What a cute little moment Natalie captured recently when she spotted these two little besties relaxing in the reading area… They were enjoying looking at books together laid down on the cushions next to each other. They especially loved having a look through the Peppa books as they both enjoyed chatting away to each other about exactly what they could see in all the pictures as they turned their pages.

This was just a little chill time before their yummy dinner, but these moments are magical and fill our children’s (and our!!) days with pure happiness

Reading days and friendship-sharing ways spent snuggling up together here at Jollies!! xxxx

Stephen’s children had been loving sensory play so recently he took the slime outside into the garden for them to carry on exploring!!

There were some metal spoons and bowls alongside the slime and our children soon put them to full use!!

They liked to experiment to see whether they could scoop the slime into the bowls using the different spoons and utensils.

However, as they scoop, scoop, scooped the slime got stuck to the spoon and they then had to find a different strategy to get it off the spoon… they definitely loved the challenge! Blue, who was playing nearby with some other children, was even drawn into this activity too and couldn’t resist attempting to move the slime about the tray.

Some children decided to try using a smaller bowl to scoop instead of the spoon, so they could then ‘pour’ instead… This way proved more effective for getting some of the slime into the bowl.

After this, the children explored differing ways of playing and many enjoyed using their hands to touch and feel the texture of the slime within them too. This evolved into stretching it as far as they could and throughout some superb vocabulary was heard and shared as the children and Stephen commentated upon their explorations….. ‘Ewwww it’s all slimy!!’ was heard a lot though!!!!! xxxx

We are definitely feeling the autumn vibes as this exciting time of year arrives… the weather is a little crisper and the leaves that little bit crunchier!!

So Natalie decided to explore playdough enhanced with lots of different autumnal items for her children to look at and talk about.

Natalie and her little ones discussed how things change in autumn all around us; such as the leaves changing colour and then falling down and they chatted together about how they look forward to going on walks to find conkers, acorns and other exciting autumnal things…

They shared an autumn story together and discussed all the seasonal things they could spot on the pages and then they set to manipulating their dough. They squashed and squeezed as they explored shapes and imprints and generally had a wonderful time getting creative! They even ended up practising their counting as they spontaneously erupted into this when they were adding conkers to their play dough..

What a fun morning they all had together as they got those little fingers working and strengthening and got those BIG brains imagining and thinking hard! Xxxx

Last week Exploring Elephants thought they’d put their culinary skills to the test as they had loved playing in the role-play kitchen so much. They had all been obsessed with looking through the different recipe books in there and this had then progressed onto them creating buns in the play dough with Nat-Nat and so Jade thought she’d then extend this interest even further….

The room ended up making some very yummy rocky road; following a real-life recipe! They were all so excited, interested and enthusiastic as they did some excellent counting and measuring and they organically used the mathematical vocabulary associated with adding more and measuring.

Role-play brought baking to life for our children and baking brought mathematical concepts into our children’s domain in a very real way! We’ve simply got it all going on here at Jollies

Where will our children’s interests take us to next we wonder?! We can’t wait to see…. xxx

….. and we take this very seriously indeed!!

We work sooooooooo hard and we love mark-making, collaborating, communicating, creating and imagining together.

All you need is some friends, some fab resources and a little bit of imagination and you are all set!!

Collaborative ways and hard-working days spent together here at Jollies xxxx

Recently Natalie and her children were looking through different recipe books together in the kitchen role play area and they were pointing to all the different biscuits, buns and other delicious treats.

This sparked some great conversation about their likes and dislikes and they enjoyed having a lovely chat together as a group. They then decided to make their own buns, cakes and biscuits using play dough and different play dough utensils.

They referred to a recipe book for inspiration and they let their imaginations flow making some very delicious treats!

This little one loved this and she gave everything a good go making sure she experimented with ALL the utensils… she would praise herself and cheer even before she had fully finished ‘baking’ too as she was just soooooo excited!!

She just needed a little help when it came to using the cutters as she didn’t understand to push down harder and she initially just made marks with them, but she was still very happy with this and Natalie was then able to scaffold and support and demonstrate to further her learning and ‘baking’!!

They all had so much fun being top bakers together!! xxxx

We love it when our children’s imaginations roam free and they build and create and this ‘camera’ proved lots of fun for this little one and his friends xxxx

Some lovely independent reading observed recently between these friends. They all did a great job at taking turns conversationally, pointing out different things spotted on each page and describing them to their friends and they just generally enjoyed discussing the story they were all busy making up together xxxx

Whether it’s trying to hook a duck, making the best cups of tea ever, clanging and banging with pots and pans, scooping and filling and pouring with different containers and utensils, or just splishing and splashing and swooshing our hands around there’s simply no better way to keep cool than playing in a wonderful water tray!!!! xxxx

after much deliberation satsuma ended up being the morning snack of choice as all three of Imogen’s little ones decided upon this when presented with the fruit box here at Jollies

At nursery we like to involve our children in making choices and choosing what to eat for snack is just one way we can involve them in making decisions.

We don’t have rolling snack rotas here at nursery, we go with the flow and what they have is decided upon by each room each day.

Not only do we have a huge fruit box, but also a fridge full of berries, watermelon, grapes and also cheese; which we enjoy with fruit and crackers, cracker breads and breadsticks.

Basically we are all proper foodies here at Jollies… we are fruit and veg munchers and we love food and love life!! Yum, yum!! Xxxx