Welcome back! This week the home-corner has been temporarily transformed into a 'restaurant' for some amazing role-play. We had real food to play with, such as potatoes, sweet potatoes and beetroots, but also more pretend-food such as 'fish', 'mushrooms' and 'onion rings'. We also had the chance to play with a 'till' and exchange 'money'. Some children were taking orders, while others role-played being waiters and waitresses, chefs or customers, it was great fun!

We also had the chance to prepare our own fruit-skewers at snack-time. Apples, bananas and strawberries: coloured, healthy and really yummy!

The Loose Parts area was very busy as well...

It all started with a child carefully choosing where to place the loose parts and soon many other joined in,  until a huge home for giraffes was completed... We even added a zip-line for the animals, it was really great and we were very proud of our achievement!

As always, we were very busy making art at the writing area too!

We also have two new dens in the garden now. A very big one, with tunnels to crawl through, a little bit like Alice chasing the White Rabbit...

... and a smaller one with as much 'secret' entrances.

It is spring time and it is easier to spot small creatures in the garden. This time, we found some snails and we had a close look to them, even allowing them to crawl on our arms! Some adults are scared of them, but we definitively are not!

We also danced to traditional music from Sri Lanka, wearing coloured special clothes and playing instruments and the same time.

Here, a small group of girls is building "small houses" using sticks they found in the gardening area. Look how patient they can be!

We love painting in the art area in Star Room, but when the weather is nice we like painting outside too!

The Small-World area in the garden can be popular too, look how many children were playing with doll-houses and castles!

Meanwhile, other children were busy at the Mud Kitchen, preparing magic potions... Unicorn horns, bat wings, dragon scales... And now I will turn you into... a frog!

Riding the bicycles in fun, but we have learned that if other children are already riding them, we should patiently waiting for our turn using a hourglass.

It's nearly Easter and, of course, it is time for the traditional egg-hunt! The adults prepared a set of pictures of eggs all around the nursery, numbered from 0 to 20. They also helped us prepare a board with a numbered check-list, so we could go around, find the eggs with the different numbers and tick the correspondent numbers on our list. What a fun way to learn Maths!

That's all for the moment, have a great Easter break and see you immediately after that for more updates about our exciting adventures at Brook Hill!

Hello, everyone! It's been another week of great fun and adventures at Brook Hill! And another week of amazing art, look at some examples of our brilliant pictures.

A group of girls decided to take the artistic inspiration outside, using coloured chalks to draw patterns on the floor, immediately followed by a group of boys, who turned this activity into drawing 'treasure maps' (you can easily spot the X for the place where you can find treasures...).

That was the spark for an actual treasure hunt in the garden, using other treasure maps we drew (one of our friends is tracing an X on the ground using a stick).

This is just an example of our engineering and building skills. Please, notice how we were trying to build the tallest tower ever, when we realised that it had to be reinforced on its sides to stand up straight.

As always, the garden is a lovely place for reading stories...

... playing music together...

... or exploring the amazing world of Mother Nature, for example having a close look to wiggly worms, caterpillars, centipedes and other small creatures.

No need to say that we were very busy inside too, for example practising Phase 2 Phonics and writing...

... creating 'spiders' art craft...

... playing with real pasta and trying to cut carrots and butternut squash in the renewed home-corner...

... although someone had the inventive idea to use the pasta for further brilliant art...

As always, the art area in Star Room was very busy...

... while a group of friends were taking care of the new plants in Sun Room.

We are healthy children, supporting a healthy life-style, and for this reason we love making yummy apple and banana milkshakes for our snack...

We have also started regular yoga session, it is fun and very relaxing. Namaste!

Ok, that's all for this week, see you soon for more updates!

We have been exploring the amazing world of Australian animals over the week. It was an opportunity to talk about habitats such as deserts or rain forests and also to practise drawing animals such as koalas, kangaroos, crocodiles, dingoes, wombats, etc. It started in the writing area, but as you can see, our enthusiasm about this topic was so contagious that we took it outside too!

Since the last few days have been quite windy, at some point we decided to turn some of our pictures into kites,,,

This is just an example of how to do it: a paper sheet, a marker to decorate it, string and some tape to make sure the string is firmly attached to the sheet. It is very easy and, of course, it is great fun!

A windy day is also very good for testing paper aeroplanes, especially if you make them take off from a higher position! Ready... steady... go!

Spring is here, so it is time for more gardening activities. Here, we are planting a cactus that a child brought in.

This cactus is very child-friendly, it has really thin and soft spikes, so we can touch it without being harmed. Some children also took inspiration from this experience to spray plants with water.

It was Beep Beep Day! We talked about road safety and being aware of the road and what to look out for when using the road. For this purpose, we helped adults setting up a zebra crossing and a set of different road signs, such as stops or speed limits.

Here, you can observe a curious experience: some children started experimenting with sellotape and string to enclose an area delimited by some poles. This is a very creative (and completely spontaneous!) way to start learning about perimeters... It could be done at home too, we enjoyed it a lot!

As usual, the garden is also a place where amazing building happens. Look how many children cooperated to create trains, trucks, submarines, etc.

Sometimes it nice to chill out a bit for a tea time at the mud-kitchen...

... or to wait for our turn on the swing (notice how one of us is holding an hourglass to make sure the turns are completely fair!)...

We can be really imaginative, creating masks with different materials....

... or very active! We like jumping...

... climbing...

... playing basketball...

... playing tennis...

... and dancing or playing 'ring-a-ring o'roses' all together!

Of course, we were very busy inside too! For example, with this special 'slime'ans toy-snakes...

... or building all together.

Here, a group of boys are sitting on the carpet drawing dinosaurs and sharing their ideas and preferences about them. It went on for a very long time, they were so passionate about it!

See you next week for another update and enjoy your weekend!

World Book Day is over, but who said that we have to celebrate reading and writing books just one day a year? So, we are still creating our own story-books with the help of our teachers...

It is an amazing opportunity to practise our creativity, our writing skills and our ability to share ideas and cooperate!

Then, we had the chance to retell our stories to our classmates and to our mummies and daddies too!

It was also a busy week in the garden, practising our physical skills with a challenging obstacle course. It was hard at times, but we are brave and resilient children!

Do you spot any resemblance? Well, we think we are better climbers!

And now, a big jump!

We also built our own obstacle course, placing some planks on the big tyres without any help from adults!

We really love dens, they are magical places where a lot of adventures happen...

Here, we are practising drawing our self-portraits using mirrors...

... and here we are building using small coloured blocks in different shapes... It is fun and we can also learn about 3D shapes at the same time...

... and it can be an occasion to build friendships and collaborate too!

Let's have a short break with an indoor picnic...

... and then we are ready for more learning! For example, counting and matching numbers using the extra-large Numicon tiles...

... testing Physics...

... measuring...

... or making our own clocks (please, note the numbers on it!).

See you again next week for more updates and have a lovely weekend!

It's been the World Book Day week and we celebrated it at best! These are just few examples of the characters that came alive at Brookhill, it was so fun!

We listened to and retold some of the most famous stories, such as "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" and "Jack and the Beanstalk", having a close look to their main characters.

Then, with the help of our teachers, we practiced creating our own books with the story we made up!

We were very busy writing and using our creativity to create inventive new stories.

We were writing and drawing everywhere, not only at the tables but on the carpets too!

And of course there was a lot of storytelling, inside the rooms and in the garden as well. Here, a funny mermaid is reading a book with a princess...

A short break from our creations, eating some fruit with the help of a volunteering parent...

... and then again for some more creativity, drawing and sticking shiny glitter on our own cards for our mummies and daddies.

It was Pancake Day too, and we celebrated it by cooking real pancakes in the garden with the help of our teachers... but also by making our own 'play-dough-pancakes'!

Here, during our daily story-time, one of our friends is telling us everything he knows about a real Venus fly-trap he brought in for all of us to see... Sometimes children have things to teach too!

Of course, we also had all our usual outdoor fun, for example playing tennis in the garden...

... exploring sensory-play...

... finding creative solutions to problems, such as 'how to collect rainwater'...

... or with our amazing constructions. Here, we built our own playground, full equipped with a real slide!

See you next week for more adventures!

Here we are, back again after a short half-term break!

Painting is still a very popular activity at Brookhill. This week the main theme was 'spirals', so we experimented with the paintbrushes to trace coloured whirling lines.

... This is one example of a finished masks, isn't it scary? Rooooaarrrrr!!!

We also practised Phonics at the writing area, trying to find the corresponding sounds of letters...

... or just having fun forming coloured letters on paper.

We are busy not only with writing, but with counting as well. Any small object can turn into a resource for some Maths...

We also like to be in shape with healthy physical activities, here we are practising some push-ups.

The beginning of this week was very sunny, it looked like it was summer already and we spent a lot of time in the garden. Adults helped us building a special house there, using blocks and blankets. It is cosy and comfortable...

... but don't forget to knock on the door if you want to get in!

Everybody loves to play there, we can also bake some 'cakes' on the table!

Some children had fun pretending to be 'cavemen' hunting mammoths...

In our Forest School shed we can find welly-boots and waterproof suits but also many books about nature and sometimes it's nice just to sit down there and read a book with a friend...

The garden is an inexhaustible source of opportunities for intriguing problem-solving, such as 'how to make a bucket go up to the top of a tree'.

Of course, a lot of physical activities happen here too, for example playing basketball...

... and when we are tired we can chill out with some fun role-play.

We love playing with water outside, here we are transferring it from the tray to different containers, it is such fun and it is also an opportunity for some interesting Mathematical conversations.

We have helped creating a new swing in the garden using a log , some rope and two trees, what fun!

We also like new challenges. Here we are creating our own obstacle course using planks, stairs, A-frames and other improvised items... We were very brave, but we also know how to be safe.

Another activity we love is riding bicycles. Waiting for our turn and sharing are both very important and that's why we write our names on a board to remind each other who is the next to have a go.

We also use a timer to be sure the turns are fair and, as you can see, we check it very thoroughly...

While we wait for our turn, there are so many other things we can do, such as writing on the floor using chalks....

... or playing the classic "What's the time Mr. Wolf?" game all together. Running away from the big bad wolf is fun!

Here we are testing out our paper aeroplanes: we found out that if you make them take off from a higher position they fly for longer.

More exciting challenges: this time we were using planks in the sand-pit! Look out! The sand is actually 'lava', make sure you don't fall down!

We decided to make a train, so we started by colouring its wheels inside and then we moved outside to paint a big cardboard box as our coach. When it was dry enough, we applied the wheels and other features such as the engine or the windows.

Of course we were very busy inside too, for example making constructions with coloured straws and joints...

... or playing imaginatively with castles, dragons, princesses and princes.

Just few more photos of us... 

After a week of cold and snow, this week the weather was very rainy, but this doesn't stop us from having fun in the garden. Here we are, using a tank of water and gutters to make waterfalls and lakes. We even coloured the water and it was such fun!

Here, we are experimenting with mud, we used it to make some Harry Potter potions!

Even 'babies' can have fun with muddy puddles, as long as they wear welly boots...

In the morning it can also be so cold that real ice can be found, it is very interesting.

It was also Chinese New Year this week and here at the nursery we celebrated Chinese culture all week long, from practising writing Chinese numbers...

...to playing with a traditional Chinese dragon (watch out for fireballs!)...

... to role-play with traditional Chinese costumes.

We also made some lanterns...

... and played with the animals zodiac signs. 2019 is the year of the Pig!

Here, we are having a yummy snack with juicy fruit and vegetables, we cut them by ourselves, we just have to be very careful because knives can be dangerous.

One of the children brought in an amazing Brazilian melon and after we ate it all up we recycled the skin and use it as... stamps! I really worked, along with other natural resources such oranges, tangerines and dry oak leaves.

We also spent a long time being engineers, creating cars and other fantastic machinery.

We look forward to next week! We are sure the next one will be even more full of adventures.

See you soon!

We had a lovely Forest School afternoon, full of adventures and fun in the company of our parents!

Here are some photos of the day, enjoy them.

We can't wait to go back to the woods for more Forest School sessions, very soon!