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!

Summer 1/ week 3/5-8th may 2026

This week in our explorer room, we have had lots of fun learning and exploring, creating and building through play, whilst joining in the rhyme, “Tall buildings in the town!” we had lots of fun using our language whilst learning the prepositions of context such as:

Tall buildings in the town, (reaching up) 

Lifts moving, (up and town)

Doors opening, (in and out)

People rushing all about (moving fast)

Tuff trays this week have been very fun and messy, this included:

⏳🗼Sand foam: The children explored the textures as they mixed together the sand and foam, creating a soft, squishy texture helping to develop their fine motor skills by scooping, squeezing and moulding, whilst also supporting language development, describing how it felt and told their friends what they were making. The children used the sand foam to stick together the wooden blocks as they built their own tall tower, incorporating some early maths concepts like counting, shapes, size and balance, the best part was knocking them down afterwards of course. “Crash!”

🚧Another sensory-rich messy tuff tray was explored using a variety of cereals with added construction vehicles, they enjoyed pouring, filling, and scooping the cereals with the vehicles creating their own imaginative building site. Throughout the activity the children used some descriptive language such as full, empty, crunchy whilst it supported coordination and fine motor skills.

🎨Being creative the children enjoyed “Shape block printing” using wooden blocks to “stamp!” they dipped the blocks into the paint to create patterns with different shapes. This helped the children recognise and learn basic shapes, explore a variety of patterns and repetition whilst developing fine motor skills.

🟡⬛️👷The children loved creating their own dump trucks using coloured card, pre-cut into basic shapes including rectangles for the body, circles for wheels and squares for the cab and windows. Using glue to stick together they used their problem solving skills whilst positioning the pieces onto their amazing pictures. “Well done everyone!”.

The play doh table was popular too this week as the children got very busy building with a variety of wooden blocks, they explored different shapes and sizes, “big” and “small”, whilst using the doh to stick together the blocks to make their models taller and bigger whilst strengthening their hand/finger muscles. We also enjoyed adding the doh to our mud to create “mud dough” outside.

📦🧃We have been collecting lots of junk model over the past few weeks and this week we have been getting very sticky using the glue and tape to stick a variety of sized boxes, tubes and other recycled materials together whilst the children proudly turned their junk into their amazing creations, This activity supported creativity, fine motor skills, communication, problem solving, whilst also encouraging independent play. We even had a pair of binoculars!” amongst our amazing models. “Amazing!”.

🔨⛳️Hammering fun with golf tees!

Also this week the children enjoyed a very exciting hammering activity using chid safe- hammers, golf tees and foam. The children tapped the tees into the foam, exploring how to control the hammer and how much force to use. There were lots of smiles, concentration and determination, helping to develop their fine motor skills, coordination and concentration. This was so much fun they “got it off to a tee!”.

🥾🚧This week has been an amazing week but best of all I think the children enjoyed the outdoors as things got wonderfully muddy and messy as they had an adventure full of splats, scoops, squishes and digging as we got stuck into messy, sensory, muddy play. Using construction vehicles to enjoy transport painting, dipping the vehicles into mud and creating tracks on the floor, exploring all of muddy textures along the way. “Digging, dumping and discovering”. They used the spades to transport mud, backwards and forwards into containers whilst also adding water to the mud by pouring, filling and emptying using a variety of utensils not forgetting the splashing in the puddles. 

Phew! what a week sorry about all of the washing this week 🧺

🦉📚This week we also continued our focus story “wow, said the owl!” which the children are really enjoying at home time with their friends as they wind down from a busy day. We will be continuing this throughout the summer term and getting creative making some lovely owls together. 

Take a look at all of our mud-tastic pictures 📸( ooops there are so many).

Summer term 1/week 2/27 April - 1st may 2026

Our focus nursery rhyme this week has been “1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive”. The children have had a “whale” of a time exploring sea creatures and fun whilst developing key skills through creative play.

Our creative activities have included being busy creating their own sea creatures (which we are displaying in our quiet room) using paper plates! We made:

*snappy crabs🦀

*wiggly jellyfish🪼

*toothsome sharks🦈

Using lots of imagination and creativity using collage materials, paint and sticky glue, the children explored the textures, colours, shapes, whilst expressing their ideas creatively with their friends.

We also made a starfish, using rolling pins attached to some bubble wrap, rolling it into paint and pressing it onto the starfish template, discovering the interesting patterns it made, whilst developing their fine motor skills by rolling and pressing. The children loved the sensory exploration of the bubble wrap, and also seeing how the bubble wrap created a bumpy, starfish-like-effect- each one was unique and full of character.

Our tuff trays were very messy too this week (just how we like it) we have had lots of sensory exploration this week including:

*Rainbow fish:🌈🐠using pipettes, food colouring, cotton wool pads to create a colourful rainbow fish, squeezing the pipette and adding colour to the pad to create a rainbow fish whilst watching the colours spread, exploring colour recognition and mixing, developing hand eye coordination and fine motor skills.

*Sea foam:🌊foam and water with added sea creatures to explore, encouraging language development and lots of excitement as they discover and described the different textures and creatures.

*❄️ Free the sea creatures:🦭🦈🐙The children enjoyed helping the sea creatures escape from the ice. They enjoyed using different ways to set them free, using warm water and tools, helping support their problem solving skills and sparking their curiosity.

*⌛️🏖️🌊🍝ocean sensory tray: Using blue spaghetti for the ocean/ crushed cheerios for sand, the children loved the tactile edible tuff tray. Squishing and squashing and not forgetting eating the ingredients of the tray, they loved exploring the contents of the tray (even though they did go home looking a little blue) oh dear, but we did have lots of fun.

The water trays have been out everyday this week, we have had some glorious sunshine so lots of time has been spent outdoors this week. The children loved most of all playing with loose parts using planks, reels, tyres and crates in a creative way, building bridges together, balancing along the planks, creating obstacle courses and transporting. Working together as a team whilst developing their physical skills and gross motor skills, building up their confidence and risk taking in our safe environment.

🦈🎾Last but not least they loved the “feed the shark” game. Staff made a shark out of a box, the children engaged for a while taking turns with their friends to throw the balls into the sharks mouth, they were very excited as they aimed, threw and fed the “hungry” shark. 

What a “Fintastic” time this week we have all had, let’s hope the sun keeps on shining for another week of fun next week. ☀️

Take a look at our “turtly” amazing photos.

Summer 1 term/week 1/20-25 April 2026

Wow we have had a wonderful start to our new summer term, especially as we welcomed some new friends into our setting. They have settled in beautifully, and we are so proud of how quickly they’ve begun to feel happy,safe and part of our provision in our 2 year old explorer room, not forgetting our returning children who have settled straight back into our fun routines and have been so kind and caring inviting their new friends into our setting to play, learn and have lots of fun together.🌟

This term, our learning is inspired by the delightful story Wow! Said the Owl. 🦉Through this the children will be exploring and learning all about colours, discovering in nature, in their play and things around us every day. We will be encouraging lots of creativity, curiosity, exploration and wow 😮moments throughout our term, we can’t wait!

🪱Our focus weekly nursery rhyme has been “There’s a worm at the bottom of the garden!” The children have been amazing at paying attention whilst listening, then joining in singing the rhyme, also joining in with the actions wiggling their fingers, there were lots of wiggles and giggles.

The children got busy this week with the play doh making their own wriggly worms, rolling, squeezing and shaping the dough helping to strengthen their hands and fingers, supporting early writing skills whilst encouraging creativity, imagination and language as they described their worms “wiggly” to their friends, this also incorporated some early maths making the worms “long” and “short”.

The children also made their very own “bug” fossil, they each took it in turns choosing their favourite bug or mini beast🐛🕷️🐌🦋 they then rolled the dough and  “stamped” their shape to make detailed imprints. Once dried the children painted their fossil, bringing their creation to life, helping to support their fine motor skills.

🐌They were also creative making a snail using a paper plate, the children had some messy colourful fun using glue and a variety of colourful collage materials. They enjoyed sticking, layering and designing their own unique snail shells, exploring different textures and patterns, allowing them to express themselves, encouraging decision making in a fun way.

🍎The children also enjoyed engaging in an apple stamping activity to create a lovely ladybird picture, dipping the halved apple into the red paint, “stamp” they said as they stamped the apple onto paper, they then added black spots using a cotton bud. Also using string as a wiggly worm they enjoyed string painting, dipping and dragging their string to create worm like patterns, lines and squiggles.

We are sure you will love their amazing artwork🐞

🍝🪱This week has been wonderfully messy with our “spaghetti worms” tuff tray! The children explored a sensory experience with spaghetti, cornflour and cocoa, creating a squishy wriggly “worm” tray full of creepy crawlies. Using tweezers the children picked up the worms and placed them into the bowls, developing their hand eye coordination, exploring the different textures and sensory materials.

🦟🦗🔎They also explored a bug tuff tray, containing bugs, binoculars and magnifying glasses and a variety of cereals and mud which the children scooped, poured and filled, whilst using the binoculars and magnifying glasses to investigate and observe what they could find hiding amongst the cereal, and also the mud helping support their language development by describing what they could see hiding amongst the cereal and also the mud. The children were like little bug detectives.

⛺️We have also been working as a team this week as the children had a fantastic time working together to build a tent in our environment. Using team work, problem solving, and lots of communication, they carefully helped build together their very own secret hideaway, once the tent was up, staff went inside to put in some cushions and “oh my goodness the tent had bugs in !” Phew! not real bugs, the children hid inside the tent wearing their bug masks to playfully “scare” Mrs Baines and Miss Ainsley, as you can imagine their was lots of giggles from the mischievous mini beasts.

💦⌛️We have also had lots of fun outdoors this week as the sun has been shining, we have been extremely busy with the water this week washing the cars, feeding the dinosaurs with the sand, making dinner in the mud kitchen, playing on the bikes, cars, swing and slide.

“What a fun first week in our explorer room!” we are so proud of all the children and can’t wait to have lots more adventures next week.

Take a look at all of our fun wiggly, messy pictures from this week. The fun and learning does not stop in our 2 year old room. 

Spring 2/week 5/30th March-3rd April 2026

This week we have had “chirps, giggles and Easter wiggles, full of laughter, and lots of egg-stra learning.🐣

Our focus nursery ryhme has been “chick, chick, chick, chick chicken lay a little egg for me!”. The children have been exploring the joys of Easter from sensory exploration and being creative whilst sparking their curiosity, developing their fine motor skills, encouraging early learning all whilst having fun together.

This week we have been :

❄️🐥Rescuing frozen chicks from ice in a frozen chick activity:🔨

Our children were like scientists as they loved rescuing the chicks from the ice using pipettes, they enjoyed dripping water onto the ice using the pipettes to squeeze the water onto the ice,helping to develop their fine motor skills, scientific 🥼problem solving skills and concentration, whilst learning about melting, temperatures and cause and effect in a hands on fun way. We were so pleased the chicks were finally saved from the ice. “Great team work!”.

🍝🐥”wiggly spaghetti, chirpy friends!”A fun Spaghetti chicken cutting activity in the tuff tray.

Using their hands ,scissors and tweezers the children enjoyed squishing, squashing, and cutting the spaghetti, enjoying the sensory exploration of the wiggly cooked spaghetti helping to support their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination whilst having lots of messy fun together.

🔨🎨🥚Also in the tuff tray the children enjoyed a cracking activity which was an egg smashing activity using hammers to tap, hit and smash the eggs under the cling film. Under the cling film was many colours, the colours squished, swirled and splattered, made new colours and some creative patterns along the way. The children enjoyed the textures of the cling film exploring it with their hands and fingers using some discriptive language.

“Smash” “bang” “crack”. This activity was a big hit with children 🔨💥

🎨🥚We had lots of fun getting creative with our plastic egg stamping activity!. Using plastic eggs halved the children dipped the eggs into the colourful paint creating patterns whilst they “stamped” whilst also exploring the process using their creativity and imagination and also their hands to explore the textures of the paint.

🎨Using a ziplock bag, an Easter egg template and pastel coloured paints, the children used their fingers and hands to move the paint around-mixing colours and creating patterns on their Easter egg shapes, the children enjoyed the sensory exploration of the sensory bag activity. Focusing and being curious whilst being creative and showing self expression whilst creating their own unique designs.

💦Eggs were added to the water tray using a variety of tools and pipes, the children had fun using the ladles and other tools to transport and scoop up the eggs to roll them down the chute. The children were curious to see how the eggs moved in the water and enjoyed experimenting with different ways to control their speed and direction. There were lots of problem solving together. 

🧁For snack we’ve been busy making yummy Easter crispy cakes,the children enjoyed mixing,scooping,and decorating their treats and enjoying a little bit of Easter chocolatey magic together for snack time.

Thats not all we had for a treat!!, we had a couple of special visitors in our nursery, 🐥the children enjoyed a special experience of gently holding a baby chick, showing care, empathy and of course excitement, they did so well trying to contain their excitement in waiting for their turn, they were all so eggstatic!.🐣

🐰🥕The Easter bunny hopped into our garden too and hid lots of eggs, the children were so eggsited, they each had a little basket and off they hopped to find the eggs he had hidden, helping their personal, social and emotional development, physical development and some early maths, counting the eggs, comparing and recognising colours whilst having fun. The Easter bunny was so kind as he left a chocolate treat for the children too and a special certificate. 🐰🍫

Sadly we have come to the end of our spring term “what a term!” the children have had a fantastic time exploring, learning and having fun with their friends. Mrs Baines and Miss Ainsley are so proud of all your achievements and can’t wait for new adventures next term.

HOPPY EASTER!🐣🐰

Spring 2/ week 4/23-27th March 2026

We have been “hopping” into learning this week as our focus nursery rhyme has been “sleeping bunnies” 🐰this is definitely one of the children’s all time favourite rhymes. Easter is approaching so no time like the present to introduce some Easter activities. This week we have been getting creative 🎨making our grown ups an Easter card 🐥but sssh thats a surprise 🤫. 

Using a paper plate the children made their very own bunny ears headband which they designed using coloured spotty stickers, they then used their headbands at circle time to sing the rhyme and join in with the appropriate actions, the children love pretending to be sleeping, then waiting patiently for staff to shout “wake up bunnies!” with a big stretch and lots of hopping. This rhyme helps build the children’s listening skills, their coordination and of course lots of laughter, also communication/vocabulary skills developed through music, as well as developing their gross motor skills.

🎨The children also got creative “bunny stamping” using cardboard tubes cut into a bunnies head and ears as they explored the colours they stamped the tube onto the paper using cause and effect method as they stamped revealing the bunny print, this also introduced early shape recognition and gave the children opportunities to learn new words such as “ears” “bunny” “stamp”. The children were so good at taking turns and following simple instructions.

For snack we enjoyed making, and of course eating some “yummy!” 😋easter biscuits 🐰🐥using rolling pins👨‍🍳a bunny and carrot🥕 cutter to shape their dough. This hands on activity supported the children’s development in many ways including being patient and waiting for their turn, while also having lots of fun together. 

🥕In the tuff tray this week we have been feeding the bunnies “oh no!” not real bunnies unfortunately, but we still had fun feeding the bunny prop with real carrots and scooping filling and pouring the rice and lentils using our spoons into bunnies mouth, the children used their hand eye coordination and fine motor skills as they carefully put the food into the bunnies mouth, Mrs Baines and Miss Ainsley were a little baffled as the carrots magically got munched by the pretend bunnies. 🤔

Last week we collected sticks which we have used this week to get creative outdoors.

The fun, hands on experience activity allowed the children to experiment with colours, textures and mark making in a natural and engaging way, helping to develop their fine motor skills. The sticks were very pretty, some described them as “rainbow sticks!”.🌈

Also this week Spring has sprung 🌷so we have been spending a lot of time outdoors enjoying the spring tuff trays! With plant pots,soil, flowers they enjoyed digging, planting and exploring the textures adding water with the watering cans using their imagination and early understanding of nature.

The children also enjoyed lots of water 💦fun with the enhanced daffodil water tray, 🌼which provided lots of rich learning opportunities, the children used a range of tools such as jugs, funnels and watering cans to pour, scoop, fill and empty developing coordination and sparking their curiosity.

The play doh was enhanced with real flowers to make their own creations this week too, the children used their senses to smell and feel the different textures of the flowers, whilst using their language skills to tell their friends how the flowers smelt

It’s been a very busy this week as we have also had “careers” week, the children were able to come dressed up as “what they would like to be when they grew up!” It was nice to see the children dressed up and acting out real life scenarios in their play. At the end of the day our nursery looked like a doctors surgery 🩺🧑‍⚕️🏥 at least everyone went home smiling and feeling better. 🤒

Next week is our last week of our spring 2 term we have lots of Eastery fun planned and who knows there maybe a little surprise.🍫

Hop to it and take a look at our photos from this week.

 “Learning is sweeter when it is filled with Easter fun, laughter, and of course a whole lot of mess.🐰🐥🥕

20th march 2026

Today the sun ☀️was shining so we enjoyed a lovely local nature walk together right near our school, the children loved exploring the world around them with curiosity and excitement.

On our walk we spotted some beautiful daffodils in bloom, we discovered a tiny snail 🐌 and some ladybirds 🐞hiding in amongst the plants.

The children also collected a variety of sticks which we are going to use next week to get creative. We may also incorporate some early maths with the children using the sticks to “compare” the lengths which is “long” and which is “short” or “bigger” or “smaller” or even which stick maybe the “same”.

 We love having opportunities to go on a walk together which helps the children learn through real-life experiences, they had such a fantastic time exploring nature together. 

Spring 2/week 3/16-20th March 2026

We can “bearly” 🧸wait to tell you what fun we have had this week.

Our focus nursery rhyme this week has been “round and round the garden”, we explored this familiar ryhme through a variety of lots of fun, engaging activities to support the children’s learning and development.

At circle time we introduced some feathers 🪶and pampas grass whilst singing the rhyme together, the children enjoyed the sensory element of the feathers, not forgetting the tickling actions. The children thought this was so funny as they tickled their friends.

🐻The children also explored creativity as they enjoyed making their very own teddy bear mask using paper plates, using different materials such as paint, cellotape and lollipop sticks helping to develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination. The children used their masks for imaginative play promoting their communication and language skills.

🥞Also this week the children enjoyed a lovely teddy bears picnic, where we enjoyed teddy bear pancakes together, the children were very excited to see the teddy bear pancakes, helping to spark their curiosity and engagement. The children brought their very own teddies to the picnic, the children sat together with their teddies, talking about their teddies to their friends comparing what their teddies looked like “small” and “big”. Also the teddies were very lucky as they had some teddy bear shaped crisps too as the children kindly pretended to feed the crisps to their bears.

🎨This week we have continued learning our colours, the children explored large-scale painting in the garden, using a variety of fun tools, including fly swats and squirty bottles with coloured paints, also we used a spinning chair to create circular patterns, as you can guess this was so much fun, the activity encouraged the children to experiment with movement, colour and mark-making on a large scale helping promote their physical development using large arms movements, whilst the spinning chair supporting gross and fine motor skills and coordination not forgetting the laughter from the children, they all did so well being patient as they waited for their turn they were amazed when Mrs Baines and Miss Ainsley moved the chair to see a “rainbow circle” on the floor which they had created.

The weather has been warm this week, we have spent a lot of time outdoors playing in the sand and mud, playing alongside each other making mud pies, digging, scooping and patting whilst sparking imaginative play, adding water to the mud, exploring the textures, feeling the cold, squishy mud with their hands and oh jumping in the muddy puddles of course “splash” 💦

The green and blue water trays, the bikes, cars, swing and slide were very popular too this week not forgetting the “Roarsome” dino tuff tray, they squished, squelched and moved the variety of dinosaur’s through the green foam and sand with a blue river running through, it also had broccoli for trees which the dinosaurs stomped and munched it was so much fun. The sensory rich tuff tray helped the children to use lots of vocabulary with friends as they built creativity and imagination.🦖🦕

Also outdoors in our garden we have been exploring outdoor loose parts including bricks, reels, tyres and wooden parts. The children enjoyed building,balancing and creating their own structures, developing their physical skills, confidence and imagination.

Phew what a busy week, we have had a “beary” fun time. 

Take a look at our fun pictures 🧸

Spring 2/week 2/9-13th March 2026

Wow what a very fun, colourful 🌈 week we have had this week. Our focus nursery ryhme has been 🎶head, shoulders, knees and toes🎶we have been learning all about our body parts and facial features, during circle time whilst singing the children enjoyed joining in with the associated actions pointing to their head, shoulders, knees and toes. We then sang the song “slowly” and “quietly” then “loud” and “fast”, I think they enjoyed the fast version best.

In the tuff tray mr potato head appeared, the children engaged in making funny faces with him, staff encouraged the children to place in the eyes, nose mouth ears in the correct places, they all did ever so well, but there were some very funny faces in the tuff tray too.

We have had lots of fun in the garden this week too, we have been getting very muddy in our mud pit, we enjoyed digging, adding water to make mud cakes in the mud kitchen, digging, scooping, splatting,filling and emptying into the different containers using a variety of tools and also their hands to create lots of muddy messy creations.

Also this week has been science week so we introduced lots of colour mixing activities which helps to develop and learn colour recognition through play. Outside this week the children loved painting on a large scale in the garden, using their fine and gross motor skills, by using a plastic cup with a hole in the bottom which was attached to string they swung their paint (mixed with water) backward and forwards, round and round to create patterns on paper, introducing and labelling each colour individually, the children were fascinated to see how, when each different colour was introduced the colours started to change colour “like a rainbow!”they said.

Indoors we carried on with our sensory coloured tuff trays, the children enjoyed exploring the colours and senses of the tray we had:

Milk, food colouring and water mixed, the children used pipettes to practice squeezing up the colours and squirting the different colours into the milk, creating more colours whilst also practising fine motor skills to strengthen their hands and finger muscles.

We also enjoyed, shaving foam and frozen coloured ice, as the ice melted it changed the colour of the foam, there was lots of communication between the children as they were amazed how the foam was changing colour as the ice melted and created lots of beautiful colours, they also enjoyed exploring the ice and foam with their hands, “cold” they said as well as labelling the colours they saw “well done everyone!”.

On Wednesday we had a fantastic time participating in “body painting” this activity is by far one of the most fun, creative, painting techniques we do, there were lots of giggles as the children painted their friends, painted their legs, arms, tummies, feet, faces and not forgetting their toe nails as well as the dolls, the cars, even the dinosaurs got painted whilst using a variety of brushes, sponges, stampers and hands to get messy and explore the textures of the paint, whilst mixing all the colours together. Afterwards staff filled the water trays and the children bathed the dolls using sponges to get them all clean, oh and the children also enjoyed splashing in the water too 💦 “what a mess!” but so much fun, just how we love it in our 2 year old room. 

We have also enjoyed sharing lots of stories this week as well as our songs.

The children have also been creative as they have made a very special card for their loved ones, I’m sure you will love them 🦋

Take a look at all of our fun, colourful, messy pictures from this week. (There are lots)