During the month of January, The Maples children  have explored the theme “The World I Live In”.

Each week throughout January, we have discovered at a different topic related to the monthly theme. To start the New Year, we chose to “Welcome 2022”. The children had an amazing time celebrating the start of the New Year together with their friends and teachers. We learned about different kinds of ways people celebrate at this time of year, then put our knowledge into practice at the craft table! The children enjoyed using their creative skills and learning about bright and beautiful colours during an activity using straws to blow paint to look just like the exploding fireworks we see in the sky at New Year.

Continuing to learn about the world around us, we explored different “Winter Features”. To help us conceptualise what Winter ‘looks like’, our day care children enjoyed a learning walk around our natural gardens at The Maples Day Care. Together, we identified many different winter plants and we discussed which animals live in the garden in winter. We realised that we see more animals in Spring and Summer, but during the walk, we still saw birds, spiders and snails! During this activity the teachers incorporated the number of the week “5” by encouraging the children to practise the number of the week when counting the birds in the garden.

Once we understood what winter means for the world around us, it was time to move on to the topic “My Body During Winter”. We know that we wrap up to go outside when it’s cold, but we learned that there are other ways to get warm! Throughout the week, the children developed their gross motor skills whilst learning an exercise to keep themselves warm! Our day care children had so much fun whilst stretching their arms and legs and improving their balance – of course, whilst listening to our favourite music! The babies also joined with a baby yoga session.

During the final week of January, we looked a little further afield and learned about “Arctic Life”. This topic integrated various elements of the Arctic, such as animals, the climate and people. The day care children were amazed to learn how people adapted to survive in freezing conditions! We even tried to recreate an igloo using the big blocks, practising our problem-solving skills, our gross motor skills and teamwork! We also counted ( 1 -5 ), named the colours (red, green and yellow) and shapes (rectangle, square and triangle) of the blocks they were using to make their very own igloo. We were thrilled to see how proud the children were of their igloo and celebrated making it by enjoying a picnic inside!

Throughout this month the children grew their knowledge of the world around them. They gained extra recognition and numeracy skills of colours, shapes, numbers during circle-time which is an integral part of our day care daily routine.

You can read more about our Day Care Programme here and we are always happy for families to visit our locations so you can see the environment for yourself. If you would like to arrange a visit, please fill in this form and a member of our helpful team will be happy to arrange a suitable appointment date for you.