Fun with Autumn Leaves

Autumn creates so many learning opportunities and we love being out and about at this time of year. The leaves falling off the trees provide opportunity to talk about changing seasons whilst the leaves themselves provide opportunity to talk about colour. 

The children enjoyed several mornings at both Saltram and the wildlife area at Devonport Park playing in the leaves, on the play equipment and looking for the various insects that live in such habitats. 

After collecting a variety of leaves (the children love the responsibility of carrying their own bag too collect leaves) we took some home to create some Autumn art through a range of sticking and glitter shaking.  

Mother's Day 2017

We have used Mothering Sunday as a good excuse to engage our creative sides as well as an opportunity to plants some seeds and learn about plant growth with a variety of kitchen herbs. 

The children all love painting and were able to experiment with different forms of mark making, using their fingers to create flowers on pots and then brushes to create some beautiful watercolours which we later cut into flowers. Our eldest mindee decided he would like to paint his mum some flowers and carefully picked the colours and washed his brush after each colour. 

To plant seeds we made use of expanding soil. The children all took turns in pouring water on to their soil and then moving the soil into pots. We introduced language to describe the change in size and texture of the soil. 

Children had great fun pressing the seeds down into the soil and watering them. All the children were very impressed with their efforts, let's hope the mums like them just as much! 

Christmas Crafts 2016

We have been extremely busy and having great fun over the last few weeks making some festive items to share with our families.  

Younger children have enjoyed the sensory experiences of moving pain around with both their hands and their feet as well as learning to hold brushes for mark making. Older children have used their developing dexterity to use finer brushes for painting, pick up and stick buttons as well as using their imaginations to create snowmen and Christmas trees. 

We produced several of our Christmas craft in a session with several other childminders and their minded their children all followed by a Christmas party so the children also had a lovely social time in their preparation for Christmas.