We love a toddler group or stay and plays sessions, it’s a great way to meet other parents, the children to play, and also a perfect way to explore other toys and learning resources too. There are lots of great toddler groups in Woking.
Located in the heart of Woking is Fennies nursery. I’ve driven past here on a few occasions, and always admired how beautiful it looks. Aimed as a nursery for the under 5s, they have kindly opened their doors to host a few events for stay and play sessions.
This gives the opportunity for local parents / caregivers to attend the school setting and experience what it’s like. There are two sessions which they currently run on Wednesdays – the morning session 10am-11.30am is aimed at the under 3s, and then an afternoon session 3.00pm-4.30pm for ages 3+ – and there is no cost to these.
Today there were various areas set up for the children to explore at their own leisure. Isabella of course headed to the autumn corner which was beautifully decorated with pumpkins, leaves, pine cones and of course paint. She was straight in, choosing paintbrushes and sponges to decorate the plate. She also added in some glue and had fun sticking bits of paper to her pumpkin too (don’t ask me why I decided to dress her in white today).
Playdough is always a huge hit, and she had lots of fun making dough animals and rolling out different shapes. We had lots of extra craft materials which we used to create masterpieces, we had a friendly dinosaurs with hundreds of eyes, a beautiful butterfly using lolly sticks, and a spikey caterpillar issuing dried pasta.
There was an impressive sand table with lots of av assorted for digging, cars to play in the sand with, sieves to watch the sand fall through, and lots of other exciting objects which helped with fine motor skills.
During the sessions we all came round into a circle to sing songs together. Isabella loved being able to sing along and clapped her hands to the songs. They also provided bubbles – which all children love, and Isabella had great delight in trying to catch them.
My favourite activity (which wasn’t messy play) was a counting and sorting learning resource. It was a great activity to help them learn colours and also counting. Was simply different coloured bowls, and then the matching coloured animals. The children had to sort each of the coloured animals into the relevant bowl which matched, and then could count them and recognise the animal shapes too.
This was such a friendly and engaging group, the teaching staff were lovely and Isabella took to them straight away. So much so, that she asked me to leave her so that she can play with her new friends. Shows me that she is ready to start her pre school journey with me.
