What a wonderful first week we have had, we have been so happy with how the children have settled in. A few tears on the door are completely to be expected and understood and the team here are experts at nurturing and settling and ensuring your child has a lovely time with us. We have been getting to know the children and their interests and have listened carefully to all the info you gave us during home and session visits too.

Our week has been very wet! We have had water play out when the weather allowed which is a very calming activity and always works well in the first week, the children have been exploring the garden, learning the routines of the day and taking part in an adult led circle time. The circle times are a brilliant part of the day which allows us to spend time in small groups, learning each others names, making friends, learning about our day at pre-school and we move through our curriculum, teaching specific skills and areas through games and activities led by an adult.

We have had lots of small world toys out this week, castles, dinosaurs, cars and the farm. We have had baby role play, the bikes out on some days (we have no-bike days we all to support collaborative play) and sensory activities, lots of mark making and painting and number trays and story and song time too. There are some lovely photos in the gallery!

We plan really carefully to ensure all children make really great progress with us in all the areas of learning – you will learn more as the weeks pass and we will be sending you info on our curriculum and ideas to help learning at home over the coming weeks. Please have a look at the link below for more info now.

A parents guide to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) | Family Corner

We also have lots of links on our website under the heading Home Learning.

We create a paper learning journey for each child and as this grows it will be available for you to look at, we will write an on entry sheet so that we know where your child is developmentally in all areas and we will share that with you – if you have any questions or worried we are here for you so get in touch via email or phone or stay for a chat at the end of the day – sometimes it is better to talk without your child listening so you are always free to come back at 2.50pm while they enjoy a story and you can chat to your key person or Amelia or Andrea any day.

We are always asking for donations as we are a charity – to support our planning for next week we would love donations of empty plastic bottles (for fire extinguishers!), string and pretty sellotape, bull dog clips and big paintbrushes (we are going to paint the fence with different colours – good for arm strength!) – thank you!

The Hungry Caterpillar has been very much part of our week! We have waved goodbye to our lovely butterflies and there is a video on facebook if you would like to see it, we have made caterpillars in many different forms and we have also learnt about the snail, frog and worm life cycle with some very realistic new models!

Part of learning at preschool is also about how to take care of things and with the new toys we have been teaching the children about putting them away carefully and keeping the bits together so I have had a few moments when a child was worrying about where the frogspawn has been taken and another wanted to know why the worm eggs were missing already so a good reflection of the fact that our new toys are special had sunk in and I am pleased to say that the missing items were located! We have had training this week from Andrea who went on a brilliant course – lots of good ideas about how we give instructions and how many words we use. A good example here is we often say “lunchtime – go and wash your hands” and then wonder why the children are running off to get their lunch bags – now was say “wash your hands and then go to lunch” so simple and so we are practising – we also say “go to the toilet” and in they go and out they come! Now we say “got to the toilet and go for a wee”! Much fewer child now need a wee while eating their lunch!

Our Sun and Moon circles have also been working on blending letter sounds as this is a key skill for reading and Robot Reg has certainly helped prepare them with some excellent letter work. They have worked to make patterns and written their names and enjoyed caterpillar and butterfly craft.

The Stars have used shapes to make houses and rockets with some fantastic results and have worked hard on counting and they are all really settled and doing well in their group.

Outside we have been building a castle and have moved away from the digging pit to concentrate on creativity in a different way. Next week more castle play, fairy tales story telling and acting, home corner play inside and lots more letters and sounds work and a few visits to primary schools as well for some children. As always please do get in touch if you have any worries about your child or home life or starting school, we have lots of answers and advice and can often help or find help if you need any.

What a wonderful first week back we have had, the children were full of stories about their Jubilee celebrations – we heard about family parties and food and the Red Arrows were spotted by one little boy who was thrilled to have seen them!

This is a super busy half term with so much going on, we have Robot Reg visiting on a Friday afternoon for the Sun and Moon groups and we have taken two groups off to the Walronds this week for a few fun races and a picnic. We will be taking “graduation” celebration photos of the school starters over the coming week or so and will share the proofs with you so that you can buy a mounted picture to mark the end of their time with us. All money raised goes back into buying resources for the children as we are a charity!

Over the week we have been learning about the weather using different activities outside – we have had lovely floaty scarves outside in the wind and the little parachute men and we have drawn around our shadows outside and enjoyed a tea party too. We have filled the digging pit with top soil and there are some brilliant photos of the children working away on all their ideas!

The Star group have explored the hungry caterpillar story and life cycle too and will meet their very own real caterpillars today which they will care for and feed once they turn into butterflies and we release them in our back garden at our Hungry Caterpillar picnic party which is a real highlight of the year! They have also been learning about names, syllables and counting and making shapes with beads. The Thursday and Friday Star group also had their first Forest School experience out in the back garden, learning the skills and rules ahead of their sessions with a fire in the Autumn.

The Sun and Moons are back and very chatty indeed! Lots of great stories from home and friendships linked to which school they are going to are beginning to develop nicely. We have learnt all about counting and counting out the right amount of beads for a particular number, mini beasts, life cycles, letter sounds, met our real caterpillars and created some wonderful drawings for them and enjoyed a trip to the Walronds for Sports Day games.

We would love donations for next weeks learning – our focus is life cycles and nature and growth so we are looking at Jack and the Beanstalk and creating a garden centre role play so would love donations of cotton wool balls, jam jars, garden magazines and seed catalogues, white dried beans, garden forks/trowels and children’s watering cans please to support our role play garden centre next week