Hello everybody! Can’t believe its August already where has the summer gone! Here is what your little ones are up to this week in Ardenza!

In the baby room Suzanne and Kathlyn are letting the babies explore paint this week as they do finger painting.  The girls will put aprons on the babies, put a big A2 size piece of paper on the mat, squirt paint on it(naming out the colours as they do) and let the babies explore the paint using their hands. The girls will help the smaller babies by dipping their hands in for them and printing it onto the paper. Throughout the finger painting, the girls will chat the babies about the colours, give them praise and encouragement and let them explore the paint in their own way. It will be more like finger, hands and feet painting by the time their finished but all this contributes to babies learning and development.

In the toddler room Bernie and Laura are doing senses with the children. In circle time the girls will ask the children about their senses and they will point out where they are and what we do with them. Each day they will focus on a certain sense and do activities on that sense. For example, for touch the girls will give the toddlers different textured material and ask them to feel them. They will get to do arts and crafts involving touch such as sticking crepe paper and glitter onto pictures. Each day they will do different activities relating to the sense so there will be lots of listening to different sounds, looking for different things, and learning new smells.

Upstairs the preschool room are doing road safety.

In circle time Shell, Mary Ann and Lisa will discuss how we keep safe on the road and name out the dangers. From busy cars to parked cars the girls will talk about what happens if you run out on to the road, if you don’t stay with an adult and teach them about how to cross safely using pedestrian crossings and lights. The girls will read the road safety stories we have which focuses on different scenarios for children and the children will do role play on how to cross safely. There will be lots of practice outside the back with some children being on bikes pretending to be cars. The children will play games using the traffic light colours to help them understand the colour system and they will get to do loads of colouring with road safety activity sheets. There will also be certs handed out giving the children praise for stopping, listening and holding hands. Road safety is done a couple of times in Ardenza as it’s such an important issue.