Willow Tree Day Nursery

🍁 DIY Natural Autumn Boats 🍁
Mark our outdoor lead spent some time in Owl Hub making our very own ‘DIY Natural Autumn Boats.’ We were super excited to help cut and drill holes in the wood to ensure that our boats had masts to make them blow in the wind. Once made we then tested our boats out in puddles and through water play racing them against each other. We learnt about what natural materials we could find in the garden we could use to make our boats and how it is really important to use our power tools safely.

🍎From tree to bowl🍎
Our Owl children have been excitedly watching the apples grow on the tree in their garden. This week they were ripe enough to pick. Mark helped the children climb the ladders to pick the apples. We spoke about how to be safe whilst doing so. We then washed the apples and followed the recipe to make apple crumble. The children used the scales recognising the different numerals, before taking it to the kitchen to cook. They all enjoyed a taste during their tea!

🎓Class of 2024🎓
Today we said our final goodbyes to our class of 2024. As they start their new adventures at “big school” we reflect on how they have grown and learnt throughout their time at Willow Tree. We wish them the best of luck on their next stage in life.

✈️🛩️National Aviation Week 🛩️✈️

Taking our children to explore the outside world give’s them new opportunities for learning and different experience’s. Some of our children visited the ‘Runway Visitor Park.’ We saw so many different types of planes, we talked about how loud and noisy they were, learnt about how they fly with their big engines and we even got to go inside one!

🏴‍☠️ Pirate Day 🏴‍☠️
This week it has been ‘International talk like a pirate day!’ We had a day full of fun pirate activities!
We looked for treasure and found some hidden silver and gold coins ooooo aaaahhhhh!
We made a pirate boat and sailed the seven seas in the rough sea and kept the ship afloat.
Whilst making sure that we followed our pirate maps so we didnt get lost! Ahoy there maties I see land!

🌻🌸Florists 🪻🌷
We know how important following on from children’s own interests are. We’ve noticed our children have been arranging and exploring flowers and plants in our inside and outside environments. So this week we gave our children the chance to reenact becoming florists and running their very own flower shop! The children learnt about different types of flowers/plants, different colours, how to buy/order items from a shop and how to handle money and pay for items they wanted.

🍐Prickly Pears🍐
Our bear hub recently visited the local greengrocers, after looking at the different fruit and vegetables, the children came across a fruit they had never seen or tasted before. The children selected a prickly pear, paying for it using their money and took it home to explore. The children helped to cut open the fruit, before tasting it. They said “it tastes like watermelon.”

🥇Olympics🥇
Our preschool children have been exploring the olympics over the last few weeks. The children learnt about the different events, taking part in their own rowing races, long jump and role played swimming. We introduced the different countries to the children, wxploring the flags and where in the world they are from.
We held our own opening ceremony, creating boats to float down the Seine River, holding flags from different countries. After each event they held a medal ceremony and played the national anthem.
We can’t wait to celebrate the Paralympic’s in the coming weeks

🪺Bird feeders🪺
On a walk in our local park, one of the children spotted the bird houses. This sparked a conversation about where birds live and what they eat. We discussed the similarities and differences between our diet and a birds. One child suggested we make some food for the birds. The children helped to mix and combine the ingredients before heading back out to the park to leave them out for the birds. We have also hung some in our nursery garden, hoping to catch sight of different birds.

🎣Pond Dipping🎣
One of our children has recently been fishing whilst on holiday. To follow on from this interest our Bear hub made their own fishing rods, catching our numbered fish. After all the practice, they headed out to Sale water park. The children used nets to pond dip, talking about the different fish they could catch. Our children recalled their own holidays and spoke about the time they went fishing.

☀️Fun in the Sun☀️
This week we have been enjoying the hot weather, enjoying lots of water play. We used this weather as an opportunity to talk about sun safety. We spoke about the importance of wearing a sun hat, applying sun cream, avoiding the hot parts of the day and also drinking lots of water!

🐞 🐜 🐛 Nature Bug House’s 🐞 🐜 🐛

Teaching our children that insects, bugs and living things play a huge part in our natural world, we have talked about how these little creatures play an important part in our eco system’s.
Together we made environmentally friendly nature houses for all our insects to use in a special place in our garden

🦕 Manchester Museum 🦖

Today our owls went for a trip on the bus to the Manchester museum, they were so excited to explore the dinosaur gallery and the living world area, the museum is full of amazing stories and activities!

🌸 A walk in the wild 🌸

This week our bears went for a walk around our local water park, Being outside and surrounded by nature, children experience an ever changing and free flowing environment that stimulates all the senses.

🌈 Pride 🌈

Throughout this month we have been celebrating and learning about pride, pride month is an important opportunity to teach children about what it means to be a member of LGBTQIA+ communities and share the history behind the month long celebration 🩷❤️🧡💚💙

🩵 Happy Father’s Day 🩵

This week we invited our lovely Willow Tree Fathers in to join us for a stay and play, we hope you all have a lovely Father’s Day! 💙

🍉🍌🍓 Healthy eating week 🥕🥦🥑

This week we have explored lots of different healthy eating activities to teach the children about the benefits of having a healthy balanced diet.
Healthy eating boots immunity, supports brain development and strengthens our bones 💪🏻

🌱Look at us Grow🌱
We have been awarded our Level 2 Gardening school awards. The children have been busy watching the plants grow, watering them and looking at the produce. The children have learnt new gardening skills, and also learnt mindfulness techniques to support our emotional well-being.

🌎 World Environment and Ocean day 🌎

This week we have been learning about our planet and how we can protect it, we took walks in our local environment, explored sea life tuff trays and explored recycling and what recycling does for our planet.

🚲 World Bicycle Day 🚲

Yesterday our Pre-school invited the children to bring their own bikes and scooters in for world bicycle day, promoting the benefits of cycling for transportation, health and sustainability.

🌿 Outdoor fun 🌿

Our Pre-school went for a walk in the woods, they collected natural resources as they went to then paint beautiful pictures in the forest, when children play with natural materials they generate their own ideas, which fuels their innate creativity.

🌷🌼 Flower Bombs 🌼🌷

Willow Tree have been in partnership with The Friends of Worthington Park to create an area for our children to grow their own flowers, today we went to the park and threw flower bombs as well as exploring the beautiful flowers already around the park, we can’t wait to watch our flower bomb progress over the coming months!

🌳Outdoor learning 🌳
Our children enjoy being out in all weathers exploring what nature and our local environment has to offer. Outdoor learning boosts confidence, social skills, communication and boosts children's self-esteem and self-confidence.

☀️Rain, Clouds or Shine 🌦️
Whether we have rainy days, cloudy days or sunshine days we always find a way to have fun, get outside and keep cool.

🌸 Flower Bombs 🌸

Today little owls made some flower bombs, they helped to measure the soil and seeds out, mix it all together and roll them into balls, we talked about the benefits flowers provide to our environment and to our wildlife!