Our Toddlers’ Spring term has proven to be a very exciting term filled with fun, quirky crafts and lots of learning through play as well as socialising and making new friends.
Celebrating various festivals and other renowned calendar events has encouraged our toddlers to explore their own creativity using a variety of materials and has also enhanced their knowledge in many different areas.
Our little ones thoroughly enjoyed celebrating ‘Chinese New Year’ and they took great delight in making and wearing their own Chinese New Year Hats.
‘Valentines’ Day’ did not go unnoticed and very cute heart-shaped elephants adorned cards that the children made especially for their loved ones.
Tuesday 21st February was an extremely popular session being ‘Shrove Tuesday’, and it was here that our toddlers made pancakes filled with jam and/or cream cheese. Yum yum!
Another important date on our calendar each year is ‘Mothers’ Day’, and this year the children made extremely decorative clay trinket boxes and delightful flamingo cards for their Mummies.
One of the major festivals of India, ‘Holi’ (also known as Festival of Colours) is celebrated with enthusiasm and gaiety, so we too wanted to help celebrate this event by making vibrant pictures using icing sugar and then playfully splashing colourful paint and sticking on brightly textured materials with glitter.
Most saints and holy people have specially designated feast days, so the youngsters noted ‘St Patrick’s Day’ by making small, kissable Blarney Stones with cute googly eyes. ‘
Our painting activities are always popular and keep the activity tables buzzing at all times. The children have explored with paper plate spinning, roller, marble, balloon, squiggle and sponge painting.
Other craft activities this term also included decorating elephants, free sticking and making feathered birds on sticks which the toddlers then used during our music session. They were highly amused whilst singing and acting out ‘Two little dickie birds sitting on a wall’.
The boys and girls enjoyed the sessions involving decorating buns as this encouraged them to show off their culinary skills.
Our weekly music sessions encourage our toddlers to be active, interactive and to improve their skills of coordination, control, manipulation and movement. The toddlers really love singing and dancing to music and it is here where they can express their emotions, learning to move with confidence, imagination and safety with an awareness of space. The children have the opportunity to play various instruments and dance with streamers as well as sing familiar nursery rhymes and learn new songs to aid the development of listening skills and vocabulary.
Cognitive skills of problem solving, reasoning as well as numeracy and matching skills in analyzing shapes and colour patterns are developed with the use of numerous puzzles, threading and sorting/matching games. We ensure our toddlers have the opportunity to experience these activities every week. The puzzles have varying degrees of difficulty to ensure we continuously expand thinking skills and stimulate all abilities.
Young children love role play as well as small world play, and at Toddlers we have lots of toys that enable our little ones to play out real life and relationships. This type of play promotes thought and development and helps them understand how important it is to share, communicate and interact with others making new friends along the way.
Our Toddler groups are held each Tuesday morning and afternoon (term time) and free trial sessions are available upon request. Please contact sgabriel@taverhamhall.co.uk for more information.
