Jade was busy leading an adult-initiated activity for some of her children when this little one spotted that she had put her tablet down on the floor next to her with the camera still open.

Jade had been busy snapping photos of her children in action to document their learning as part of our online journal system. This also serves as a lovely snapshot into their day that cheers our parents/carers up no end at work when they ping to their phones/computers as they get a sneaky peek into all the fun their little ones are having whilst they are at nursery.

So building upon this little one’s initial interest, as their curiosity had clearly been piqued, she turned the tablet’s camera around and on to selfie mode so they could then see their image on the screen and then together they captured a few snapshots which this little one was very, very, very pleased with!!!!!!! xxxx

These resources had been bought to enhance play when amazing vehicles are being created out of chairs, crates and planks, but this little one decided to snaffle them to explore them just as they were.

He then spent time investigating how they stacked together and moved them around to form different colour combinations.

Then Fiona, who was nearby as a closely observing supportive practitioner, knew how much this little one was obsessed with spinning things so she demonstrated how they could rotate on top of each other and then that was it he was away exploring in the best possible way!!! Xxxx

Imogen joined some of her children upstairs in their playroom and they had such a fun time sharing lots of stories together…

Someone picked ‘The party book’ so that was the first one they shared and together they pretended they were having their very own little party up there. Free Flow was full of giggles as their imaginary adventures organically developed.

Next up it was ‘The three little pigs’ and one little one spontaneously pretended they were one of the pigs and as the role-playing went on they suddenly turned into a baby pig…but they still wanted to build that house!!

Imogen started using all her crazy, silly voices (which she is notorious at Jollies for having!!) and the whole group’s engagement went through the roof!! All the children were giggling so much telling Imogen that she was ‘soooooo funny’!!!

As the stories were shared they all got super comfy and snuggly together with their besties and just enjoyed the ‘Imogen magic’

It’s moments like these when you see the strongest of bonds that our children share with their Jolly grownups and how much they adore getting lost in the magical world of books xxxx

Emily observed these little chefs cooking up lots of crazy creations in our role play kitchen and then serving them up with the biggest of smiles!!

One little one tucked into a lettuce, peas and egg sandwich…. Much to her friend’s delight! xxxx

literally!!

Maths in the early years should be fun, hands on, extremely active and linked to our children’s interests!!

So the mini ‘Number Blocks’ characters led to some fabulous building with huge wooden blocks in our Jolly garden.

Our children focused upon the markings/spots on each panel to ensure the number of them matched their selected number block.

There was some fabulous counting and checking and some great building and balancing occurring as correlating towers were created.

Mathematics in the great outdoors…. It’s just the Jolly way!! xxxx

(…..and loops!!!)

Free-Flow have once again been asked to have the car track out as it is such a firm favourite with our children and we love to feed their passions and interests!

This morning our children have been exploring loop-the-loops! So far they’ve managed through some great collaborative teamwork and turn-taking to get past one, but the second is currently evading them!!

However, they are most definitely exploring and practising their patience and resilience as they try different things to achieve their self-set goal.

They are truly determined as they continue their fabulous team efforts to get past that second elusive loop the loop!! xxxx

It’s the process that’s important, not the product!

……. But Exploring Elephants’ recent exploration of paints, brushes and mark-making tools led to a rather impressive masterpiece…. So the final product became the backing paper for one of their room’s new display boards!!

Their exploration ended up leading to an exciting enhancement to their environment!! xxxx

Will your imagination flutter away with the fairies as you visit their magical gardens? Will you find your loudest voice as you have a ROARSOME time with our stomping dinosaurs? Will you dig, dump and roll until your heart’s content on our Jolly construction site? Or will you sniff out the perfect smells to add to your concoctions in our mud kitchen?!!?!

Whatever you decide to do we know you’ll love being outside in our Jolly garden xxxx

Over the weekend even more beautiful spaces were created at Jollies so that this week invitations to play would be plentiful helping our children to soon become distracted if they should feel emotional starting in, or moving to, a new room…

This, combined with the empathy, love, care, snuggles and understanding provided by the Jolly grownups, should soon see our children settling and once their well-being is high they will begin to positively thrive as they embark upon, or continue along, their individual learning journeys

We shall all be observing very closely to see how our children respond to their new learning environments so we can spot their individual passions, interests and obsessions and can then tweak, adapt, alter and add to environments accordingly…. We love getting to know our children inside out so we can support and challenge them as required and truly ensure their learning journeys are the best they can possibly be for them all xxxx

Some more fun from our 2025 Reception Class School Leavers Party last week……. We wish all our children the very best of luck as they begin their school journeys this week and next and we look forward to first day uniform photos being emailed in/uploaded on the app/being posted in our closed group so we can add them to our display in nursery. They are being missed already!!

Again, a huge thank you for all our parents/carers’ kindness and generosity (the gifts and cards made us smile and cry!!) and thank you for working in such close partnership with us throughout your children’s whole Jolly learning journeys, it’s very much appreciated by the whole of Team Jollies.

Keep in touch!! Xxxx