Puffins Childcare

Here’s Gemma, Director of Quality @puffinchildcare & NDNA network chair before giving evidence to @CommonsEd on the importance of #earlyyears. If you missed the session you can catch up here bit.ly/41yq0X9

Today the babies were exploring shaving foam. Did you know playing with shaving foam provides children with the opportunity to make marks, develop fine motor skills and build strength in their fingers and hands.

This week at Sowton we have been off on local walks to collect some flowers, our baby room have been busy planting them for us using their senses to explore what they can see/feel and smell. Look at how colourful they are.

Story telling week part 2 We then played a parachute game to help us spot the similarities and differences between us and talked about valuing our differences and being kind to everyone, no matter who they are. Everyone is a star in their own way, what makes your child a star?

Today we are looking at Sulwe as part of National Storytelling Week. While reading we noticed that day and night looked very similar, but night was being called some unkind names.

Today in the baby room, we have been chopping up some oranges.. Giving the children the opportunity to cut up some food, will help to develop their hand-eye coordination and will also give them a sense of independence! #earlyyears #inthemomentplanning #puffinsofExeter

We've been getting dressed up and having lots of fun raising money for BBC children in need. #ChildreninNeed #puffinsofExeter

This afternoon the babies have enjoyed a sensory experience. This included lights, materials and heuristic baskets all whilst it was dark with some fairy lights. Sensory play is incredibly important for under-fives.

The dinosaurs are back at Sowton! This week we have had a warm welcome from some mischievous dinosaurs each morning. They have helped us celebrate some exciting things this week such as Diwali and bonfire night. #Dinovember

This morning at Sowton, we have been exploring pumpkins within our sensory play. #autumn #EYFS #inthemomentplanning #sensoryplay

In preschool today we have been enjoying writing our name therefore, we made an activity out of it and enjoyed getting our certificates at the end. Well done preschool!

Preschool have had a great time learning about flowers this week in Woodland Explorers. They have talked about the different types of flowers and their parts and have enjoyed making crowns using a variety of flowers.

We have been busy building bridges. We talked about toll bridges and looked at the toll booths on the Tamar Bridge using the tablet. Then we made a road around the room and Lara travelled around, paying for the barriers to open. We talked about using different payment types!

The Babies enjoyed a rainy walk over to the library to explore some different stories! #rainyday

Once we had found them we started to layer soil and sand into our wormery and the worms immediately burrowed down and we got to see them wriggling away in their new home. Take a look at how much fun we had!

We found out that Seagulls like to tap their feet on the soil to get the worms to rise to the surface of the ground! The children found this really fascinating so we conducted an experiment where we tried to tap our feet gently on the soil to see if we could attract the worms!

Today we had the opportunity to collect some worms from our garden and make our very own wormery. The children spoke about the diet of a worm, how they come in different sizes and where we find them. The most popular place we found to be was underneath logs and plant pots!

The puddles are back! We have had a great time this morning at Sowton, splashing in puddles and mark making in the rain #funinthepuddles #earlyyears

This morning we went over to the museum and we got to go on the train which was very exciting. The children were in awe of how big some animals were and commented on the sizes of them using the words 'big' and 'small' and even 'tiny'. We enjoyed some stories in the library after.