This week we have been looking at Diwali and bonfire night, as they are both to do with light. We have been busy making bread stick sparklers which are on our newsletter as our recipe of the month. (Have a go yourself and send a picture) everyone enjoyed making these and choosing which sprinkles they wanted. We also made some diva lamps to celebrate Diwali, we used lots of different materials such as dry spaghetti, glitter, forks and pasta to decorate and make patterns on the clay. We had lots of fun making them and talking about where we would put them in our house. Outside, it's been getting darker so we decided to take out the torches and explore in the dark, it was lots of fun. We had a look at what we could see up in the sky too and if the moon or the sun was out, we saw a few twinkling stars too.

What a spooktacular time we have had at Mucky pups this week!

We have been exploring lots of different sized pumpkins and squashes, we spoke about the sizes and what we all thought was inside them. Once we cut them open we had a feel of what was inside, we all thought it was "Slimy." We then decided to sort out the seeds from the pumpkin itself, it was a hard job but we did it using all different types of tools such as tweezers, spoons and our hands.

Outside, we have been on a "Pumpkin hunt" we all had lots of fun doing this and we noticed that they pumpkins had numbers on them, once we found them all we put the number in order. Our mud kitchen was turned into a "Monster kitchen" with lots of cobwebs and green water to make potions and soup in. We all enjoyed making lots of different pumpkin and green soup, they all looked delicious.
On Thursday we had a party and enjoyed a witches finger (Sausage barm) for breakfast, some of us enjoyed tomato sauce with it too.
Party day was lots of fun and we all enjoyed listening to different spooky sounds and dancing to different music too.

Fabulous spooky week!

We have had a fabulous half term week this week and have been very busy exploring Autumn. We have been painting pumpkins and talking about how big or small they are, some of us wanted to paint them.
They all look fabulous!
We also enjoyed scooping out the insides of one and talking about how it felt some of us thought it was "Sticky" or "Smelly"
We also did some colour mixing, we used various colours to see what happened and tried to see if we could make a certain colour. 

We have been changing our environment slightly and helping Steph decide where we want our resources to go in the room. 
Lots of us enjoyed using the creative area once she had done this as there are lots of new things to explore and do.
We have been exploring in the sand pit which is now inside the room, a lot of us like to hide the dinosaurs in it and then dig them up to find them. 

Fabulous half term!

It has been very wet over this week but it's not stopped us having lots of fun outside, we put on our wellies and our waterproofs and went off to explore. We have been exploring the leaves on the trees and we noticed that they have changed colour from green to red. We spoke about the change in weather and that it was now autumn and the leaves would be falling and changing colour. We decided that we would go and explore the rest of the garden to see if we could find any more red objects. We found lots of leaves and berries and also a few conkers which we looked at in more detail inside with Joe.

We have been doing some great tipping and pouring using a variety of different objects in the water tray and in the puddles too as we had a few rather large ones. We enjoyed using the colander and watching the water that we put in come out through the holes, we tried to see if we could catch it using our hands, some spoons and a range of different sized saucepans. We spoke about the different sizes of the pans and looked at how much water we could put into them using different mathematical language.

We have enjoyed constructing boats and aeroplanes and visiting different places on them such as Poland, Ireland and Preston. We all got there safely as we are all very good at sailing boats and flying aeroplanes. We had a lovely time exploring each place and there was even time for a piece of cake and a cup of tea before coming back to Mucky Pups.

This week we have explored what happens to our cards and letters when we put them into a post box. We talked about the postman/lady collecting them from the post box and then investigated using the kindle to see where they ended up. After investigating all of this, we decided to make our own post office and painted a big box red to make a post box. We found some envelopes, cards and stamps and decided that we wanted to send our letters home. We all did some fantastic drawing of all the things that we like on a card and signed them all with our names. Hannah and Steph wrote our addresses on the envelopes and we sent them off. We are very excited to see if they get to our houses, keep your eyes peeled when the post comes!

A lot of us are having birthday parties soon and we have been talking about how old we will be next. We have been making some delicious looking birthday cakes using the play dough and using lolly pop sticks for the candles. We have been counting the lolly sticks and discussing who has more and who has less. We also spoke about which cake was our favorite and chocolate cake was definitely everyone's favorite.

This week has been a super busy week with lots of exciting things happening. On Monday, we all went on a big coach to the Wildlife Oasis park, it was very exciting and on the way we all enjoyed looking out of the coach windows at the animals in the fields. Once we got there we had a look around in our groups, we saw lots of different animals and reptiles. Some of us where super brave holding and touching different animals such as snakes, stick insects and a snail. We spoke about how they all felt to touch and how the animals moved, if they moved slowly or fast and observed the differences and similarities between them and us. We enjoyed our lunch together in the conservatory and did a little more exploring after then headed back to Mucky Pups.

We have filled up our kindness jar with all of our pebbles for being so kind to each other so we all had a little treat at snack to celebrate. Jean made us all a kindness certificate to take home too for being amazing helpers and being kind.

This week is the end of term and sadly we have to say goodbye to our big group the "Dalmatians" we have all watched you grow into the amazing, wonderful and kind children you are. You are all more than ready for your next adventure to school and we are all proud to of been apart of your journey. But don't be too sad as we will still see a lot of you at kid's club i'm sure!

This week at Mucky Pups we have been developing our physical skills both inside and out. Inside with Jean, we have been practicing our jumping skills and seeing how far from a marker we could jump. Everyone had lots of fun with this, once we had done our big jump we marked it with tape and wrote on our names. Outside, we have been using wood and crates to make bridges to walk over, we put out our arms to help us balance as we walked over, some of us didn't need to do this and were super brave going across. 

We have made some delicious fruit kebabs for snack this week, we decided to use bananas, apples and pears. We helped Steph cut up the fruit using knives and chopping boards. We spoke about being safe with the knives, keeping our fingers away from them and making sure we are sat down when cutting. Once all the fruit had been cut we then melted some chocolate and got to drizzle it all over the fruit, we all enjoyed these at snack time.

Our big dalmatians have been very helpful this week setting up for dinner and snack time, helping wipe the tables, brush the floor and putting out the plates and cutlery for lunch time. Our kindness jar is nearly full with everyone being so kind and helpful, keep up the good work Mucky Pups!!

In circle time dalmatians have been looking at sizes, building towers and seeing if it is "Bigger" or "Smaller" than themselves. We made some amazing towers and castles. The chihuahuas have been reading lots of fabulous stories and looking at the characters in them, the similarities and differences  and whats happening in the pictures. 

Our story of the month is "Smiley shark" this story is all about friends and how to be a good friend to others. The children have enjoyed exploring the sea life creatures in the tuff tray and looking at videos of different sea life on the kindle.

This week at Mucky Pups we have been taking risks and have been using hammers to create our own art, using the flowers, berries and leaves we found in the garden. We chose a couple of these, which we then put in between material, we folded this and then (with supervision) hammered the flowers and berries bringing out the natural colour onto the material. We enjoyed guessing what colour it would turn the material and also encouraging our peers to use the hammer safely and remembering to keep our fingers away from it. The weather has been lovely outside but very hot! We have enjoyed some yoghurt ice-lollies to keep us cool, which we made using yoghurt pots and wooden lolly sticks these went down a treat.
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 Inside nursery, we have been looking at shapes and arrangements we have had lots of fun with our loose parts making our own patterns and using our imagination to create pictures with the shapes.  We have enjoyed making lots of different things with the play-dough too this week, using our fine motor skills to roll, pinch and squeeze the dough into pizza, lots of delicious cakes and peas.
In circle time this week, Dalmatians have been talking about school as a lot of them have had a play session at their new school, it’s a very exciting time and a little scary and we talked about all of our feelings about our new adventure. Some of the Dalmatians will also be attending Dallas road kids club after school, so we went to have a nosey around to see what exciting things there are to do.
Chihuahua’s have been focusing on making marks and counting this week in circle time we have all done some very good counting aloud this week. Well done!!! 

​This week we have been making pizzas, using lots of different toppings all chosen by the children.  They got to use the knives and (under close supervision) were able to cut the topping themselves.  We then cooked them in the oven and brought them down for snack in the afternoon.
In the mud kitchen we were making lots of flower and grass soups using the daisies and the long grass from around the trees.  We’ve also been using large sponges and bubbles in the water tray to wash the babies which was a big hit.
We’ve been making Father’s Day cards with the children ready for Sunday, (sorry if you’ve not collected yours) during this, we’ve been talking about what the children’s daddies look like and what we like about them, and also for those people who are special to us.
We have still been talking about being Kind and how to fill our kindness jar.  We’ve had lots of pebbles added to it this week which is great to see.
The pre school children during circle time have been looking at prepositions, such as under, on top, behind etc.  This is using some important language and will help the children in their social interactions.  Try giving them challenges around the house to find a hidden object you’ve place somewhere and give them clues as to how to find it.
The other children have been building towers in circle time, working together, taking turns and trying to build the tallest tower.  We were able to get to 14 bricks I think which was our best.
In the playdough area, we’ve been using the gingerbread cutters to make gingerbread men different sizes then putting them in order.  We also coupled up with reading the Gingerbread man story in the snug.
We have also been out in the rain a lot! It doesn’t stop the children having fun especially in the huge puddles we had today.  Some of the children were pretty much swimming!  This has also been a good opportunity to look for worms to fill out wormery! The children have been helping search the mud for worms and then collecting them.  We’ve had lots of discussions about what worms are useful for and have added some leaves to the womery to see that they eat them.