There are lots of opportunities at Little Saints to share the resources. This can be difficult for two year olds. The children are sharing and being creative with the foam shapes, taking turns and collaborating.

Some of the children love to pretend they are talking on the phone. This is a wonderful way to use their growing communication skills, babbling and chatting. Anything can be a phone, wooden blocks, bananas and calculators to name a few. We have observed two children sitting near each other chatting together imaginatively talking about going to the “play centre” then excitedly going off together to find it at the other side of the nursery.

A next step for us is to invest in some microphones for the children to explore making sounds, singing and developing their communication and language skills further.

It is lovely to build up close relationships with our key children, engaging in their play to share a 1-1 or small group story when possible is a great way to build up a trusting responsive relationship and helps us to explore the childrens interests further.

Focus stories – The children are enjoying our Focus story for the start of term – Goldilocks and the three bears. Lindsy pauses so that the children are able to fill in missing words or join in with familiar, repetitive parts of the story, the children are encouraged to predict what they think might happen next or talk about how the bears are feeling. We also talk about the size of the bowls, chairs and beds. After the story has been introduced we then have the story basket available for the children to act out the story, porridge play, role play masks, porridge making and tasting.

At Little Saints there are many opportunities to explore books and stories. The children can access books independently on provision, we have focus books which we then extend using other activities throughout the term and the children are encouraged to bring in their book bag to take home a new story each week. Fred the Ted also visits the children at home with our focus story.

It is wonderful to discover each individual childs interests as we get to know them and build relationships. Drumming is a favourite activity for one of our little ones so we decided to put out some of our pots and pans with different tools to make sounds with. Lots of the children decided they wanted to join in. They e njoyed the physical and sensory experience of hearing the sounds they created. We look forward to investigating lots of other sound making instruments and making some of our own.

The children wanted to make their own sandwiches for snack time today. They used their fine motor skills to spread some butter onto their bread before choosing what to put inside. The children showed great hand/eye coordination and enjoyed talking about the foods that they like.

The children had a wonderful time outdoors in the rain. They use their gross motor skills to jump and splash in puddles then we use trays to create bigger puddles for the children to explore. They jump and stamp to cause the effect of big splashes, giggling as they repeatedly do so. The children benefit from experiencing a variety of weather conditions where we can introduce new language. Today we highlighted to the children their reflections and they were fascinated with them and moved in various ways to discover how they changed.

All aboard the ghost train!!! The children have loved our new addition, playing imagiatively in the train and taking turns to decide where to go. The children like to investigate getting into small spaces e.g. dens, tunnels or under the slide.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see? The children have been so engaged with our focus story, they like the repetitive nature of the story, often predicting what animal will be next. We decided to add the animals to our outdoor provision along with some home made cardboard tube binoculars. The children enjoyed listening as staff recited the story then looking for each animal. This activity gave us the opportunity to talk about colours, prepositions e.g. who is under the mirror? and after the first week we added the same animals but smaller to add more challenge for the children to find a big/small cat/horse/sheep.

We have introduced an Autumn play tray for the children to investigate and one of the children broought in a leaf on her way to nursery. Staff modelled making prints in the dough which she was fascinated with. We decided to extend this further by doing leaf printing. We discussed changes in the environment during Autumn, colours and sizes of the leaves. We intend to send Autumn home learning bags out for children to collect Autumn treasures.

It is so lovely to take yourself off for some quiet time to look at your favourite book. Providing boxes and communication friendly spaces provides wonderful opportunities for the children to relax, take time to have away from more noisy areas and engage in holding and looking at books on their own or with others. This supports wellbeing, communication and literacy development.

The boys are joining in with a turn taking game and follow instructions to roll, throw or bounce the ball. This provides opportunities to listen, follow instructions and develop gross motor skills.

Ring-a-roses

The children initiate this activity without adult support as they remember the rhyme. They hold hands and do the actions, what lovely friends!

Funnybones

The children have shown lots of interest in the funnybones story and ask almost every day for staff to read it. They join in with familiar, repetitive parts of the story. They think that its really funny when the dog gets put back together the wrong way around. To extend their interest the childrens key person prepares some laminated dog bones for the children to put back together, they enjoy experimenting with different ways to put their dog together.

The children like to access the workshop and are showing lots of interest in using scissors. They enjoy the challenge of cutting paper, showing determination as they keep on trying when it gets difficult.

Spooky sensory play

The children investigate our spooky sensory play, they use their senses to explore the jelly and some of the children can talk about what is in the tray – spiders, jelly, monster, eyeballs, bats. We talk about how the jelly feels, colours, when bats come out and count how many eyeballs we can see.

Potion station

The children showed lots of interest in our potion station combining coloured water, pine cones, leaves, sticks, rice bay leaves and herbs to make potions. Some of the learning opportunities achieved during this activity included making choices of what they wanted to put in, using their senses to smell the herbs and feel the natural materials, sharing the resources, counting how many of each thing they wanted to put in, sharing ideas and thoughts.

Firework paintings

The children engaged in creating firework pictures using kitchen roll tubes and paints to represent fireworks on their black paper. The children then added glitter if they wanted to. Some of the children could talk about their experiences of fireworks being “Loud” and “Going up in the sky”

Lest we forget

The children are engaging in mark making using cotton reels with black and red paint to represent poppies as we celebrate rememberance.

Whatever Next

The children have engaged well with our focus story Whatever Next. After staff model using the box to blast off to the moon some of the children have use the box with the enhancements to look at the book and then blast off to they moon. They were able to answer questions about the story, recalling events and characters in the story.

Babble wrap sensory footprints. The children engage in walking on bubble wrap in bare feet, staff then add paints to a tray nearby and support the children in safely making footprints onto paper. They all enjoy this sensory experience, looking at the paper as they leave footprints.

Odd socks day 2024 – To celebrate anti bullying week/differences and promote kindness the children attended in odd socks, well done everyone.

To continue our learning about Whatever Next we made star shaped cookies. The children, took turns and followed simple instructions. We took the opportunity to talk about the ingredients and our word of the week “Night”, talking about how we know it is night time. The children enjoyed their delicious biscuits.

Children in need 2024 – The children looked fabulous in their outfits and joined in with mark making opportunities as well as decorating biscuits. Thank you for your generous donations!

Outdoor mark making with water

The children use their gross motor skills as they mark make in the garden using water and a variety of brushes. They ask for more water once they have used it all. This provides opportunities to talk about what they are creating.