2 Year Olds
Welcome to our 2 Year Old Explorers Room!
Miss Ainsley and Mrs Baines are your Early Years Practitioners.
Please find attached below information on what the children will be learning this term.
We have lots of exciting themes, books and rhymes to explore and we promise to post/share lots of photographs of our amazing learning and development!
Autumn - Medium Term Plan
Autumn 1/week 4/ 29th September-3rd October 2025
Our focus nursery rhyme this week was “Miss polly had a dolly!” along with some autumn season activities.🍂🍁
The children enjoyed joining in with the ryhme and acting out the actions during carpet time, they then had lots of fun dressing up as doctors and nurses acting out real life scenarios in the role play area, poor Mrs Baines went into surgery but with an x-ray, medicines and a couple of bandages she was fit and well to return to her duties in our 2 year old room, Phew!!! Miss Ainsley was so pleased.
It had a great autumnal feeling outdoors this week as we had lots of autumnal activities outdoors, in the tuff tray, we had some delicious blackberries and raspberries, the children enjoyed using a variety of tools to mash,chop,cut,squish and squash the berries, whilst also using their hands at times, to build up their hand and finger muscles and helping to practice developing their fine motor skills, their fingers were very handy too to accidentally pop the berries into their mouths “ooops!!!” but they were very juicy. After the berries were squished the children used a variety of brushes and stampers to create some lovely paintings on the wall they were berry good.
Also in the tuff tray this week the children have participated in a pine cone rolling art activity and an apple stamping art activity using the apples to “stamp!”whilst also using the apples to “roll!” down the chute into the water too, using their vocabulary whilst doing so. Pouring and filling and transporting is the children’s best thing to do, in the water tray using funnels,spoons, jugs, and other utensils, they mixed, stirred,scooped poured and filled the water jugs with sliced lemon and limes to make delicious potions with their friends.
In the water tray the dolly's all got a good wash, using sponges and cloths to squeeze and wring out, the children washed and dried the dolls together.
At the play doh table this week, staff added a variety of herbs to the table, the children used their senses to smell, look and feel the different herbs, using their language and communication skills, the children told staff what they thought the herbs smelt, looked and felt like, some children even had a sneaky taste which I don’t think went down to well, they also used the herbs to add to their delicious meals they had made in the mud kitchen outdoors, Oh and the dinosaurs didn’t want to miss out either so they also had a taste, “yummy!” the children are doing ever so well on sharing with their friends and the dinosaurs “well done!”.
Again lots of fun outdoors everyday this week, the tyres and bikes have been very popular, building with the tyres sharing and taking turns with their friends, Mrs Baines and Miss Ainsley are so proud of how amazing you all are.
Take a look at our lovely pictures, and next week we will have a new rhyme and will continue with some more exciting autumn activities.
Autumn 1/ week 3/ 22-26th September 2025
What another fun week we have all had in our explorer room. Our focus nursery rhyme this week was “Baa baa black sheep” the children have enjoyed learning and joining in the rhyme with their friends whilst joining in with the actions using their fingers to count “1 for the master, 1 for the dame and 1 for the little boy who lives down the lane!” Introducing early maths, they all did amazing and have settled into their new routine so well, coming to the carpet for our daily welcome song singing hello to their friends and singing “If you’re happy and you know it!” singing and acting out the different emotions, “happy” “sad” “angry” and “scared”.
Whilst being creative in an open ended activity outdoors, using wooden clothes pegs, cotton wool and black paint, the children got creative mark making creating a variety of pattens using pincer grip (helping to strengthen the fingers) they coloured in baa baa black sheep along side each other, they had so much fun together.
The tuff tray this week has been fun too, the farm animals where stuck in the mud, the children enjoyed the sensory exploration of muddy gloop along with the variety of farm animals, using their vocabulary the children told staff there was a “mammy” sheep and a “baby” sheep, recognising the comparison in sizes “bigger” and “smaller” using their communication and language skills they were able to tell staff the sounds that a sheep makes “baa” along with other farm animals sounds “moo” and “oink” they also had fun making footprints with the different farm animals “stamping” and “stomping” the animals into the paint.
Also this week the children were introduced to clay and what a Roar-some time they had making a dinosaur park, they added trees and lots of dinosaurs using all of the different tools to cut, scrape, chop and mash, whilst squeezing, squashing, patting, rolling and pressing using their fine motor skills. “ROAR!!”.
The weather has been fine this week, so we have had lots of fun outdoors accessing all of the lovely areas in our garden, getting muddy in our mud kitchen, fun splashing in our water trays, quiet time in our reading den, making ramps for the bikes and practising our gross motor skills on our climbing frames. The fun just does not stop in our explorer room and garden, take a look at our pictures from our adventures from this week, more adventures are already being planned for next week where we will be introducing a new nursery rhyme to the children, “we can’t wait!”.
Autumn 1/week 2: 15-19th September 2025
Wow what a fun, messy week we have had this week. Our focus nursery rhyme this week has been “Twinkle, twinkle little star !”the children have loved joining in the rhyme with Staff and their friends whilst also copying the actions using their hands to twinkle the stars up in the sky reaching up tall.
Getting creative,the children made their very own “star” wand, they decorated their star using the curiosity approach using glue and a variety of sequins, staff then helped to stick the star to a lollipop stick, they then used their wands at carpet time to sing the nursery rhyme. The children even sang to Mrs hill who was super impressed. The tuff trays this week has been a range of lots of sensory based ingredients, we have had lots of dried pasta, rice and lentils, which the children have loved to pour and fill, we have have had sparkly starry rainbow shaving foam and even a large golden spaghetti star shaped tuff tray, using their senses the children have loved exploring all of the ingredients with their hands to feel, using their nose to smell and even on the odd occasion having a little taste, using their vocabulary to tell staff what it felt, smelt and even tasted like “Yuk!!”
We have been very busy baking star biscuits too, rolling out the mixture using their fine motor skills, then cutting out the star shapes using different sizes cutters using their vocabulary “little” and “big”. We hope all of the grown ups enjoyed sharing their yummy biscuits with a nice cup of tea at home!” (I must say they looked delicious).
We have been very creative this week, the art work was just super, first of all the children made their very own starry night picture, using black card and gold and silver paint using again a variety of different size star cutters, staff modelled to the children how to stamp to make the star shape appear on their picture “stamp” “star” they said again using their communication and language skills, as they stamped the cutter onto the card. Well done everyone!
The children were so excited as they got to make a colourful sparkly sensory bottle, using Pom Poms, glitter, sequins and water, using their fine motor skills, hand eye coordination and cognitive skills whilst pouring the water using grip strength to carefully pour in the water. They were just amazing, what superstars you all are!
But I think the best time this week has definitely been the love of being outdoors in our lovely spacious garden, Wow we have all had the best time, we have made a den (which they loved so much we had our snacks inside). We got all muddy in our giant mud planter together, where the children enjoyed digging, pouring, filling, mixing in water and even raking up the soil, there was even a digger in the soil too. The children transported the mud to and from the mud kitchen making the most delicious foods, drinks and potions for their friends.
Also outdoors, whilst wearing waterproofs and wellies the children “gave it some welly” and made a beautiful colourful wall art for our 2 year old provision using their gross motor skills, standing, jumping in a variety lots of different coloured paint they mixed and combined the colours together to create new colours developing their colour recognition skills. “I’m sure this is going to look just amazing up on our wall, well done everyone!!!”
Phew!! what a busy, fun, messy exciting week we have had, we have lots more planned and also a new nursery rhyme to sing, We look forward to lots more fun next week.
Have a look at all of our fun pictures I’m sure you will love them.
Autumn 1/week 1/ 8-12 September 2025
Welcome back everyone to the first week of our new academic year, and what a fun week it has been! It has been so lovely welcoming 5 new starters to our explorer room as well as welcoming our wonderful recent children back to the setting. We are so proud of how well they have settled in and how well they have returned after the Summer Holidays! (It’s as if they haven’t been off, straight back to their routines). Well done everyone! The children have had lots of fun enjoying and exploring the environment and the different areas of play. Also enjoying joining in activities & accessing all of the resources available both indoors and outdoors!! We have had lots of fun learning our daily routine, reading stories, singing songs and also sitting smartly at snack time for some tasty healthy snacks.
Next week we have lots of exciting activities planned where we will be starting off our week with learning a lovely nursery rhyme.
Mrs Baines and Miss Ainsley are super duper proud of each and every one of you.
