Garden Bird Watch Week

This week is the RSPB garden Bird Watch Week so we adopted a bit of a winter bird theme. We started off by making some bird feeders to attract the birds to the garden. 

 The children used their fine motor skills to place peanut butter around pine cones with spatulas. They then spread and sprinkled bird seed over the cones to hang in the garden. However, rather than attracting birds we did tend to attract the squirrels!

We then visited the bird hyde at Saltram house where the children looked at the numerous birds with their binoculars. Although we spotted numerous geese and ducks we also saw some garden birds including a lovely Robin (pictured above). 

Finally the children looked at some bird spotting sheets and coloured in some pictures of a variety of birds with the older children creating their own bird pictures.  

Snowmen and Penguins!

After a chilly winter morning in the park we decided to warm up with a little winter craft sessions. The children were rather disappointed that we did not get snow in this part of the country today so we first decided to make our own snowmen with the help of some cottonwool. 

I placed all the items out for the children and let them design their own snowmen. Whilst some resembled the traditional approach, the younger children just enjoyed the sticking activity and designed their own version!

The children love using their hand and footprints so we next set about our footprint penguins - this caused much hilarity due to some very ticklish feet! After decorating their penguins we used this activity to continue awareness of letter sounds. The children practised saying the 'p' sounds, tried to think of other words beginning with this sound and then attempted to write the letter. 

Christmas Toddler Group

We attend a lovely toddler group on Tuesday mornings and throughout December we have had the opportunity to participate in some great Christmas opportunities for the children. 

At the beginning of December the children were able to make their own Christingle to take home. They thought this was great fun as sweets were involved. They all threaded their sweets perfectly and were very proud of their creations!

In the middle of December the children participated in a nativity. We were given the parts of a sheep and two of the wise men. The children enjoyed dressing up and being part of a play. They were brilliant!

Finally, this week it was time to party! The children enjoyed games, presents and party food to finish the term off.  

Peppermint puffy paint

To make puffy paint I combined PVA glue, Shaving foam, poster paint, peppermint oil and lots of green glitter! The peppermint oil gave the paint a lovely smell and the glue enabled us to stick lots of glitter and sequins to the paint. 

We decided to make Christmas trees with our puffy paint. The older children decided to do outlines for their trees and fill them in with paint while the youngest children free-styled! When they had made a tree shape they had great fun decorating their trees and adding some Christmas pictures and writing. 

We left the pictures to dry overnight and the combination of shaving foam and glue makes the pictures lovely and 'puffy'! The children loved the fact that this paint was thicker and that they were able to add decorations without waiting for the pictures to dry first. We had a lot of different styles of Christmas trees demonstrating the lovely interpretations of all the children. 

Christmas Crafts

There are so many fun Christmas craft ideas and so little time to get all the crafts done that, together with two other childminders, we decided to arrange a Christmas craft session. We each brought an activity for the children and the children chose the crafts they wanted to participate in. 

We had a lovely morning as the children enjoyed gluing, cutting, sticking as well as stuffing bottles to make snowmen. 

The children were so proud of their work which included stained glass windows, sparkly tinfoil Christmas tree decorations, cotton wool snowmen bottles and some fantastic Christmas Cards. 

We all had a lovely social morning which ended with some Christmas singing and lots of goodies to take home.