stories, and as well as giving enjoyment, stories provide many learning oppertunities spanning across the areas of the EYFS. At the beginning of the week the children coloured in some of our favourite characters, which are now displayed proudly in our book corner. They also played in the dinosaur messy play, which was inspired by the sensory book "Never touch a dinosaur!" Our cooking activ...ity was baking and decorating gingerbread men. The children had their own utensils and each had a bowl to add the ingredients too. They even cracked their own eggs! Today's picnic snack was inspired by "The very hungry caterpillar," and included salami, swiss cheese, pickles and a variety of fruits. As we ate we listened to the story and the children loved exploring all the foods. We had some very confused faces when they tried the pickles! Alongside these activities we have been on several visits to Waterlooville library, where the children have been able to choose from a wider variety of books. Continue this love of reading with your children at home by fitting in a quick story at bedtime. Check out the link below on all the benefits reading stories to your child brings... https://bilingualkidspot.com/…/benefits -importance-reading…/
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Tots 2 Toddlers are open as usual 🙂 just be sure to go carefully in to the carpark. Aren't we lucky to have such a beautiful views from our nursery.. We can't wait to go outside and explore the snow!

On this weeks Forest School trip the Butterfly children explored a different area of the Park Wood site, where they walked through a big open space and found various sized sticks and logs. They worked together to pick up the larger ones and placed them all together to compare the sizes, they even brought some back to nursery to share their finding with their friends. While walking through the open clearing they watched out for any birds or nests, as it is National Bird Week ...this week, and a Robin came to visit them as they walked over the Troll Bridge. When they stopped for a snack and hot chocolate they put up their new tent, taking it in turns to secure it in place before climbing in. Some of the children found hooks to hang their lanterns from and explored turning them on and off, learning that to give them power they needed to shake them. The children noticed that with the lights on the inside of the tent they could see shadows of what was on the outside, so they had a lot of fun creating shapes with their shadows and pretending to be giants stomping around :)
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Take a look at some of our babies sharing their breakfast this morning! It's lovely to see their freindships forming so early.

Here are some pictures of all the fun we have been having in Caterpillar room recently. We have been doing garden scavenger hunts, bathing the babies and today we celebrated Winnie the Pooh day!

Take a look at how our Butterfly children have been enjoying the new additions to our climbing frame. They have been taking risks and self assessing their play and many have been amazed at what they have been able to achieve with their new found independence. We have even seen some of them supporting each other by holding ropes steady and giving lots encouragement. We have ensured that we have provided plenty of opportunities for climbing, swinging and balancing and have seen a huge increase in persistence when some of the children haven't been able to manage it first time! Well done Butterflies, you're doing great :)

Tots 2 Toddlers are very proud to say that after 5 months of hard work Ofsted awarded us our Good rating back!! We received great and positive feedback from the inspector and we're very pleased with the report published online today. Please take a minute to have a read... https://files.api.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/5 0049041 We would like to thank all of the families here at Tots for their continued support throughout this time and we are looking forward to now working towards our next achievements :)

Our next Open Morning is Thursday 17th January 2019 - We are inviting any parents and carer's looking for childcare to come along and see what we have to offer between 09:30 - 11:30. Please like and share, and we hope to meet some new friends. Thank you.

We would like to wish all our families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Here are some of our best bits from 2018 :) We look forward to seeing you all again in 2019!

1 more sleep to go!! We started off December with our Elf coming back for Christmas, and helping the Tots 2 Toddlers children to stay on Santa's Nice list. Firstly he decided he didnt like his name being William as it wasnt Christmassy enough so the children did a vote and renamed him Snowball :) His adventures continued throughout the month, finding himself in some funny places to make the children laugh and even drawing on the Staff's photo's which we all found funniest of all! Thankyou for your visit this year Snowball the Elf. We look forward to seeing you again next year!

Don't forget that Monday is Pyjama Day!

6 days till Christmas and today we went to visit Santa and his Elves while they stopped in at Waterlooville Library! All the children were found on the Nice list and each received a gift from Santa after talking to him and his Elves about what Santa might find on their Christmas lists. They also did some Christmas colouring and explored the story books while they waited. It was a long walk to Santas Grotto so we stopped off for some snack and enjoyed a marmite sandwich :). A...long the way we noticed all kinds of road signs, we Stopped, Looked and Listened before we crossed the roads while Kirsty stood and stopped the traffic for us (some of the children even said thankyou by waving to the drivers) and we also waited for the green man at the crossings. On our way back to nursery we noticed a big rainbow in the sky and talked about how we see them when it has been raining while the sun is still shinning. Its been a great day today for both children and staff and we are very much looking forward to Santa visiting us next week :)
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Our next Open Day is tomorrow - hope to meet some new friends! Please like and share, thank you

8 days until Christmas! Caterpillar room have been making some peppermint creams whilst listening to Christmas songs.