Terrific Twos have got creative today and designed their very own backdrop for the display board in their room…. We like our children to get truly involved!!!!

When the build you create is soooooooo much better than the planning card you originally set out to follow!!

We love that our children’s imaginations roam free and they have the confidence to follow their own plans and have such clear ideas that they want to develop…. That’s how a ‘truck with treasure’ comes to fruition… 🪎 xxxx

From crawling through a tunnel, balancing across crates, climbing up on to equipment, to jumping off as high as we possibly can…. Physical play is crucial for all our children as they learn what their bodies’ capabilities are and strengthen muscles, develop spatial awareness and hone their gross and fine motor skills and control.

Whilst moving, moving, moving pathways are strengthened within the brains and we become even more competent and skilful movers through repetition and development of our skills through play.

This doesn’t even factor in the collaboration, turn-taking, risk-assessing, communication that’s also naturally occurring and there’s often quite a bit of counting thrown in too and mathematical language through talk of how high we’ve jumped etc etc.

Early years play is truly holistic, but above all it is tonnes and tonnes of fun for our little ones!!!!

After lots of patience, dutiful care, close observation and development of our learning and knowledge our caterpillars have finally emerged from their cocoons as beautiful butterflies!

Our children were super excited to meet their new friends as they sat with Lauren waiting patiently. They all sat so very calmly and they enjoyed observing the butterflies closely as they moved around and gently fluttered their wings.

They had such gentle hands and quiet voices, so as not to scare or hurt them, and they were truly fascinated to get up close and personal (if they wanted to… some children preferred to observe from a distance and that was fine too!) with our butterfly friends.

We have shared in their journey from caterpillar to butterfly and it has been nothing short of fascinating!!

They’ll soon be soaring free above Woodlesford and we shall enjoy waving them off as they fly away onto their next adventures!!!!

Watch out for our Jolly butterflies fluttering by!!

That moment when you are so invested in Jesci’s story…. Real peril was felt as the dinosaurs rampaged through the supermarket!!!

We it when our little ones get so engrossed (and lost!) in a book!! xxx

Celebrating 20 years of the very lovely Laura…. Enjoy your two extra holiday days and £500 voucher for a relaxing weekend away

You definitely deserve it!! Thank you for being part of our Jolly Family and supporting soooo many children throughout all this time… we love you!!! Xxxx

Whether it’s the bond between between child and key person, or the bond between friends, strong bonds mean EVERYTHING and make our nursery world go round!!!!

xxxx

What a wonderful way to learn about colours, taking turns and sharing, developing our hand/eye coordination, anticipating and responding and exploring mathematical concepts!!

There was much discussion about how many balls may fall/or had fallen… which colours had come out? Were there more of one colour than another? How many were left in the cylinder? Plus many, many, many more conversations!!

We LOVE the early years as learning is natural, connected, holistic and just brilliantly FUN!!!!

Free-Flow had a little Jolly Spa going on recently and it was a HUGE hit. They had relaxing spa music playing, a bubble bath for their feet and cucumber on their eyes and even a natural yoghurt face mask!!

The room was most definitely transformed into a chill out den when they went for a relaxing lie down with a warm face cloth afterwards.

They all absolutely loved all this pampering and as much as they managed to keep it chill there were still lots of giggles around the room too; as it was just so much fun that the giggles just couldn’t be contained!!!!

We’re not sure Champneys would approve of the giggling, but we think our Jolly spa was probably a whole lot more fun?!?! xxxx

Fortunately for our poorly patients at Jollies the other day the answer to this question was most definitely!!!

The love of all things roleplay continues for many of our children in Free-Flow…

After breakfast the children were spontaneously roleplaying looking after each other in the upstairs area of the room, so Natalie went upstairs to our magical attic and brought down the hospital roleplay box to extend her children’s interests of all things hospital.

Natalie added the doctors and nurses’ outfits, bandages, first aid kits, x-ray pictures and lots of other things so our children could create their very own Jolly hospital.

They had a bed on the floor for the poorly patient and even a waiting room, where the other poorly patients were able to sit and wait.

They took it in turns to be the doctor and the nurse and the poorly patient and they all did amazingly; being very imaginative when it came to talking about what was wrong and the symptoms they were currently experiencing, before much discussion about how they were then going to make the patient feel better!

They also had clipboards to practise their fine motor skills as they made detailed notes writing about all the patients’ symptoms and which medications they might need to prescribe. The medical teams also observed their patients closely so they could add in lots of detail as to what exactly appeared to be wrong.

They liked performing regular checks/observations on their patients; talking about their blood pressure, their temperature and also looking into ears and eyes.

This was a great activity as it derived initially from the children’s interests and was then sensitively extended to progress their play, learning, knowledge and understanding as Natalie carefully scaffolded to further their ideas in a fun way. All the children maintained focus for ages and they worked together brilliantly as they loved being imaginative together developing their play ideas and exploring different scenarios…. We think we may have some future medics in the making here at Jollies… watch this space!!!! xxxx