We kicked off the festivities with Poppy putting up the Christmas Tree. Next was the decision of Fairy, Angel or Star, Poppy decided it was the star as she wanted ‘Bling’ this year.
Poppy Decorating The Tree
Molly was excited when she saw all the decorations, I took this fabulous picture and sent it to her mum.
Molly Loves Christmas
Our first trip out was to our Stronger Practice Hub at Everton to join in with the Forest school. We made a fire and had marshmallows, smores and lots of activities outdoors. Even Father Christened made a visit!
Wrapped Up WarmWaiting For Their TurnCatching Up With Friends Lighting The FireBalancing Sensory Melting Marshmallows Mesmerised Watching The Flames
We started our crafts by making a Christmas wreath. All the children made green hand prints, except for Elliott, he doesn’t like getting his hands messy. Elliott painted a green picture instead and we cut out shapes to add to the plate.
Next we glued the prints onto a paper plate and added glitter, sparkly paper and various other pretty shapes. Tracie then hung them up to dry. We displayed them on the window for everyone to see.
LottieElliott Mable Feathers and a StarHand Prints and cotton BallsHand Prints
When Molly was in she asked me what my favourite decoration was, i said the light up Robin. Mollys favourite was the glittery peacock and George’s said his was the owl twit twoo.
OwlPeacock Robin Wow Elsie So ColourfulElsie’s MableJack Painting Father Christmas
The children made some very pretty Stockings. painted some lovely cutouts of Father Christmas and all his Reindeer’s, Jack gave Rudolf a big red nose.
Welcome HollyLovely Dancing To DannyMableMaking MusicLovely Song ElliottLottie Joining In Martie too!This is Holly Wow!So Relaxing Holly Fell AsleepLoving The Changing ColoursLearning Patience Shapes
Holly ChillingWinter VegPhyllis and Ben SnugglesReadingHi Ruby Batty LottyTrace and LottyWelcome HollyBrothers Jack’s 3rd Birthday Sing TimeParty TimeOur Grapes Are Ready At Last! Passion FruitPlaying With The Leaking HosePartners In Crime Superhero Birthday Party Ben’s 1st Birthday Oranges Oranges Getting BigBirthday BoyProud Of His FlowersCheeky PatchesRuby On The SlideDen BuildingOutdoor NapHelping Each other Wheres Jack?Number PlayChitter ChatterSand / Shell playActivity Time
We had fun this week with the Pumpkin’s, heres a little gallery of our activities.
Using Pumpkin’s In Play Investigating Using Them As A BallGroup PlayPrintingPainting Using the seeds Painting Of A Pumpkin
We went to Teds Farm Pumpkin Patch to choose some Big ones to carve out.
Jack And Ben How Many?Gemma And JackPoppy And ChloeWow These Pumpkins Are Heavy Heave Heave Having A RaceLazy PoppyHaving FunStrike A PoseLooking At The Mud!Making Gemma Pick It Up
We all had a fun day out and can’t wait to go again next year.
We have so much fun learning and playing in our garden at Tracie’s Treasures. I want to share some of my favourite films from the last couple of months.
In this film Jack is looking in our small barrel pond he is investigating what lives in there. He finds YUK
Jack Exploring In The Half Barrel Pond
George and the girls walk around the garden to check for bugs, George sings ‘Barbie Girl’ all the way around.
George Singing Barbie GirlMr Black Bird Having A Bath
This funny clip George is singing again as usual. This time he is singing to a Snail about being gorgeous.
George Singing ‘Your Beautiful’ To A Snail
My favourite time of day, looking in the greenhouses to see whats growing.
Elsie, Grace and Georgia Looking In The Greenhouse
Hope you enjoyed the films, the children here are amazing.
Today we have been focusing on communication, what better place to use questioning then our garden!
Walking along the path Elsie noticed some Strawberries which we had grown in one of our pots.
I asked the children “what do you think they will taste like? Else’s answer was “delicious, can I have one?” As I gave her the strawberry “ I asked “ what does it feel like?” Jack said “ yum yum” and took it out of my hand and popped it in his mouth. Else’s response was “squidgy “.
“Jack is the strawberry blue?” Jack shook his head to say no Elsie shouted from over her shoulder to me “it’s red silly”
I asked the children if they could find a flower that was red too. Elsie went one way and Jack the other.
Else’s found hers first, I asked her if she knew what it was called and she said “ it’s a Poppies, we sow the seeds yesterday! I explained “we sowed them in Springtime and it takes a long time for them to flower” I asked her if she could remember the parts of a flower she said “Petals and leaves”
When Jack found a leaf with holes in he stopped and looked at it for some time then turned to me and said “o no, o no“ I said “looks like a bug has had his dinner Jack. What type of bug could it be? Elsie thinks it’s a spider, Jack a ladybird and Tracie thinks a bee, we will have to keep watching to see if we can find the culprit. Jack then pointed at a very tall sunflower, “b, b” and signed the words ‘big Flower’ I showed Jack that the Sunflower was taller than me!
We went for a wonder, I asked the children “ how many different colours of flowers can we find in our garden? Jack found one first “blue, blue” well done Jack “ you found a blue flower” can you say flower? “Blue blue” that’s such a fantastic flower Jack can you smell it? Jack put his nose right into the flower and the pollen went on the the tip of his nose. He started wiping it saying “yuck yuck”
Forget-me-not
Else’s found yellow, orange, blue, purple, brown, pink and green flowers. “Wow Elsie well done finding all the colours of the rainbow”
I picked out a beautiful flower and asked Elsie “ how many petals does the flower have?
Elsie counted to 11 in sequence then kept missing out some numbers then said “to many!” I explained I would have trouble counting them too as there where so many. I asked Elsie what colours she could see in the flower, she said “ yellow, purple and white” I asked her what do you think the middle colour will be when it’s fully open? Elsie thinks it’s going to be Green, we will have to look again tomorrow and see.
What a lovely garden activity we had lots of new words, descriptive words, colours, conversations and fun.
George went first to find a treasure in the garden today. He ran around a few times then finally stopped at this amazing flower! He said “its a snowball!” I explained that its an Onion flower. He said “yuk I don’t like onions” then ran off to play.
Elsie chose this amazing Peony, unfortunately it had a baby spider inside one of the petals so off went Elsie in a tizzy.
Jack found this amazing Poppy he smelt it and said ‘Wow!” He loved the Ladybird crawling up the stalk and ran inside for a magnifying glass. He came back and studied the ladybird. He asked me to help him pick up the ladybird and put it in a Jar. We gave the ladybird some leaves and sticks and made him a lovely home.
Jack then went off magnifying glass in hand to find some more ladybirds to put in the jar so they could be freinds.
Jack was still on a bug hunt so Elsie decided to join in. Both of the children looked for frogs they were disappointed not to see any but overjoyed with the tadpoles.
Pool dippingTadpoles
Chloe chose this white Rose as her favourite flower of the week. Chloe also loved the pink climbing Hydrangea, it was behind the rose covering the back wall.
White RoseClimbing HydrangeaWater Canna Sweetpea
Tracie got excited about her water Canna which is starting to flower for the first time. The sweet-peas are coming on amazingly and have an amazing sent.
Can we do one wild thing everyday for the month of June! A whole 30 days? We are involving Our Childminding Family to join us in the challenge! Why don’t you join us too? Have a go be Wild for June with us and the Wild Life Trust.
Day one: Chloe Camping and making a wild 3D picture with sticks and stones.
Day 2: While out on a walk Chloe found and rescued a dragon fly
Helping A Dragon Fly
Day 3: Tracie, Chelsea, Chloe and Ruby went for an amazing walk in Snowdonia and came across a Waterfall and went Swimming.
Day 4: Elsie And Jack was looking for wildlife outside of the front window.
They saw flowers, Butterfly’s, Poppies and Incy Wincy Spider.
Going up into the tree’s
Day 5: Chloe went Tree Hopping at Zip World, she was high up in the trees and saw Birds, Rabbits, Bees, Dragon Flys and squirrels
Day 6: We found A Wasps Nest!
The nest consists of around 8,000-10,000 hexagonal (six sided) cells arranged in 8-10 tiers of about 20cm in diameter. The building material is paper-like and made of “chewed” rotting wood mixed with the wasp’s saliva. Construction is begun by a queen wasp but completed by workers (sterile females)
Six Sided CellsAmazing TextureOutside CrustCells For Laying Eggs
Day 7: watching the swifts going in and out of the barn and listening to their song was amazing.
Day 8: Identifying wild plants around our garden and looking in the barrel pool.
Fox GloveThistle PoppyFern
Day 9: Elsie planted some wildflowers in her plant pot at home. She sent me a picture to add to our blog.
Day 10: we put some crushed up crisps on the bench at the park. We sat still for a while and a Robbin and Black Bird came to have a feed.
Tracie's Treasures 