With a shake, rattle and roll beautiful music was made outside as Fiona and her little Possums explored all the instruments together xxxx

we ALL rings!

Fascinating to watch this little one so very focused on getting as many rings hooked on the tree as possible. Great for their hand/eye coordination as they carefully placed them on, but also great for developing their core strength and balance as they naturally reached and stretched to grab more rings to hang!!

Such a simple activity, but one with so many wonderful learning opportunities! Xxxx

We can’t wait to add this weekend’s fabulous find into our ‘Fox’s Socks’ story bag… previously we’ve posted when we’ve found some fabulous fox coasters and a wooden fox to accompany the array of socks and story book within this bag… but now our little ones can have fun popping the different socks on their very own fox to find their favourites.

This story bag is great for encouraging counting, pairing, matching, hiding and seeking and developing an array of positional language as the children hide and find the socks and describe whether they are under, on top of, inside, below, above etc and of course all the while tonnes of collaborative play is taking place, as well as pure imagination as the children make up their own story versions

Welcome to Jollies, Fox, we know you are going to enjoy your adventures with all our clever, imaginative, brilliant children…. Xxxx

Fiona was busy sat updating her children’s memories books when one little one came up to her, sat on her lap, started looking at all her photographs, before picking up the glue stick and, after some careful modelling and demonstration by Fiona, she was soon busy sticking them into her book…

Our older children love to get involved in compiling their memories books when they can, but often our staff team complete them for our younger ones when they find a quieter moment within the busy day, but in this case Fiona was very happy to share this role when this little one expressed an interest in getting stuck in too!! Xxxx

We love it when our children imagine another object to be something else that they’d much prefer it to be.

Imagination shone through here as the block became a phone and then it was cue nearby Jolly grownup to scaffold and extend as a wonderful conversation ensued… they didn’t have a block to hand, but instead they held their imaginary handset as they proceeded to chat happily away together xxxx

We are OBSESSED with jigsaw puzzles…

Look at how clever we are at matching the pieces to their corresponding spaces

Xxxx

Cute moment alert…. This little one spontaneously swayed from side to side and smiled as they sang their little heart out… lots of mooing and oinking was heard!! Can you guess the song?! Xxxx

We love working in close partnership with our local primary schools and as part of our transition process for our big school leavers we invite their class teachers in to visit them here at nursery.

It is great for the teachers to see their future children in a setting in which they are totally comfortable and confident.

For our children Jollies is a space where they can be their true selves; their confidence oozes, their friendship pours, their excitement bubbles, their imagination flowers and their laughter rings and this is what we want all those teachers to see. Home visits are, of course, excellent too, but a nursery visit is a chance to peek into a crystal ball and see what their future classroom holds.

Our children get so excited when they know their teachers are coming too and this was illustrated perfectly when this little one came to the drawing table and he spontaneously began talking about his impending school visit…

Such was his excitement that he decided to draw a special picture for his teacher and he put so much effort, and detail, into creating his picture… drawing himself and his teacher and he even wrote his name without any help at all. He then began drawing shapes and he went on to tell Natalie the names of these too.

A huge thank you to all the lovely teachers who have been to visit us so far and we can’t wait to welcome the others who are booked in still to come. We hope you have enjoyed meeting your children and seeing their brilliant potential as they showed you their fabulous selves… We know they loved showing you their special memories books as they reflected upon their learning with you and they shared with you some of their favourite things to do.

However, as much as this is wonderful, it is also a time of mixed emotions for Team Jollies too, as it makes us feel sad because it means it’s almost time to say goodbye as our children get ready to leave us and truly spread their wings and fly!! Xxx

What a feast these two created for Stephen in our mud kitchen! On the menu today for Stephen was…. ‘cabbage’, ‘rice’ and a cup of ‘hot chocolate’…. Yummy xxxx