Teamwork really did make the dream work as this 100 piece puzzle was completed before breakfast today!! This then inspired the children to work together to build a space station to make it extra bright and colourful!!!!

We love following our children’s passions and obsessions as it leads to such focused, inspired learning and brilliant creativity being demonstrated!! xxxx

Name a better way to spend your morning outside… Cheeky Monkeys just had so much fun getting their hands messy and painting with their fingers on the perspex screen.

As they painted and selected colours to use they named the different colours they could see and they gave them an experimental mix too to then observe what happened when the colours combined! They relished the sensory feedback received from this activity as they manipulated and manoeuvred the paint with their fingers.

Yet you’ll never guess what seemed to be everyone’s favourite part?!?……. It was the washing of their hands in the bubbly bowl afterwards…typical Cheeky Monkeys…. they just love to make a splash wherever they go!!!! xxxx

At the end of our recent staff meeting we presented Katie, Laura, Lauren and Kirstan with some Jolly awards… Katie received her five year award of flowers and Laura, Lauren and Kirstan received their 15 year awards of flowers and a Pandora bangle and charm. We’d like to thank them for their wonderfulness and for being such a HUGE part of our Jolly Family and for helping our children learn and thrive through their dedication, love, care and brilliant sense of fun…. We love you guys!!!!

We feel so very lucky to have such a long serving team (Emma and Laura D have been there almost as long as we have been open… almost twenty years for them!!) but we also have some very lovely new additions to our team too and we love the crazy mix that makes us all Jollies! Each team member brings something different into the mix and we thank each and every one of you for being part of our Jolly Family and for all the love, care, dedication and brilliant fun that you bring our children each and every day…. Xxxx

What a lovely walk to the canal they all had recently and they were so very lucky with the weather too as they avoided the rain showers!!

They saw lots of ducks and they were soooooooo greedy eating all of the food the room had taken for them.

They saw babies walking with their mummy ducks too! After some further walking along the towpath the room decided to have a sit down and have some snack with the Gruffalo and his friends!!

Then it was back to nursery for James’ delicious lunch after a busy, busy morning!!!!

We love making the most of our lovely local environment and a wonderful walk along the canal towpath certainly makes our Jolly day xxxx

Our butterflies finally emerged and it has been nothing short of fascinating watching this life cycle occur before our very eyes….

Some children observed from a distance, some got much closer and some wanted to gently hold out their hand for a butterfly to perch upon…

Awe and wonder filled the space around us and soon our little friends will be soaring in the sky above us and we can’t wait for this magical moment….

Such a wonderful time of year with new life and new growth…. xxxx

A HUGE thank you to our two lovely visiting police officers yesterday who came and talked to our oldest children about their role in keeping people safe within the local community. Our children were obsessed with their uniform and radios and they loved talking about all the different vehicles police officers can drive and all the different things that they do. Thank you for coming in to talk to us about your very important job and also for all the hard work you all do in keeping everyone safe xxxx

Our children have been busily finding out more about what wonderful insects bees truly are and what they do for our world …..

There has been such a BUZZ about Jollies today and our children have had a BEE-autiful time exploring the many invitations to play that they have encountered throughout the day!! The enthusiasm and excitement is HUGE so for us it’s not going to be a day…. but a week instead of celebrating all things bee !!

So if you spot a buzzy bee think how wonderful this is to see!!!! xxxx

Wrapped fruit for snack time you say?! Whatever next?!?!?! We’re certain some of our parents/carers think we’re just crazy daisies here at Jollies with some of the things we do, but we promise there’s method in our madness…. always!!!

If you want children to become really good writers you don’t just shove a pen in their hand…. Before you can hold a pen you need to have the finger/hand strength, grip and dexterity to do so….

So what better way to develop these skills than really getting little fingers working to unwrap their own snack…….There was also a chance to develop conversational skills and some wonderful vocabulary too as our children tried to describe and guess what might be inside all these peculiar shaped parcels… What could they see? What did they feel like? Would it be an apple? A pear? A satsuma? ….Or a banana? Oh the excitement!!! xxxx

Imogen was soaked in a flash!!!!

Little water babies are definitely what we have here at Jollies….

A tuff tray, some water and some containers are, it turns out, the perfect recipe for an awesome time.

Our babies experimented with swooshing the water around the tray with their hands, scooping it up with the containers, pouring it out again to make it rain and then the best one…. Patting hands repeatedly on the tray to ‘bang, bang, bang’ and, by the nature of cause and effect, to splash, splash, SPLASH

This action by far produced the most giggles and satisfaction from them all and Imogen got wetter and wetter and wetter; all in a matter of minutes!!!!

Luckily the sun was shining so both Imogen and her babies were soon dry again and nobody was bothered in the slightest as they’d simply all just had a splashing time together xxxx

We can safely say that the recent purchases made for Free-Flow have led to some VERY invested role-play.

Our children have fully embraced garden centre life and we have seen some wonderful conversational exchanges as well as some excellent counting and weighing, some careful cutting and pruning, some brilliant writing and some fabulous plant care as well as some wonderful customer service!!

Although they did have Kirstan howling at one point as they organically formed an orderly queue at the checkout and could then be overheard commenting upon how it was taking a while!! (Clearly bringing their real-life ‘lived experiences’ into their role play).

We love it when a role-play area totally hits the spot and captures the hearts and imagination of all our children xxxx