Welcome to Time for Twos

First of all meet our team.

Miss Goodall - HLTA Lead and Key worker (Maternity cover)

Miss Jones - Key worker

Mrs Ezeji - Key worker 

Miss Southall - Maternity leave 

Here we will share with you all the fabulous opportunities we’ve had to learn through our play. We will share our topics, the stories we enjoy and the activities we are able to carry out.

In Time for Twos we’ve enjoyed being back, we’ve welcomed new faces and made new friends, we have explored the new environment and investigated our new toys. We were given the opportunities to show our likes and dislikes and allow our keyworkers to find out what were our interests.

The first two weeks we were given the time to settle into our setting, build new friendships, continue to build on our old friendships and build strong, trusting bonds with our key adults. We have all been given our own keyworker we can rely on and they are always there to help us.

We have learnt lots of new things through our play. We have enjoyed sharing stories, exploring outdoors, playing with the car garage and cars, splashing in the water tray, digging in the sand, mark making with a variety of resources and getting messy in the creative area. We have had so much fun!

Our Topic - All about me!

This week we introduced to our new topic ‘All about me.’ We shared the story and we were asked to bring photographs from home of ourselves and our families. We were then able to explore all the activities on offer linked to our new topic.

We were able to learn in a variety of ways, we have created self-portraits of ourselves in a variety of creative ways, we looked at ourselves in the mirrors and talked about what our face looked like, we enjoyed getting messy! We have built houses using mega blocks and foam building blocks, we have played with the small world dolls houses and figures and talked about who lives in our house. We have splashed in the water cleaning the dolls using the soap and sponges, we created faces in the play dough and enjoyed exploring the shaving foam using the mirrors to look at ourselves. We have also enjoyed sharing a variety of books about our senses and what we use them for.

.

Our families

This week we continued our topic ‘All about Me’ but we also talked about our families and other families.

We also talked about who lives in our house, who doesn’t live in our house, if we have siblings and all about our Mommy’s, Daddy’s, Nanas and Grandads. We also talked about who was special to us and why they were so special.

Some of us decided to create portraits of the people who were special to us, and talk about why they were so special. We also had the opportunity to decorate biscuits of our family members, we also used the play dough to make models of our family members, build model houses of our own homes and we also had a tea set in our water tray; talking about all the things our parents/carers do for us at home.

We talked about why we are so special to our families and why our families are special to us. We talked about us all being different and unique and about some families being big and some families being little. 

_Autumn

The next two weeks we introduced our seasons. We looked closely into autumn and enjoyed exploring all the exciting activities linked to autumn.

We began by venturing out into our school environment and looking at the changes in our surroundings.

We collected leaves and twigs and looked closely at the autumn natural resources our teachers had found over the weekend, we looked at conkers, fur cones, leaves and many more!

Within our setting we have explored by rolling conkers in paint to see what pattern and marks we could make, we have printed with leaves, we have used the magnifying glasses and tweezers to explore closely and we have also played with the farm and build tractors with our junk modelling.

Most of all we enjoyed getting messy in our forest school environment, collecting all the resources we wanted to make our own clay autumn models.

Halloween

We celebrated Halloween within our setting and had lots of opportunities to explore all the exciting activities on offer. When we arrived in at the beginning of the week we were welcomed by the setting being decorated with lots of Halloween decorations.

We then explored the activities on offer, we played in red water with bugs inside, we used the sieves to collect the bugs and make our own witches potions. We also had a variety of Halloween costumes to dress up in and pretend to be different characters.

We also became detectives and explored a pumpkin, we looked closely using the magnifying glasses and began to cut it open and explore the textures inside.

In forest school we took part in our very own pumpkin picking hunt. We explored the outdoor environment and searched for the pumpkins hidden within the woodland area. When we came back to nursery we cut open the pumpkins and created silly faces.

In the tuff tray we used the tweezers to saves the spiders from the green slime jelly. We collected them up and put them inside our safety nets. 

We got creative by using our hands to create various Halloween characters; ghosts, pumpkins and monsters.

We finished the week off by having our very own Halloween disco, we came to nursery in our fancy dress costumes, took part in various Halloween party games and had lots of fun!

Lets Celebrate!

This half term our topics is 'Celebrations' we have many special events to celebrate this half term.

Some of the special events we will celebrate include Diwali, Bonfire, Birthdays and Christmas.  

We will also invite our key adults into Time for Twos, throughout this half term to share lots of our special learning opportunities. 

Diwali

Our first celebration to learn and explore about was Diwali. Diwali is the five-day Festival of Lights, celebrated by millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Jains across the world. The word Diwali comes from the Sanskrit word deepavali, meaning "rows of lighted lamps". Houses, shops and public places are decorated with small oil lamps calledm diyas.

We have celebrated Diwali by taking part in a variety of activities.

We have decorated hands and created Mehdi patterns using lots of colourful materials. We have also played in the water mixing different colours and adding glitter to make it shiny.

We have also made our very own salt dough candle holders. The children mixed together the salt, flour and water. When the mixture was less sticky, the children then rolled it into a ball and created a hole for their candles to be placed once they were baked. Once baked all the children used a variety of colourful paints, glitter and sequins to decorate their candle holders how they wished.

Remembrance Day!

In nursery we took part in a two minute silence to remember all the special soldiers who helped save our country. We watched a small video of a bunny planting poppies and we also collaged our own poppies to take home, using a variety of materials. 

Bonfire

On November 5^th, people across the UK lit bonfires, let off fireworks, and burn effigies of a man named Guy Fawkes. The reason we do this is because it's the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot!

To celebrate in nursery we worked together to build a bonfire in forest school - we pretended to light it. We also made our own rockets using the junk modelling, we all decorated them how we wanted using a variety of colours, glitter and sequins.

We also made marks with the glitter and talked about all the colours we could see. We used toilet roll holders to make firework prints on black card. We experimented with the play dough to create firework scenes.

We even made a giant class landscape of a fire work display using the chalks on black paper pretending it was our night sky.

We played with the fire station and fire engines and talked all about why they were the people to call if we ever needed help!

We also took part in class discussions about what we had seen at home with our families, if we had visited any firework displays or if they had even seen any through their bedroom windows.

Nursery Rhyme Week

15 -19^th November

This week in Time for Twos we took part in ‘World Nursery Rhyme Week.’

Each day we concentrated on a nursery rhyme chosen nationally.

Monday – Incy Wincy Spider

Tuesday - Hop little bunnies

Wednesday – Wind the bobbin

Thursday – Head, shoulders, knees and toes

Friday – Down in the jungle

Nursery Rhyme Week is an annual initiative that promotes the importance of nursery rhymes in early childhood development and educations.

We took part in a variety of activities throughout the week linked to the rhyme of the day.

Monday 15th November

We made Incy Wincy Spider by printing with the paint and adding his eyes, and eight legs. We also made play dough spiders and used googly eyes and pipe cleaners to add Incys legs and eyes. We also climbed the water tubing in the water tray with our plastic spiders whilst singing ‘Incy Wincy Spider.’ 

Tuesday 16^th November

We made our own bunny ears. We used the collage materials to decorate our head dress then we added ears. We also created a bunts home in the tuff tray with material materials and added our own little bunnies. We sang Hop Little Bunnies wearing our ears we had made.

Wednesday 17^th November 

We used the cotton reels to print a variety of patterns using our primary colours. We also threaded the different sized reels using a variety of thread and wool. We sand Wind the Bobbin Up in a different speeds, the children enjoyed singing very fast.

Thursday 18^th November

We made faces on paper plates to help identify our facial features, we also used cut out facial features to make faces in the play dough. Most of all we enjoyed playing with the Mr Potato heads in the water tray and singing Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.

Friday 19^th November

We made jungle animal masks using a variety of different resources, some of us chose to paint our masks while others decided to collage them. We also pretended to be jungle animals in the setting and travel in different ways. We also made a jungle themed tuff tray and added all the animals we identified lived in the jungle.

We also performed for our families on Thursday, we sang the nursery rhymes we had learnt that week, on the stage in our school hall. Our parents and main carers watched and helped us sing along.

Birthdays

A birthday is the anniversary of the day on which a person was born, typically treated as an occasion for celebration and the giving of gifts.

We talked about who had recently had a birthday and what they all got up to, we had recently had a few children celebrate their birthdays in Time for Twos. Some of the children talked about the gifts they had received, others talked about their parties and some children talked about special days out they had been on.

In Time for Twos we celebrated Phoenix’s 2^nd Birthday (Our class cub).

To prepare for all the celebrations we made cupcakes in the play dough, we also made one big cake and added candles. We made him birthday cards using a variety of collage materials and used the PVA to decorate his cards, we made decorations and party hats ready for his party.

We held him a surprise party at the end of the week to celebrate, we all brought in our favourite cuddly toy in to celebrate and had sandwiches, cake, juice and biscuits. 

Arctic Animals 

This week in Time for Twos we have introduced all about Arctic Animals. We have enjoyed exploring all activities linked to the Arctic.
We have got creative and made penguins, polar bears and used our feet to do footprint printing. We have focused in the colour blue by using lots of different resources. 
We have explored the outdoor environment, looking for ice and feeling the cold weather. We have talked about what clothing keeps us warm! 
We have also loved exploring the sensory activities, playing in the water tray with the animals, foam and cotton wool. 
We had lots of fun building igloos with our junk modelling. 

Christmas

Christmas is celebrated to remember the birth of Jesus.
The next two weeks we are introducing Christmas! We have started the topic by reading When Santa comes to Dudley, and talking about Santa and why he visits us on Christmas. 
We have celebrated Christmas within our setting and had lots of opportunities to explore all the exciting activties on offer.

When we arrived in at the beginning of the week we were welcomed by the setting being decorated with lots of Christmas decorations, we helped decorate our class tree. 
We have explored all the activities on offer, we played in red water with glitter, we had a variety of Christmas costumes to dress up in, we enjoyed playing in the elf workshop wearing elf costumes and hats. 
We had a pj & movie day and watched Arthur Christmas, we enjoyed a cookie and hot chocolate. It was very yummy!
We got creative and making calendars and Christmas cards for our families.  
We finished the end of the week with a party. 

We had so much fun! 

 

We have really enjoyed practicing our Christmas songs, hope you enjoy listening to us! 
 

We wish you a Merry Christmas all.

Hope you have a lovely Christmas and will see you all in the New year.

Love From, Miss Southall, Miss Goodall & Miss Jones. X

Spring Term

This half term our topic is Frozen and Fantasy.

Frozen 

This week we celebrated the theme Frozen within our setting and had lots of opportunities to explore all the exciting activities on offer. When we arrived at the beginning of the week we were welcomed by the setting having a frozen wonderland in the home corner and lot's of different decorations around the setting including snowflakes and icicles.

We explored the activities on offer, we explored ice cubes and watched how they melted while we poured over warm water.

We talked about what clothing we wear to keep us warm while playing outside!

Rapunzel
 

This week we were introduced to the traditional tale Rapunzel. We listened to the story book and within our setting we had lots of opportunities to explore all the activities on offer. 
Our home corner was decorated into a tower, we dressed up as princesses and princes, and role played the story.
We played in the sand and made sandcastles, we had so much fun exploring the spaghetti in the tuff tray, it really did look like Rapunzel's hair. 
We set up a hair dressers area and we all practiced great turn taking to be the hair dresser. 
we had lots of opportunities to be creative too! 
we made crowns using different shapes to create gems and jewels, decorated princesse's dresses and suits for the prince and made castles using different resources. 


 

Princess & Knights 

This week we have had lots of fun exploring all the activities on offer to explore our theme.

We have been practising our fine motor skills, enjoyed drawing our reflections onto mirror templates, completed knights measuring activity- we are able to identify the biggest and smallest.

We became builders in the construction area to build towers and castles, using different resources - cardboard boxes, wooden blocks and toilet roll tubes. 
We enjoyed playing in the small world area, princess and knight figures and castle play sets. 
We explored the sensory activities on offer - building castle in the clouds using cotton wool, finger painting on tin foil and threading pasta onto string to make necklaces. 
We ended the week having a royal tea party. 

Dragons
 

This week we have been learning and talking abut Dragons. We have had lots of exciting activities on offer in the setting. 
We loved our story book There's a dragon in your book, we all got involved and followed the instructions from the book. 
We found a GIANT egg and looked after it safely, the next day the dragon had hatched. 
We explored the sand and had fun finding the dragon eggs. We enjoyed the small world area, playing with our new dungeon/ cave play sets, we role played being the dragon by breathing out fire. 
We had lots of opportunities to be creative and lots of activities to mark make. 
Also had fun exploring the sensory activities in the setting. 
 

Chinese New Year

This week we have been introduced to Chinese New Year. We started the week off by watching a video for us to learn all about the festival. 
We really enjoyed the activities on offer, we had lots of opportunities to mark make - writing Chinese menus, colouring pictures and drawing shapes in red glitter using our fingers. 
We have had fun in our home corner, it was decorated into a Chinese restaurant, we all had turns to be the customers and the restaurant workers. 
We enjoyed exploring in the construction area and sensory activities that were on offer. 
We really enjoyed talking about Chinese New Year and we could recall what the festival includes. 
We had a cooking and tasting session- The Chinese food was yummy! 

Fairies 

This week we have talked amd learned about Fairies, we started the week off by the home corner being decorated into a Fairy garden.

We had fun dressing up, wearing headbands and waving wands around.

We have enjoyed listening to our Fairy story books, we joined in by moving around like Fairies. 
We had lots of opportunities to get creative, we have practiced our fine motor skills by completing cutting and sticking activties, we made crowns and wands - using lots of different materials. 
 

We explored the sensory activities - using tweezers we picked up twigs to make fairy gardens, we made wands/flowers with pink play dough and had lots of fun exploring the fairy soup. 

The sand and water play was so much fun! 

We used magnifying glasses to find the fairies, used feathers to make marks in the sand and played with the small world fairy figures in the water. 
 

Valentine's Day 

Today in Time for Two's we celebrated Valentine's day, we talked about who is special to us. 
We made cards and decorated biscuits for the people we love. 

Magic

This week we have been introduced to the word Magic. We learned and talked about this word so we could get a good understanding of it. We started the week off by the home corner being decorated into a potion lab.

We dressed up as witches and wizards with our hats and wands.

We had lots of opportunities to be creative, including fine motor activities - cutting and sticking. We made witches, potion bottles and mirrors.

We enjoyed the activities on offer in the small world and construction area. 

This half term our topic is New life.

We will be exploring the topics including - Farm animals and their babies, growing and planting, signs of spring and Easter.

The Three little pigs

This week we have started to be introduced to Farm animals and their babies.

The first animal we looked at were Pigs & their babies Piglets. We started the week off by listening to the story book : The three little pigs. We identified the baby pigs were called Piglets and the Mommy pig is a Pig.

We had lots of fun exploring the different materials to build houses for the Piglets. We worked together to build the 3 houses - straw, sticks & bricks.

We explored the activities on offer in the construction, creative, sensory and small world areas.

We loved role playing in the home corner, we re-created the story - we all did great turn taking pretending to be the pigs & the bad wolf.

World book day 

We were so pleased that all children got into the spirit of World Book Day and dressed up in their wonderful costumes.
 

Hens and Chick's 

This week we were introduced to Hens and Chick's. We identified that the Mommy's are called Hens and the baby's are called Chick's. We found learning about Chick's was very fun and interesting!

We were able to identify the colour and the facial features of Chick's.

We got creative and made Chick's using yellow paint and feathers, we made nests using brown paper.

We had lot's of opportunities to mark-make, explored the sensory area and had lot's of activities throughout the setting around the area's. 

Growing and Planting

 The next two weeks we are focusing on Growing and Planting.

We have had lots of opportunities to be creative, Mark make, build in the construction area, explore the sensory area, role play in the home corner and explore the sand and water.

At the beginning of the week the home corner was decorated into a Garden Centre, we had fun turn taking with our friends to be the customers. The children have participated in many activities, demonstrating their understanding of growth. In the garden, a group of children were taking turns with the watering can, taking over to the water tray and filling it up, and then over to the soil and pouring it.

We have planted our own cress seeds and have watched how they grew.

 The children can identity for seeds/plants to grow they need water and sun.

Mother's Day / Signs of Spring

This week we have been talking about the people who are special to us and the reasons.

We also went on to focus on Spring.

We have been builders and built our houses using different resources, we have used tools to fix broken items like our mommy's and daddy's.

We have had lots of opportunities to be creative - decorated hearts, made flowers, painted pictures of the people who are special to us and designed butterflies.

In our home corner we role played what our families do at home. 
We have had lots of opportunities to explore the sensory tray and sand / water. 
We all enjoyed having a Tea party with our friends. 

Easter

This week we have been introduced to Easter.

We learned that The Easter bunny is a magical bunny who loves children and gives them treats and hides special eggs to help us all celebrate spring.  

We had lots of opportunities to Mark make and get creative - we made bunny masks, chicks, designed Easter eggs and paint printing with egg shells. 

We had so much fun exploring the Sensory tray - we explored lots of different materials, green shredded paper, feathers & chicks, cotton balls for the bunnies & enjoyed exploring the sand to find the Easter eggs.

We went on an Easter egg hunt!

We had so much fun searching for our eggs, we were rewarded with stickers, eggs & a certificate.

We had lots of opportunities in the construction area - building huts for the bunnies, building a farmyard using boxes, bunny bowling & using vehicles to scoop eggs up.

We finished our week off with a Teddy Bear’s Picnic.

We were so excited to bring our favourite teddy bears along. We had food, played games & had lots of fun!

Summer Term

This half term our topics are Pirates, Dinosaurs & Superheroes. 

In Time for Twos we've enjoyed being back, we have welcomed new faces and made new friends, we have explored the environment and investigated our new toys. We were given the opportunities to show our likes and dislikes and allow our key workers to find out what our interests are.

Pirates

The first two week's of term we have been learning all about Pirates. We have been reading the story of Ten Little Pirates, this has helped us with our counting aswel as our understanding. We have had lots of fun dressing up as Pirates & exploring our environment going on treasure hunts.

We have had lots of opportunities to be creative & practice our fine motor skills. 

We have enjoyed working in a team - building ships & walking planks. We have helped our friends balance by holding their hands and holding our arms out. 

Using magnifying glasses to find treasure in our sensory tray and exploring lots of different resources. 

Dinosaurs

We have had lots of fun exploring all the activities on offer to explore our theme Dinosaurs. 
We have been role - playing in the home corner: wearing masks and stomping around making Dinosaur noises.

we have been practicing our fine motor skills, mark making and using scissors to cut shapes.

We have been excited exploring the sand and water play.

We have had lots of opportunities to be creative and explore the sensory activities on offer. 
Using different resources we have been building houses together fir the Dinosaurs.

Superheroes
 

This week we have had lots of fun exploring all the activities on offer.

We have enjoyed the sand and water, we have played hide and seek with the Superheroes in the sand and washed them in the water. 

We have had lots of opportunities to mark make and be creative. 
We have role played in the home corner being superheroes, wearing capes p, masks and costumes.

We have used different resources to build bases.

We have all been engaged listening to stories and nursery rhymes. 

The Queen's Jubilee

This week we have celebrated the Queen's Jubilee. The children have been very interested in learning about our Queen. They have explored all activities on offer in the setting. 

Having opportunities to be creative, mark-making, exploring the sensory tray, role-playing in the home corner, building castles in the construction area and they have enjoyed playing in the small world area with the castle and characters. 

To finish the week off we celebrated and had a Jubilee party!

Hope you all have a fantastic Half Term, and we look forward to seeing you all back Next Week!

Summer 2 Term

This term our topic is all about the People who help us.

Each week we will be focusing on different types of people who help us.

We will then move on to Travelling & the seaside.

Police

This week we have focused on Police, we have had fun learning about police officers and looking at the uniform they wear and what they do.

We have enjoyed role playing in the Home corner, we have dressed up as police officers and role playing at the police desk, the children have used their imagination and acted out scenes. 

We have had lots of opportunities to mark-make and be creative.

We have loved exploring the sensory tray & playing in the sand & water.

The children have worked together as a team to build police stations using building blocks and cardboard boxes, and also building a track for the Police vehicles. 

Fire Service 

This week we went onto to learn about the fire service. 
We had lots of fun exploring all the activities and toys on offer in the setting.

We talked about the safety around a fire and who would help us.

We role played dressing up as fire fighters and spraying out the fires. 
We enjoyed creating a fire using a fork and orange paint. 
We used different resources to build fire stations and fire engines. 

Doctors & Nurses 

This week we have been learning all about Doctors and Nurses. 

We started the week off by reading a story book and it helped us understand what they do and why they are important to us.

We had lots of fun exploring all the activities on offer in the setting. 

We really enjoyed role playing and dressing up as doctors and nurses and looking after the patients. 

We had xrays and printed our handprints in white paint. 

Travelling & Holidays

This week we have moved onto the different ways to travel on Holiday. 

We looked and talked about the different transports. 

The children enjoyed the home corner and packing suitcases for their holiday.

We explored all the activities on offer in the setting, including - Mark making activties, completing crafts, enjoyed building in the construction area, exploring the sensory tray and reading story books. 

People who help us - Lifeguards

Now that we are moving on to Holidays, this week we are learning all about the importance of Lifeguards. 

The children were very interested learning about this topic.

We explored all the activities/ toys on offer in the setting. 

The children enjoyed having boat races and exploring the sensory tray. 

Worked together as a team to build a bridge, using wooden planks. 

The Seaside

The next two weeks of term we will be having lots of fun exploring all the activities/ toys on offer in the setting. 

End of year Trip

To celebrate the end of the year we went to the little owl farm. We had so much fun!