Jess and her children enjoyed seeing RED today in preparation for Red Nose Day tomorrow…. They emptied and poured and splashed together and caught balls with the net as they explored their red-themed water tray! Xxxx

The dinosaurs are still stomping, but today it’s through a different terrain… no more painty feet… this morning it’s cereal to eat and crunch and ‘rain’ and pour and generally explore!!

Our children are busy collaborating as they use the dinosaurs imaginatively and add different resources into the tray to facilitate and further their play ideas…

We think it’s safe to say that a totally ROARsome time is currently being had by both dinosaurs and children alike as challenges are set, cause and effect is explored, investigations are made and creative play scenarios organically develop… xxxx

it’s a dinosaur romp!!!!

Stephen carried on following the current interests of his children as their love of all things dinosaurs continued… this involved painting with them this time though!! One little one requested to paint with the dinosaurs, so that’s exactly what they all did!

An invitation to play was quickly set up and some of the dinosaurs made their way into the ‘dinosaur garden’. The children LOVED to ‘stomp, stomp stomp’ in the paint, creating lots of footprints around the garden on the ‘grass’!!

By choosing to incorporate toys/figures that our children adore sometimes those that would perhaps not usually choose to get messy and ‘stuck into’ painting activities can often be enticed and drawn into joining in on all the excitement!

Lots of collaboration, cooperation and sharing was seen, lots of imagination as dinosaurs danced and roared and stomped, lots of lovely discussion occurred as dinosaurs’ names were discussed and lots of dinosaur facts were shared too… xxxx

Independent ways and choosing days spent munching here at Jollies…

(…. and as every moment is a learning one and a chance to develop our skills by using tongs to select our chosen pieces of fruit we were also working upon our fine motor skills and strengthening our fingers whilst having our snack!) xxxx

Close observation of our children’s movements is vitally important in Early Years play so we can ensure our rooms are set up to facilitate and enable the physical development opportunities they all require.

Young children often have a preference for movement; some crawl, some shuffle on their bottoms, some slide on their tummies, some pull themselves up and cruise and our job is to ensure that we provide so many varied opportunities throughout the nursery day to support and encourage all different types of movement.

This is why we provide physical challenges in the form of soft play, cushions to encourage tummy time, walking aids which little bodies can be pulled up upon and then they can be pushed around to provide the required balance and support for moving about the room and we also think carefully about the placement of toys and resources to encourage movement based upon our children’s individual and differing needs as each child is unique and we want to truly meet their needs as they progress through the ages and stages of physical development and challenge.

We definitely like to move it, move it here at Jollies xxxx

We are loving our visits to the bug hotel across the road

We are so lucky that ‘Woodlesford in Bloom’ do such an amazing job of making our village beautiful for us all to enjoy.

We loved helping them construct the bug hotel and now we are enjoying checking in on the guests who may be visiting.

Kirstan took her children across the road to see what they could spot after they had enjoyed sharing the ‘Bug Hotel’ book together within their room.

Every moment’s a learning one and it was also an ideal time to talk about road safety and how to cross safely as we went on our little adventure to see what we could see… xxxx

What wonderfully special people our children have in their lives here at Jollies… today is all about YOU and celebrating how much you do for them all and to let you know just how much they all LOVE you!!

Wishing you all a very special day together xxxx

….where conversation flows, where anything goes, where confidence grows, where imagination shows, where happiness and excitement courses from our head to our toes!! xxxx

A HUGE thank you to all our children and Team Jollies for getting into the World Book Day spirit today.

We loved seeing everyone dressed up as their favourite book characters, or dressed in pyjamas ready to snuggle and share a story and we loved looking at the books some of our children brought in too.

There have been stories brought to life through ‘tuff trays’ where pesky rabbits have tried to steal the vegetables and Gruffalo Crumble has been created! We have marched and stomped and splashed and squelched our way around the whole outdoor area as we’ve gone on a bear hunt together.

We have explored many story sacks; including the snail and the whale and we had a REAL snail come to visit as Stripy came back in to say hello and he has grown soooooo much!!

Free-Flow even had a REAL ladybird fly in and we had fun asking them what they had heard?!?!

Stickmen have been created, puppets have been played with, stories have been shared and so much fun has been had throughout the nursery

We even tucked into a story-inspired menu as we had Jack’s Magic Bean Stew for lunch, followed by Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake and A Squash and A Squeeze Soup for tea!!

We hope you have all had a fun day and we hope you all now have fun using your World Book Day tokens to get a lovely new book and we wish you all lots of future exciting reading together!!! Xxxx

We are proper foodies here at Jollies… and just love to eat our breakfast, lunch and tea; with two snacks in between…. We basically eat all day here at nursery!!

(….. Oh and did we mention how brilliant we are at being independent too?! Our youngest giraffes are just soooooo grown up!!!!) xxxx