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Our first book of the term was 'We're going on a bear hunt' by Michael Rosen. The children have thoroughly enjoyed exploring all the natural occurrences that featured in the book. Please take the time to click the link above and share the story with your child. SPOILER ALERT: watch it in bed under a nice warm duvet.

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Our curriculum is based on exploration, experiences and investigation through play. Children are encouraged to follow their own ideas with real, natural resources and loose parts. Practitioners use a blend of teaching and scaffolding to encourage children to broaden, stretch and embed their learning. Children are supported to question, explore, experiment, develop hypotheses and test ideas, and reflect their learning. During a session we use a combination of adult led and child initiated teaching running parallel. This is underpinned by detailed long term and medium term plans of progression to guide our children towards our ‘RICCHER’ vision.

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Olive Class have recently welcomed a new class pet. A Horsefield Tortoise named Shelley, we think that she is 15 years old by the amount of rings on her shell. The children have enjoyed watching her dig and burrow herself into the soil or eating leafy foods. Occasionally, she takes herself for a dip in the water tray to cool down from the tropical temperature in her veranium.

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Children created their own treasure maps, X marked the spot where the treasure was buried. Some children even dyed their maps using teabags to provide a more aged appearance.

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Sensory explorations using different materials and textures.

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A small group of children have enjoyed creating their own habitats for bugs and beetles found in the garden.

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The children celebrated the start of the Euro's by holding a football day. The class was separated into teams with a different staff member. Penalty shoot outs then commenced and finally the winning team was awarded the beautifully bright paper-mache trophy cup [thankfully it was a dry day]. Well-done to Kristina's team!

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The children were introduced to a new tool during a woodwork session..... the saw. This tool was a tricky one to master as it required lots of different skills; supporting and holding the wood in place, positioning the saw on the wood and then moving it forwards and backwards, while gently pushing downwards.

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The Great Bake-Off- which staff member and their team can make the best sponge cake......

Was is Anisha and the chocolate sponge?

Kristina and the vanilla sponge?

Leanne and the raspberry sponge?

Or Ayesher and the banana loaf?

The children voted for their favorite sponge, the winner was the cake with the most votes.

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Off for a swim!

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Some of the children have been practicing their fine motor skills by stretching elastic bands onto the geoboards.

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Working together as a team, to build a 'superhero base'.

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The children sat and patiently observed the eggs; looking closely for any cracks and changes.

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We learnt about the life cycle of a duck and represented this through our drawings/mark making.

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The children had many opportunities to see and hold the ducklings up close. All the staff were so proud of how kind, gentle and caring the children were during these times. A few children were naturally apprehensive about stroking the ducklings. However their worries soon disappeared when their friends gave them words of encouragement and reassurance.

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Meet Supertato—the supermarket superhero who’s there for you when the chips are down. The first book of the summer term is Supertato and what a character he is! The children have enjoyed a range of activities in class that supports this story. From picking out peas in the water tray to exploring vegetables in the mud kitchen, the classroom has not been short of a super-mess!

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The children all thought very hard about what ingredients superheroes put into their smoothies. Most children could give a reason why, 'Broccoli gives hulk his muscles' [Zach]

'Raspberries are what Ghost spider eats; it helps give her all the webs she needs' [Remany].

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All the children designed and decorated their own masks!

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Using mod-roc to cover a mesh mask of Ayesher's dad proved highly entertaining. During the process we learnt about body parts, different materials and the artistic work of Picasso. We discovered Picasso was the artist who inspired Cubism; looking at shapes from different views.

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Exploring colour and pattern through foot printing.

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Planting our very own magic beans, I wonder what will grow?

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Iylaah was fortunate enough to catch her very own 'super worm' today in the garden. 'It's very long Ayesher!' she noted.

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The children worked hard to make fruit scones and jam for the special Mother's Day Tea event. We hope all the mummies that came enjoyed the fruits of our labour?

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We had an unplanned special pancake party as a breakfast treat after the staff's efforts at making pancakes failed miserably the previous day. The children had the best time and each child created their very own individual masterpiece.

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Olive Class Has Talent was a very well received event on the social calendar at Pastures Way Nursery. The children had come up with the idea of holding such a prestigious event during a parliament time session. With carefully hand written invites and a varied amount of talent on the agenda it really was quite the glittering event!

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The last core book of the half term was The Three Billy Goats Gruff. This proved very popular with the children- they loved exploring the character of the mean old troll who lived under the bridge and the brave big billy goat who stood up to him at the end. This story prompted lots of class discussions about the feeling of empathy- exploring how others might be feeling and how we can help. One child thought that the troll was lonely and wanted a friend but didn't know how to ask? Please take the time to explore the story with your child and see what they can tell you about the characters and setting.

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The Three Billy Goats Gruff - Books Alive

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Chinese New Year brought many opportunities to explore chinese food and culture into the classroom. From tasting sweet and sour noodles, using chopsticks to pick up rice and chinese writing/symbol painting- the children were not short of fun activities to explore.

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Magic potions inspired by exploring different herbs, spices and flowers. The children made lots of potions all with different effects from 'shooting spider webs' [Haile-Marie] to 'making Kristina fly' [Edward]. A great opportunity for the class to refine their fine motor skills as they use pipettes to fill their test tubes.

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The children made their own beanstalks using the wooden blocks. Unfortunately Dominic who was playing the character of the giant fell from the beanstalk and landed in the basket. Zach cheered on saying 'we got the giant! now he goes to jail!'

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The first story for this half-term was Jack and the Beanstalk. This has prompted lots of activities around the life cycle of a bean, planting our own seeds in our garden area and exploring our imaginations with magnificent castles, ghastly giants and magic beans. Please take the time to sit and share this story with your child and find out what they know about the characters and key events that occur in the story.

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Jack and the Beanstalk - The Children's Story

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After Ayesher provided a whole class demonstration of how to create a volcano, the children set to work on creating their own. This gave the children the opportunity to make their own discoveries [or hypothesis] about the materials they were using and whether they could create a chemical reaction. This was a particularly exciting activity for all the children to participate in and certainly promoted lots of language opportunities. Children were able to describe what they saw and the sounds they could hear. Olivia reported back that "the volcano fizzed a lot" and David declared "I made the lava go over the top and down the side!" What great Little Einsteins we have in Olive Class.

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We explored colours and reaction times during our investigation with skittles and a selection of liquids. The children helped Ayesher create some simple ABAB coloured patterns on each plate. We then looked at the different liquids we were going to pour over the skittles and predict which liquid would make the best rainbow in the quickest time. We tested warm water, cold water, baby oil and vinegar. Ask your child about which liquid created the best rainbow in the quickest time? [SPOILER ALERT- cold water] Additionally, try this simple experiment at home with your child, we would love to see pictures!

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Todays experiment was how to create giant bubbles and what objects are the best for making them? We researched the internet for the best bubble mixture and then got straight to work. We added water to liquid soap and added some glycerin to make the bubbles super sticky. We then tried various pieces of equipment/loose parts to see which item made the best giant bubbles. We tried a piece of guttering, a bamboo tube, curtain rings and hula hoop. Ayesher also introduced a glass jar as a red herring [knowing that the closed bottom would not allow the air to pass through and make a bubble]. However she could not trick some of the children in the class, who instantly knew that the bubble "would get trapped" [Zach]. The children were fascinated by the bubbles we did create, so Ayesher set them the challenge of searching the classroom to find equipment that would allow air through and therefore create bubbles. Great investigation Olive class.

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Today we made rain in a tub. The children learnt about water droplets/moisture in the air and how this travels up and into the clouds. When the clouds get too heavy from all the water droplets, they begin to fall back down as rain. We learnt that a force called gravity is what pulls the rain down to the ground. The class were very responsive to this science lesson and this naturally led onto further explorations in class about what floats and what sinks?

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To celebrate Science week with the children, we carried out an experiment everyday. Alongside this we created opportunities for children to further explore a range of activities that reflected a STEM theme- science, technology, engineering and maths. This has had a real positive impact on the children's learning from extending their vocabulary with new and exciting words to being able to articulate their observations and share their new found knowledge with others.

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What is a Dough Disco?

Dough disco involves moulding play dough in time to music and performing different actions such as rolling it into a ball, flattening it, putting each individual finger into the dough, rolling it into a sausage and squeezing it.
What are the benefits of Dough Disco?

Children and adults need to have strong muscles in their hands to enable them to write effectively. This is exercise for the fingers to improve fine motor control and gross motor skills. Doing these simple, fun exercises will help your child prepare for writing.

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Lycra songs are brilliant for developing social skills and team-work in a fun and accessible way, encouraging cooperation alongside moving and handling skills. Today we all had fun bouncing the soft bean bag on the lycra- we had to move our hands and keep our eyes on the bean ball so it didn't fall off. The children also swapped spaces underneath the lycra when their name was called, this helped support their spatial awareness and executive function skills [thinking skills- remembering someone's place].

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This week in Olive Class we have been listening carefully to the initial sounds we hear in words. This is a very important skill that we need to practice, as this will help us become readers later on in life. Today we are being 'detectives' as we are only finding out the first sounds in words. However as we progress through the year, we will adapt this game to help children learn rhyming words and eventually blend and segment whole words, such as C-A-T.
Today, Ayesher only needed objects added to the soup that have the initial sound 'S', if an object did not start with that sound, then it could not be added to my soup.

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Story mapping allows a child to visualise story characters, events and settings. It is a way to increase a child’s ability to understand and to organise their thoughts and sequencing of main events. Furthermore, it develops a child’s knowledge of what a story is and the key elements that make up a story, which assist in storytelling, retelling and writing.

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Another interest that arose from the children was an interest in cars and their number plates. A small group of children were able to go to the staff car park and explore all the cars parked up. They had clipboards in hand and wanted to record all the different number plates and tally up the most popular colour car amongst the staff team. The children noted that silver was the most popular car and the most desirable car was no surprise........ of course it was Ayesher's little motor car! Beep, beep!!

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A recent parliament time prompted lots of interest in pizza- how was it made? What are the children's favorite toppings? The children took this interest out into the classroom; we created dough pizza with delicious loose part toppings. We also made our own pizza for snack and ran a poll on the most popular topping- the results were shocking- nearly all the children wanted mushrooms on their pizza!!!!

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Making paperchains with our Grand Friends proved a very busy session!

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Logan helps to decorate the class Christmas tree.

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Tis the season to make copious amounts of mince pies! Today we had a whole class bake-off session, the production line was a very smooth operation with many little leaders rising to the occasion. Captain Ali oversaw the rolling of pastry, while Supervisor Vandana was in charge of scooping the mincemeat. Finally Officer Ellie gave the thumbs up when approving the festive pattern to be used on the top of the mince pies. Great team work Olive-ettes, you never stop making the adults proud!

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Come and join Anisha every Wednesday at 11am and 3pm to take part in a range of exciting activities with your child.

Parent partnership is a vital aspect of nursery culture, not only does it lend itself to supporting your child's learning but also enables staff to make future curriculum decisions. Thank you to all that attend!

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During literacy time, we conducted an experiment using all the building materials used in the story and a hairdryer. We wanted to see which material was the strongest and which was the lightest? Ask your child to share the results with you....

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One little boy sets to work to start the fire that is used to boil the big pan of water in the brick house. When I went a little closer to look I was swiftly told: "be careful Ayesher, fire is dangerous, hot, hot, it will burn you!" Thankyou Nuh for the warning.

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A small group of children try hard to re-enact the scene in the story where one little pig builds a house made from sticks. Not long after the wolf appears and knocks on the door.............

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The children have used a variety of different materials to create houses that would be strong enough against the big bad wolf's huffing and puffing. The clay has been particularly popular amongst children in the class. Some children have been exploring different tools and techniques to mould and manipulate the clay and/or add finer details to their designs. What budding architects we have in the class.

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The first core book of this term is The Three Little Pigs. Please take the time to sit and share this story with your child. Can they tell you the key characters in the story and their very famous tag-lines?

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The Three Little Pigs – 🐷🐷🐷 Read aloud of the classic tale about the value of hard work!

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Pastures Way Christmas Performance Afternoon 2023

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Pastures Way Christmas Performance Afternoon 2023

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Pastures Way Christmas Performance  Morning 2023 

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Pastures Way Christmas Performance  Morning 2023 

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The children have been very keen to draw and design their own aliens.

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Please click on the link for more information and activity ideas for you to use at home.

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Road safety laws Road stats Cycle Safety Advice for road users

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During one of our 'fitness friday' sessions, the children participated in completing an obstacle class set up in the classroom. Everybody was asked to jump 5 times on the small trampoline before jumping over the two hurdles and then crawling through the tunnel to the finish line. All the children had lots of fun with this activity and demonstrated a 'can-do' attitude as well as community spirit as they cheered for their friends to cross the line!

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The possibilities of what to do with pumpkins...

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The possibilities of what to do with pumpkins...

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The children have been practicing their hand-eye co-ordination skills by hammering golf tees into pumpkins.

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Every Thursday afternoon Olive class are fortunate enough to go and visit our Grand-friends. During these special visits we may sing, talk and learn new crafts together. The adults love to be in the company of such well behaved, polite and caring children and certainly look forward to our visits.

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Throughout the week, staff have been taking small groups of children out and about to learn and practice road safety. The children have all been extremely sensible when going outside the nursery; prompting each other to ensure hands are being held, being sure to stop at the roadside before crossing and using all their senses when making the judgement to cross the road. Well done Olive Class, all the staff are really proud of the maturity you have demonstrated this week!

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Thankyou to all the parents/carers that came and made the day super special. Everybody had a wonderful time and your donations of food were greatly appreciated.

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Making clay diva's to light up Diwali.

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Creating delicate patterns on hands using lentils, pulses and sequins.

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Exploring the vibrant rice.

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We shared some delicious food from a range of different cultures.

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The Pantosaurus Song! | #TalkPANTS | NSPCC

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follow the link to find out more information.

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follow the link to find out more information.

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In conjunction with our core book Aliens love underpants, we have been discussing the PANTS rule with Olive Class. Please be reassured that such conversations are developmentally appropriate and are sensitively delivered in a manner that the children will understand. The main points we covered were:

Privates are private and your body belongs to you.

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Celebrating 10 years of Talk PANTS!

Pantosaurus has helped 1.5 million parents Talk PANTS and keep their children safe from sexual abuse.

Developed in consultation with children, parents, carers and teachers, Talk PANTS is here to help children understand their body belongs to them, and they should tell a safe adult they trust if anything makes them feel upset or worried.

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Our PANTS activity pack makes it easy to talk to your child about staying safe from harm. With a word search, dot-to-dot and maze game, you can help them learn without using any scary words.

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Science activities to try at home

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Science activities to try at home

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Science activities to try at home

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Young children are naturally inquisitive, full of questions about the world around them and the drive to investigate how things work. We should take advantage of this innate curiosity and start channeling their enthusiasm for scientific discovery as early on as possible.

Benefits of Early Years Science Education:

It can foster a lifelong life for science

It gives a basic grounding in scientific concepts and thinking

Supports the development of other skills and attributes such as: working with others as part of a team, communication skills, problem-solving skills, perseverance and resilience building.

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This week we have been exploring shape and size. The children have been looking through the large magnifying lens and learning how to use a microscope. Dominic thought it was very funny to make different faces behind the magnifying lens while Ayesher took photographs. When she showed him his picture he said 'Alien' and laughed. Dominic returned the favour and took a picture of Ayesher, but due to highly embarrassing reasons, that picture will not be published! Thank you Dominic for making me smile today.

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Today at snack we designed our own fruit rockets. All the children helped to cut up the fruit into various sizes and shapes. They then independently placed the fruit onto wooden skewers to create their rockets before 'blasting off' into their tummies; mmmmmm delicious!

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There has been lots of interest in the digging area, after several children found some worms. A small group of worm enthusiasts soon emerged from the classroom and we soon began trying to locate as many worms as we could to fill up the wormery. Upon closer inspection, Ali had observed that he found 'a very, very big worm' and Remany discovered 'a very, small worm'. We decided that the best words to use when describing measure/length are long and short. Great job gang on such a successful find!

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Since returning after the half-term break, we have been fortunate enough to have had many visitors coming into our garden. This has prompted lots of discussion at parliament time about how we can care for birds and wildlife. We thought making some bird feeders would help encourage more birds to visit and we can then begin to learn the names of different types of birds and describe some of their unique features.

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We all enjoyed a special Teddy Bears Picnic to celebrate the end of the story.

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Following on from baking a mixed berry pie, we had so much fruit left over! What better way to use it up then to make our own smoothie spectacular! This was a great opportunity to talk about healthy meal/drink choices with the children, as well as exploring how the blender works. Thankfully, Vandana was able to trouble shoot our first technical problem..... "it's not in the wall Ayesher!" [referring to the plug]. Fortunately, Marley was able to warn his friends that the 'blender is very noisy' so some children opted to cover their ears. All in all, it was a great team effort and everybody enjoyed a well deserved sip at the end!