A quick look

in our book nook revealed…. Emma sharing a story and having a great discussion with this little one

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Last week some of our oldest and youngest children joined together and had a very exciting morning playing outside taking part in Kirstan’s amazing ‘art attack’ activity…

Kirstan had set up clear umbrellas, a shower curtain, a variety of paint, brushes and even some ‘fly swatters’ as an exciting invitation to play and make lots of marks as our children created their own masterpieces….

They all loved this activity and they started off just painting the umbrellas in situ using the brushes, but then they decided to actually hold the umbrellas whilst their friends painted them and they also liked to paint from the inside too!!

They then liked to twirl the umbrellas and then stand back and admire their fabulous umbrellas; as well as hiding from the rain with the them, as it had started to rain halfway through their activity!

Our children explored and naturally learnt how to mix colours and closely observed all the different colours they could make!

They then accidentally got some paint on their friends’ faces and this then led on to painting each other’s noses and this then developed into trying to paint full faces!!! This was just like last week when the older children painted their faces inside with face paints as they had asked Imogen if they could do this. So they suddenly thought it would be fun to explore this aspect again as it was still so fresh in their minds and something they had naturally enjoyed doing…. Basically Kirstan had created an experimental, exploratory, imaginative mixing and exploring painty free-for-all and our children fully embraced it! They were covered in all in one wet-suits so clothes were protected and as they were dressed appropriately they were at liberty to explore, explore, explore!!!

They also made marks on the shower curtain painting pictures of their friends and also …. (Rainbows are another current fascination when it comes to mark-making)

Many of the children also liked to use the fly swatter to make marks on the curtain too as this was a very exciting piece of equipment to explore…

Everyone loved looking at their masterpieces when the creating was over! They had THE BEST time outside and they may have got VERY messy, but it was just soooooooo much fun! xxxx

Also, in case you hadn’t realised, our lovely Kirstan is back creating fun and mayhem as she’s decided to rejoin our Jolly Family full time again… welcome back lovely lady!!!! xxxx

World Book Day was so much fun yesterday! Thank you to everyone for dressing up and bringing in your favourite books to share. From baking gingerbread men and decorating them, mixing up the perfect Gruffalo crumble, creating colourful Elmers, completing jigsaws, making up puppet shows, to sharing stories in the book nook we simply had it all going on here at nursery

Thank you all for the fun you bring to Jollies life!!!! Xxxx

A HUGE thank you to Team Jollies for getting into the spirit and fully embracing this special day…. Quite a few of the team came snuggly and ready to share stories (as the younger children do not always love the grownups being dressed up!) and then we had the very hungry caterpillar turning into a beautiful butterfly, Paddington was busy looking for his marmalade sandwiches, the blue crayon was busy creating, Free-Flow wanted to grow up and play for Leeds United, Stick Man was looking for his Stick Lady Love and stick children three and the Cheshire Cat was cheekily swinging his tail all over the place!!

And that was only just the beginning…. Our children have been AWESOME and many have chosen to come in dressed up and have also brought in their favourite books to share with their friends too. Lots of book-related fun is occurring across nursery as we celebrate all things reading and books!!!!! xxxx

From planning, building, measuring and constructing under the canopy, followed by sharing stories together in the book nook, to testing out our physical skills on all the equipment in the playground…. Our children have simply had it all going on during their outdoor play today!!!

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Sian has been busy adding the finishing touches to our construction cabin…

What a wonderful space and wow, wow, wow what an invitation to play it ever we’ve seen one…

Our vision for a much improved outdoor space is coming together. It needed resurfacing and our fixed climbing frame was slowly falling apart, so this then led us to evaluate what we truly wanted from this space….

We wanted a more versatile space; so the addition of freestanding slides and a spinning seesaw (still with the climbing wall element rather than steps…. so still drawing upon one of our children’s current favourite things to do!) gave us the freedom to move and change the space based upon the desired play chosen on that particular day.

We wanted to enable continuation of indoor play, passions and obsessions (such as building!) but outside and on a much larger scale and we wanted to provide a space that could be accessed whatever the weather so as well as utilising the new buildings we have improved the canopied area by giving it a proper purpose and focus as extended builds can naturally spread out from the construction cabin.

We are hoping these spaces will allow for total immersion and have a huge impact upon learning as our team model, scaffold and encourage imaginations to truly run free and we can’t wait to observe as our children explore and learn through their play… watch this very exciting space!! xxxx

It’s fifteen years since Natalie (our very lovely Nat Nat) lost her dad and St Gemma’s were wonderful and supported the whole family through a devastating time. So to make her Dad proud and to say thank you to St Gemma’s Natalie has organised a purple day today here at Jollies.

Thank you to the whole team and all our children and their families for showing their support and joining in the purple fun!

We hope to raise lots of pennies for St Gemma’s so please do make sure to see Natalie to buy some raffle tickets and/or pop a donation in the purple box in the entrance hall as we want to raise as much as possible to support this cause very close to Natalie’s heart… we’ll leave the box there for a few days as we’re sure that some of you who may not attend on a Thursday may also wish to make a donation too….. Thank you everyone xxxxx

A HUGE thank you to our lovely friends from the new MHA group for today’s ‘Acorn and Oaks Story telling session’ held up at The Two Pointers.

It was lovely to meet you all and share the lovely stories and story sacks. We love a natter and we books so it was the perfect combo!!!

Thank you for letting us be a part of this inter generational story session.

Thank you to our children for being superstars too, you did us a proud and were excellent ambassadors of Jollies. We hope you all enjoyed it and had lots of fun!!! Xxxx

A HUGE thank you to the group of children who visited the Memory Cafe up at the Two Pointers today for their patience, their great chatter and their brilliant listening ears!! They did us all proud as there was a little delay at the cafe today with the pancakes for the ladies and gents and it meant that our children had to wait a while for these to be eaten before the memory games could commence….

Our children sat and had their snack and a drink whilst waiting for the ladies and gents to finish up and then they got together and had a natter and played some games. It was so lovely to see this cross generational interaction and our children loved to meet and make some new friends.

We also picked up a raffle prize for Nat Nat’s purple fundraising day next week for St Gemma’s as Viv very kindly donated a bottle of sparkly for Natalie’s raffle in memory of her dad.

What a wonderful afternoon!!! xxxx

Combining paint with cars was the perfect combination for Exploring Elephants today…. They whizzed their vehicles through the different coloured paint to create track marks of their cars differing journeys! There were extra challenges involved as tinfoil boulders were obstacles that needed to be navigated!!

Early years play combines so many areas of learning and development in the most natural and holistic way. This simple activity strengthened little fingers as vehicles were grasped, it encouraged hand/eye coordination and tracking as cars journeyed along their individual courses, spatial awareness was developed as boulders were avoided! Colour recognition and mixing was touched upon as painty tracks were discussed, intrigue was fostered around the different marks being made, collaboration naturally occurred as turns were taken and vehicles were swapped and shared, language development occurred through chatting about the activity together, imaginations were sparked as scenarios were played out and sound effects were created, but most of all it was simply FABULOUS FUN that derived from our children’s current HUGE interest in cars… and you know we just love to feed and fuel our children’s interests here at Jollies!!!!! xxxx