Aquarium Visit

Today we ventured to the aquarium with some friends. The boys had a lovely time playing with their friends in the soft play area and looking at all the fish.

As always we always managed to find some new fish to talk about or learn some new facts! This visit was dominated by the older children being fascinated by jelly fish and sharks with the youngest attempting to say the word 'fish'!

Water Fun!

This week has been very hot down here in the West Country so what better time than to introduce lots of water play to keep cool. 

 

We have been learning the importance of drinking lots, wearing sun hats and putting on our sunscreen but mainly, we've been having lots of fun!

We have been running through the water fountains at the local park through to painting the pavements with water and using our measuring pots in the paddling pool. All the children had a lovely time, I think I have a lot of water lovers on my hands!

Fruit Picking

Today we went fruit picking to pick some summer fruits much to the boys excitement. I have always tried to feed the children healthy meals and snacks and talked to them about this so fruit picking seemed a prefect way to make this more fun and let them see where their food comes from. 

The boys excitedly grabbed a contained each and chose to find some raspberries first. As soon as they were pointed in the right direction they shot off with their containers! We talked about just picking the ripe juicy red ones and leaving the green ones to ripen for other people. 

After rapidly filling a container of raspberries (and tasting just a few along the way!) the boys asked if they could pick some strawberries. After a lovely morning with tired boys and lots of juicy summer fruits we set off home. 

Using some of the fruit we had picked we made a smoothie to enjoy in the garden for afternoon snack - a great way of involving children in understanding where their food comes from and very tasty! 

Ice Cube Painting

Today has been pretty hot so I was on the search for some cooling summer activities when I came across an idea that looked great fun but was most certainly an outdoor activity - ice cube paints! Using an ice cube tray I froze diluted paints in two goes to make two-tone ice cubes. Placing some paper in our paddling pool the children were ready to start creating!

At first they explored the cubes pretty delicately, making small marks and then feeling them with their fingers. Even our youngest joined in with the sensory play, fascinated by the cold and the marks that he made. After making some pretty vibrant patterns on the paper the children decided that they would explore further and began to paint themselves turning it into a pretty messy play session with one of the children yelling, 'this is the best thing ever!'.

After a long time the children began to ask for some water so, we filled the paddling pool and the children had a great time splashing around. 

All in all this was a lovely cooling activity for such a sunny summer afternoon. 

July Topic

This month we will be looking at summer and hope that we get some weather that compliments this!

We will be venturing into the outdoors for a water play and summer picnics as well as tasting some summer fruits and talking about the weather that summer brings. We also have some lovely summer sensory play including ice cube art through to frozen jelly play.