Our oldest children enjoy making choices throughout their day and recently it started as soon as they entered the building, as they got to serve themselves breakfast!!

Excellent independence skills were exhibited too… every moment is a learning opportunity here at Jollies xxxx

Recently our oldest children were encouraged to take a moment to reflect upon this question as they considered their current mood and how they were feeling… were they happy, sad, angry, tired, excited?

Fortunately for most of our children their reflections led to them soon realising they were feeling happy and the reasons stemmed from having had egg and toast at Mummy’s house to looking forward to going swimming later, to having been able to spend time playing with their favourite toys…

Once our children had decided upon their emotion they drew the corresponding face and then pegged it onto our feelings tree! xxxx

In our sensory room the focus has mostly been upon lovely, lovely lights and cause and effect recently!

Our children have been enjoying switching them on and off and exploring colours as well as exploring textures within the room too. Some amazing marks have been made upon sequinned cushions and we have squashed, squeezed and snuggled into comfy cushions.

Our newly-revamped sensory room is such a versatile space as we have boxes of grouped resources (all focusing upon different areas) that we bring down into the room to enable us to follow our children’s differing current interests and meet their unique developmental needs.

Every day is different and every day is AMAZING xxxx

Next time our children venture upstairs in Free-Flow they will be able to sit and share their stories with their friends in their very own jolly secret garden.

Gone are the former superhero cushions and figures and instead flowers, leaves and vines are bursting with colour around them as they look up at the starry sky and take in the surrounds of their very special secret story garden…

Flowery ways and brilliant reading days spent relaxing here at Jollies xxxx

Emma told me ages ago about a fantastic place, The Recycle Yard in Ossett, and when I finally made it there for a visit last week I came back armed with lots of lovely resources that I knew would be perfect for many things; but one use I definitely had in mind for some of the goodies was enhancing water play here at Jollies for our oldest children.

The super-cute teeny tiny pipettes, the mini funnels, the pillars, the pots, the ‘pop top’ tubes, the ‘boats’ and the mini test tubes proved to be excellent when added to individual mini water trays

They got little brains whirring, little hands working and we saw fine motor skills being developed as hands had to grasp, squeeze, twist, turn and open and close as they explored and used all the different resources.

Building this finger strength and fine motor control is an essential pre-cursor for early writing skills, as you can’t hold a pen comfortably and effectively until you’ve gained this strength, control and coordination Xxxx

Yesterday Free-Flow were busy painting and practising cleaning their brushes along the way!

They liked to mix their colours, but learning to clean their brushes before each dip of new paint meant they could just mix the colours on the paper instead if they chose to add them to each other to create a new shade.

This proved much more satisfying as our children could explore the multitude of colours separately and this was much more exciting than the usual shade of brown that often arises when colours are mixed together on a palette.

The skill of rinsing the brush inbetween different strokes of paint led to greater choices being made, and much more satisfying results being achieved, as their masterpieces began to emerge….. xxxx

Our babies just adore watching, tracking, stretching and moving to pop, pop, pop the bubbles floating around and about them.

Bubbles are full of awe and wonder and we love a little bit of magic here at Jollies

Did you know that bubble play with older children can be hugely beneficial in developing later speech as blowing bubbles strengthens mouth muscles and gets the mouth moving and forming different shapes as lips are pursed and bubbles are blown.

Fun and hugely educational… it’s a win/win from us xxxx

It’s a little chillier outside this morning, so Free-Flow’s polar bears and penguins are very happy!!! xxxx

The best drawing, writing and creating definitely DOES NOT have to take place at a table top!!

We LOVE the Early Years and the freedom to move, move, move, find your own way of doing things and explore… let the creativity flow!! Xxxx

Oh the joys and endless possibilities…. xxxx