The Old School House Nursery & Pre School

✨Today in Bunnies we have been busy making some star shaped biscuits as lots of the children have recently been showing a big interest in cooking both in real life and through role play.

The children first started off by washing their hands to get rid of all the germs, during this we spoke about why we needed clean hands before touching food.
Once our hands were clean the children sat so nicely at the table and took it in turns to add the different ingredients and mix it together. Once this was all done the children even had a go at cutting a star shape out with support from the practitioners.

These have turned out so well and we can’t wait to take them home with us later. Well done Bunnies!🧑‍🍳👩‍🍳

This week the Preschool rooms have taken part in sports day. The children enjoyed taking part and being in different teams to complete different races. They were all such great team players cheering each other on and had such a good time! They all were rewarded a medal and certificate for taking part! Well done Preschoolers, what a lovely day! ✨

✨Upton Country Park✨

Today some of the children from Bunnies have been out on a trip to Upton Country Park due to lots of them recently showing a big interest in climbing.

The children had the opportunity to experience the bus where we saw lots of different people to say hello to and we were even luckily enough to see a dog on the bus!

Once we reached the park we enjoyed having a snack in the shade, exploring the play park, looking at the different birds and wildlife and enjoying a picnic lunch under the trees.

We then looked around the house and went on a bug hunt before catching the bus back to nursery. We had so much fun on this trip and can’t wait to go again soon. Well done Bunnies! 🐞🐛🐜

Feeding the ducks✨

Yesterday in Bunnies some of the children went out on a trip to feed the ducks at Poole park. Lots of the children have been practicing making animal sounds at home, because of this we planned a trip to go and see some real life ducks quack! The children had the opportunity to feed the ducks as well as looking at their patterns and colours. During this trip we practiced our best animal sounds and spoke about what other animals we might find in the park. Well done Bunnies🦆🦆

Recently the children in Bay Owls have shown interest in hair dressing. Today a practitioner set up an activity where the children had to use their scissor skills to cut the ‘hair’ from the picture. During this activity the children showed good scissor control and it sparked conversations about similarities and differences with people’s hair. They spoke about different hair colours and different lengths of hair. This was a lovely activity✨✨

This morning in the toddler room we have had baby ballet. The children really enjoyed copying the different actions to songs we love such as row row and sleeping bunnies. The children also explored different sensory scarves and musical shakers before playing with the baby ballet teddy bears, putting them to sleep and getting them to do different actions. We had loads of fun and we all love having a dance in ducklings.

This week Bay Owls have taken part in a teddy bears picnic. The children brought in their favorite teddy to nursery to join us for the picnic. Throughout the week the children shared some information about their teddies during circle time which included, what their teddy is called and then something special about their teddy. They then sat down to have a picnic snack outside with their teddies. The children loved sharing their snack role playing and creating conversations with their peers throughout. ✨🧸

In Preschool the children are very lucky to take part in their weekly English lesson!

The lesson this week was taking on the children’s interest and the topic was all about jungle animals 🦧The maths teacher went through different animals we would find in the jungle such as panther, iguana, toucan and many more. We then listened to a story called ‘Ronald the Rhino’ 🦏 the children enjoyed listening to the story and discussing what happened afterwards 📚

Children enjoyed taking part in different activities. Today the children used the play-dough to try and make the different jungle animals from the story such as tiger, rhino, and snake🐍 the children all showed good manipulation skills as they made the play-dough into different shapes.

The next activity was making a rainforest for the jungle animals. This activity was also supporting the children with learning to write their own name! Which is an important skill for school!

Well done Preschool!

Outdoor play✨

Now summer has arrived the children have been really enjoyed exploring the activities out in the garden. From cooking in the kitchen, water play, practicing gross motors skills by using the obstacle course and lots of opportunities for mark making and role play☀️

Today Bay Owls and Tawny Owls had the special opportunity to meet lots of different animals. We had a special visit from Mad4Animals. They all showed engagement, listening carefully to the story that Cassie was reading about all the different animals. The children also answered all of the different questions that were asked. The children saw an owl, snake, tarantula, a tenrec, a giant snail and a blue tongue skink. They also got the opportunity to touch some of the animals as well. Thank you to Mad 4 animals this was a lovely opportunity! ✨

Today Bay Owls and Tawny Owls participated in Forest school. They took part in a variety of activities including making their own summer breeze sticks, digging for worms, making ice cream out of shaving foam and ice cream cones-using mud to sprinkle on the tops. They also really enjoyed creating their own bubble wands to make bubbles. They all had a lovely morning. ✨

Today the staff in Hedgehogs room have set up a princess and superhero themed day. The children had the opportunity to dress up as their favourite character and engage in a variety of activities, these activities consist off potion making in the little princesses kitchen, decorating superhero masks and
superhero target practice. 👸🏻🦸🏼‍♂️

These activities have been set up based on the children’s current interests and support their heuristic development in many ways for example using their imagination and natural resources to create potions and or using their gross motor skills to help strengthen there grasp when holding the spray bottle to aim for the flying superhero’s.

✨This was successful day and all of the children shared such enthusiasm and excitement for the activities explored across the day.✨

The children have really enjoyed planting flowers and vegetables in our garden. The children have been learning about how to grow food. They have showed a greater appreciation for healthy foods, learning about sustainable practices and gaining valuable life skills.

✨Today in Bunnies some of the children have been out on a trip around the local community to the Ashley Cross Green to look for animals following on from our trip to look for ducks last week.
During this trip the children were lucky enough to see some birds, dogs and even a squirrel! They also had a little play and look at the fountain before having a picnic snack in the sunshine. This was so much fun. Well done Bunnies! 🐿

🍋 When life gives you lemons, make biscuits! 🍋

Today the children in the Hedgehogs room escaped the rainy weather to make some tasty lemon shortbread biscuits.
Together we worked as a team, taking it in turns to explore fine and gross motor skills such as measuring, pouring, cutting and zesting, once all of these skills were carried out we combined all of the ingredients to make a dough.

✨Baking has many benefits supporting children’s physical skills, communication and language, and allows for the children to feel a sense of accomplishment. ✨

Well done Hedgehogs!

✨Large scale mark making✨

Yesterday in Bunnies the children had the opportunity to do some large scale mark making using paint rollers. The children were able to feel the paint on their hands and feet as well as making lots of large marks to express themselves. During this activity we spoke about colours and colour mixing as well as textures and movements. The children had the best time getting messy and making their creation. Well done Bunnies! 🎨🖌

Bugs and Insects have been a huge topic off interest for the children in Hedgehogs recently. To extend this we set up a group activity for the children to create their own bug house using natural resources such as sticks, feathers, leaves and straw.

Each child used a plant pot as a secure base for their bug house, which they used their fine motor skills to fill the plant pot up with their selected resources to help create layers within.

Whilst the children engaged in this activity we discussed what bugs and insects will use our houses, some of the children shared ideas such as “caterpillars, butterflies and bumblebees”, we also discussed the importance off creating these home to help our surrounding environment.
The children were very proud of their final products and have took their bug house home to put in their own gardens. 🐞🪶🏠

✨Soft Play✨

Today some of our younger babies from the Bunnies room have been out on a trip to the local soft play due to lots of them recently showing an interest in climbing.
On the way to the soft play we saw some ducks and the children were able to point to them and make quacking sounds.
Once we reached the soft play the children enjoyed exploring the different parts of the soft play and showing off their climbing skills. They also looked at the bubble tubes and liked looking in the different mirrors at themselves. This was such a lovely trip. Well done Bunnies! ⭐️

✨Today in Bunnies some of the children have been out on a trip to Whitecliff park due to lots of them recently showing a big interest in climbing.
During our trip to the park the children had the opportunity to climb and play on all the different pieces of play equipment and take lots of supervised risks.
While we were out we saw a variety of animals such as birds and dogs where we practiced making the sounds of the animals. We then sat on the grass and had a little picnic snack before stopping off at Poole park to get an ice lolly to cool down. This was so much fun. Well done Bunnies! 🍦🦆

✨Yesterday some of the children from Bunnies went out on a trip to Poole park to feed the ducks due to lots of us recently showing a big interest in animals, particularly birds.
On the way to the park the children enjoyed looking at the different cars and dogs going past as well as spotting lots of different flowers and plants.
Once we reached the park we took it in turns to grab a handful of duck food and sprinkle it into the water for the ducks to eat. Lots of ducks came over to us and we spoke about what colours they were and what noises they made. We then had a little picnic for snack time in the park. This trip was so much fun and we can’t wait to go again soon! Well done Bunnies 🦆🦆

✨Mark Making✨

Recently in Bunnies lots of the children have been showing a big interest in mark making with different textures, because of this the practitioners in the room created an activity where they could get messy and explore the texture of paint while making marks using different resources such as rollers and brushes.

The children used their senses to explore this and were able to create some beautiful pictures. Well done Bunnies! 🖌🎨

✨Soft Play Fun✨

Today in Bunnies some of the children have been out on a trip to the local soft play at the Ark due to lots of us recently showing a big interest in climbing and jumping.

During this trip the children showed such good gross motor skills and coordination to climb on all the different soft play pieces as well as jumping into the ball pit and building some towers. We also spent some time looking at the different bubble tubes and lights and even looked in the mirror at our faces. This was so much fun and we can’t wait to go again soon!🫧

This week Bay Owls have been talking about wishes to celebrate ‘World Wish Day’. The children have been learning that it’s a day for Make-a-wish campaign to come together and reflect on how many wishes we make actually have come true. Today the children made some shooting stars to represent each of their wishes. They enjoyed creating different marks and patterns on the stars. We extended the activity so the children could add different materials as they wanted the stars to have a shooting star effect. The children loved sharing their wishes to each other and some of these wishes the children shared were: “I wish to go rock climbing”, “I wish for a trip to the moon with my family”. ✨✨

This evening we held Belle a work Baby Shower! We surprised Belle and played games, and had a buffet. Belle is such a valued member of our team, and we will miss her so much, but we can’t wait to meet her baby boy, and see her have this really exciting part of her life! ✨

There will be a video of the surprise to follow! ✨

Today the children from the Twos Room visited Whitecliff Park! Whilst walking there they were very excited to see a bus, a number of cars and even spot a train. As they showed such a big interest in transport, they also went and looked at the boats as they had snack! The children then used their Gross Motor Skills to explore the different play equipment within the park, they showed such confidence and independence as they explored. What a lovely opportunity for everybody involved! ✨

Today the Preschool children had the opportunity to go on the trip. We caught the bus to Poole to go and explore the library. On the bus we spoke about different directions. When we arrived at the library the children understood that we needed to be quiet in the library as other people would be working or reading books. The children quietly explored the different books, they then took part in story time. Due to it being Spanish Language day we found some Spanish children’s books. Together we learnt some key words and then we read a story that was dual language. Lucy explained what this meant that the story was written in English and Spanish. The children then walked nicely through Poole park to get back to nursery. What a lovely morning. ✨

Is seeing children flourish and learn new skills each and every day something you would find rewarding?
Does joining a fun and motivated team where you have the autonomy to plan different and exciting activities throughout the day something you would enjoy doing? If so, The Old School House is the right place for you! We are looking for an enthusiastic and creative practitioner to join our team!

For more information please email us on [email protected] or give us a call on 01202242794. ✨

Today one of the parents in the Ducklings Room mentioned their child has been struggling to brush their teeth at home, because of this we set up an activity which promotes oral hygiene.

Firstly the children drew their own germs, they then used the tooth brush to get rid of them. During this activity we talked about why it is so important to brush our teeth, and how we must do it twice a day. The children were keen to show us their teeth, and used language such as “brush brush”, “all clean” and “much better”.

Here at The Old School House we continuously promote oral hygiene. We also have a home link bag which has a range of resources promoting this so parents can take it home to support them outside of the setting too, if you would like to borrow it, please let your child’s key worker know! ✨

Today some of the children from Bay Owls and Hedgehogs had the opportunity to go on a trip to the beach. When we got to the beach we found the life guard station. We were super interested in this because last week when we had a visit from the RNLI and he told us that he designs the life guard stations that you see on the beach. We also found lots of shells and used them to dig, build and draw in the sand. When we got back to Nursery we then created our own life guard station using inspiration from the one we saw at the beach! ✨