Latest from Crawford Childcare

Latest from Crawford Childcare Adventure Room While out in the garden the children asked for the parachute. The parachute was promptly brought out and the children had great fun hiding under it. Charlie and Jacob used cones to hold the parachute up, while Roisin and Caoimhe were running through it. Great fun was also had playing peek-a-boo under the parachute. Charlie’s Mum thought using the cones to hold up the parachute was a great idea and Sam’s Mum loved to see the children playing peek-a-boo. Discovery Room This week some of the children in the Discovery Room wen ton an outing in the local estate. They got appropriately dressed…

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Latest news from Crawford Exploring Room Emily took the bag with the lace curtains over to Laura and asked her to take them out. Laura took them out and Emily tried to put them on Laura. Kate decided this was a very good game and joined in too. Kate tried to put the lace curtains on Emily and both of them burst into a fit of giggles. They had great fun playing peep-a-boo together. As the girls had so much fun we plan to take the parachute out and play Peep-a-Boo with the rest of the children in the outdoor area. Emily’s Dad thought that was a great idea.…

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Latest From Crawford Adventure Room Some children wanted to paint and they weren’t shy in telling us ! Kieran said ‘paint’ , while Luke was pointing at the art shelf. Elena laid out the table with everything they needed – big pieces of paper, different containers with lots of paint in various colours. She also put some brushes, sponges and tape out. The children got stuck in and many showed an interest in the tape in particular so we helped them to break pieces off and stick it onto coloured paper. Others focused on their painting using the brushes and sponges. The next time we go painting we…

Latest From Crawford

Latest From Crawford Discovery Room Recently as part of Halloween we found Halloween pasta shapes in a basket on the shelves. There was a lot of talk about Halloween and pumpkins among the children. The pasta basket provoked interest in different shapes and colours and some of the children counted the different types of shapes. Conor accidently stood on a past shape and it broke. As this happened it made a crunch noise and Chloe said “Oh, crunchy!” and repeated this over and over again. This carried on outside while on a hike where Conor and Lee looked around for more crunchy sounds. Conor’s Nana thought all the…

Latest From Crawford

Latest From Crawford   Exploring Room As Laura was folding away the sheets and blankets out of the laundry basket Cillian and Jacob had other ideas! They started to take them out of the basket to hide under them, leaving off screams and laughs as the pulled them off again. This gave us the idea to take out the parachute for the children to hide under, shake off, lift up and down and to walk or sit on. We placed balls in the middle and the children then shook the parachute. They really enjoyed hiding under the parachute – screeching, laughing and shrieking throughout. Some of the boys…

Enjoying the outdoors at Crawford

Enjoying the outdoors at Crawford Discovery Room While out on a hike one day last week Amelia spotted some apples growing on the trees. ‘Look apples!’, she exclaimed to her friends Peig and Sophia. Some of the children then decided to go on an apple tree hunt and they compared the leaves on the trees to see if any of our other trees were apple trees. Conor spotted a tree and said’ Look that one looks like a different tree.’Peig noted that we would have to wait and see if apples grew on it. After our hunt we discussed the importance of washing and cutting the apples before eating them.…

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Latest From Crawford Exploring Room There aren’t too many children that would say no to playing with a ball but in the Exploring room Fionn and Kieran really got the ball rolling this week as they had great fun playing outside with balls. Ball play is a great way to introduce physical activity into children’s lives with the added benefits of fun and lots of laughter with friends. Last week we offered the children a yoga ball and a tennis ball. Fionn really enjoys throwing balls up high in the air and catching them. Others enjoyed kicking and dribbling the ball. Following on from the great interest in…

Latest From Crawford

Latest From Crawford Exploring Room Last Monday we were making playdough and decided to make it wetter than usual. The children gathered around the table eager to start playing with the dough. However, they were surprised to see it was not what they were expecting! This dough was wet and sticky. This made for a new play experience as the children experimented with the wet dough, touching , feeling, pulling it and generally creating a big mess! One parent commented’ I must start giving him playdough at him as he’s having so much fun playing with it here every day’.   Adventure Room Last week we felt the…

Latest Crawford News

Latest Crawford News Adventure Room As some of the children were really interested in animals last week Amanda created a folder full of animal pictures. Amanda introduced this new material to the children and a conversation began about the animals, their body parts, characteristics and what food they ate. Sam’s Mum was happy to hear that he shared his interest in animals in the crèche, while Ethan’s Dad had a chat with him about animals when he collected him. Looks like we will have to get out some more books about animals this week. Discovery Room Many an interesting conversation starts in our Cosy Corner. Last week the…

Latest From Crawford

Latest From Crawford With lots of new arrivals in the Exploring room there is a new level of curiosity when it comes to exploring and discovering. We encourage this interest by providing opportunities for the new babies to explore through heuristic play. Heuristic play describes the activity of babies and children as they play with and explore the properties of 'objects'. These 'objects' are things from the real world. One of the staff was coming back from her break and picked up some recycled cardboard rolls in Reception and brought them into the room. Some of the children were very curious by the cardboard rolls and soon got…