This Summer term provided our toddlers with endless opportunities to learn through play and experience a wide variety of adult-led and child-initiated activities. Art and crafts are a great way to engage children’s senses and help to develop their cognitive, social-emotional and multi-sensory skills so our diverse range of activities provide great support to enhance learning.

Decorating templates of various types of dinosaurs, such as the Tyrannosaurus, Stegosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Triceratops and Pterodactyl proved to be a roaring success with our youngsters. Following the children’s interests encourages them to extend their thinking and learning as well as practise new skills.

Making the glittering hearts was so much fun; this project captivated their attention and the boys and girls were full of admiration for their end results. The toddlers take so much pride in their work and these types of activities really boost their self-esteem. 

At Toddler Group, we use a wide variety of sensory art materials and resources for the children to explore encouraging them to use their imagination and express creativity as well as originality. This was certainly the case when working on the topics of decorating animal masks and wooden door hangers. Each mask and hanger was unique and every child expressed and communicated their ideas and had different responses to the materials they worked with.

Fathers’ Day provided an opportunity for our youngsters to make a card and a special gift for their Daddies. They made wooden insect wind chimes together with very distinctive Fathers’ Day cards which had their very own little footprints on the front. The verse inside the card read:

“Walk a little slower daddy,” said a child so small.
“I’m following in your footsteps
and I don’t want to fall.
Sometimes your steps are very fast,
Sometimes they’re hard to see;
So walk a little slower, Daddy,
For you are leading me.
Someday when I’m all grown up,
You’re what I want to be;
Then I will have a little child
Who’ll want to follow me.
And I would want to lead just right,
And know that I was true;
So, walk a little slower, Daddy,
For I must follow you.”

The creation of the beautiful butterflies and the foam peak caps were popular activities with the toddlers too. The children participated enthusiastically and made superb use of the various craft materials available. The butterflies were definitely works of art and it was lovely to see the toddlers leave the session wearing their decorated hats and glowing with immense pride at what they had created that day.

Again, the painting activities were well-liked keeping the activity tables buzzing at all times. This term, the toddlers explored with car wheel prints, easels, paper plate spinning, as well as roller, marble and sponge painting. To celebrate Norwich City Football Club’s promotion to the Premier League we used green and yellow paint during the plate spinning activity which was extremely effective. We also had a toddler session where the children were able to paint using various objects and small toys to stimulate new ideas and different ways of thinking. Some wonderful and unusual pieces of art work were created. The decorating of buns also encouraged the children to show off their culinary skills and they enjoyed sampling the toppings prior to use to ensure all tasted as it should!  Well done Toddlers!

Play is an important centre of learning for young children and our variety of toys, games, books and learning resources provide our toddlers with the chance to explore, experiment, make choices, construct, pretend and be imaginative as well as develop skills assisting them in learning to share and make new friends.

We include a music and movement session every week. These are great fun for all where we encourage moving or dancing to music and give opportunity for the children to play various instruments. We learn nursery rhymes and include many action songs which aid the development of listening skills and vocabulary as well as improve gross and fine motor skills.

Our Toddler groups are held each Tuesday morning and afternoon (term time) and free trial sessions are available upon request.

Please contact sgabriel@taverhamhall.co.uk for more information.