We have very much enjoyed the sunshine and the paddling pools out this week – the children have loved getting their toes wet and their shorts wet and their t-shirts wet too! We do change them when they are wet so please dos end lots of spare clothes! Especially send in socks as we have very few pairs! It really is great to cool off in the pools carefully watched by the ladies here.

We have also been making a big castle and have made lots of shields and outfits and crowns to support our role play too.  We are following the children’s lead and helping them in their play and in their friendships, we have had the water play out as well which can be really soothing and relaxing and helps us teach the children about capacity as well. Our garden is looking lovely and Alison and Louise are working on making a temporary pond for our tadpoles which were donated by a family! Our Caterpillars have arrived as well and we will be taking care of them and watching them grow over the coming days until they turn into caterpillars and then we will have our special party in our garden with all the lovely food from the book when we release the butterflies into the wild of our garden.

The circle times for Sun and Moon concentrated on the football, talking about the matches and the game and the scores, we learnt about numbers  by playing hopskotch and What’s the time Mr Wolf. We practised making and spotting patterns and sequences on clothes, books, around us and by making our own patterns using all sorts of beads and animals and blocks and by drawing and butterfly prints too. The Moon’s went out to collect water for the new temporary pond and chatting about ponds and wildlife around them. We opened to caterpillars on Monday and they have already grown to quadruple the size.

The Star group have been counting objects, developing strength by throwing and pushing and catching and running and moving like lots of different animals as well. They have learnt about tadpoles and frogs and loved colouring in some huge frog pictures!

Some children will be visiting their primary schools over the coming weeks so please feel free to just drop your child in following their visits, and we will be welcoming new faces into the pre-school from 5th July for session visits ready for a new start in September.

Next week we will be working on lots of construction and some hungry caterpillar craft and flower craft for a last display for the year. Only 4 weeks left – we just can’t believe it!

Have a lovely weekend!

This week has been full of our usual routines and fun and great activities and we have loved playing hairdressers and our science week has been a great success! We have explored ice and what makes it melt and how to get items out of the ice, we have watched raisins dance (!), learnt what dissolves in water and made tornados in jam jars. We have made appointments, straightened hair, set up a lovely salon and had our nails painted, we definitely have some talented hairdressers!

Forest School sessions have been wet and windy but great fun – the children made Hapa zome flags by placing an assortment of leaves and flowers on one half of fabric.
Fold other half of fabric over the top and then bashed it repeatedly with the rubber mallet! The children then wrote their name on the flag with a felt pen. The groups have worked on Little Pig Den building and big den building in three groups – they planned how to build a dens using straw; sticks, straw, tarpaulin and ropes. Some of the den building did have to be done inside due to the very windy weather!

We have built a creation station outside in our under cover area which has been very busy with making tickets for the theatre shows and robots and invitations and lots of snipping and gluing and sticking and making and writing.

Circle times :-

Star group had a really wonderful time out in the back garden on the one sunny day! Exploring the willow structures  – there are some wonderful photos from that circle time on the blog so do have a look. The parent gallery is up and running again, sorry for the delay – it was due to a big, much needed revamp of the computers in our office!

The Stars have learnt about shapes in the environment, played interactive games together, choosing friends and working together. They have learnt about what items are heavy and light, which sink and float, danced with ribbons and enjoyed exercise sessions using music and routines.

Moons and Sun – both groups had a long explore in the back garden too, using scissors and glass jars to promote taking care and being safe while collecting bugs and flowers and anything else they could find to put into their jars to then learn about, we used the leaf chart to identify some of the trees in our garden. The groups have also talked about family a lot, enjoyed gymnastics sessions on the floor mats and some fantastic dancing routines from Go Noodle on the ipad. We have learnt about bees, made bees and also learnt about caterpillars and made caterpillars.

Next week we are building a garage undercover so if anyone has old tools which we can use safely that would be great or car magazines like Auto trader or anything else that might be fun for us we would be really grateful. We are also carrying on with our hairdressers inside and will be making lots of mini small worlds to explore and come up with imaginative ideas of what to make and add. We will have an exercise theme in the Star room during free flow so if it is wet again we can still get active!

We have had a wonderful week here at pre-school, we had a great staff meeting on Monday where we discussed our Ethos and wrote a list of things that are important to us :-

“We work as a team, we care for the whole family, we listen to everyone’s views, we do our best for everyone, we treat all children as individuals, we give children great experiences, we build family relationships, we are approachable, we offer Forest School, we love outdoor learning, we give the children choices, we play, we love learning, we teach children to be independent, we are caring, this is a happy and safe place to be.”

I have spent a week observing the play, checking that all our planning is working and that the children are learning well and making progress and most importantly playing and having fun!

We have had a brilliant week learning about lots of different jobs, we set up a new tray for each job and talked about bakers, the NHS, dentists, vets, supermarket jobs, road safety and our lollipop lady, builders and made a home office as well.

Outside we have been using our weather boxes to explore the showers, the sunshine and the wind. There are some great photos of the bubbles in the wind, the streamers and have drawn around our shadows.

The circle times have been really varied this week

Star – Have learnt about lots of different musical instruments, explored concepts such as big/little and heavy and light, they have practised putting their own shoes and socks on and had a pretend tea party to help build imaginative play and chatted about home and different jobs too.

Sun and Moon – both groups have worked within the Pirate them for the week and made pirate hats and enjoyed pirate yoga! We have learnt about lots of different jobs, watched different instruments being played in a orchestra, and in a rock band! We have looked closely at apple blossom from our tree and painted it, we have learnt initial sounds in words and even went out of pre-school for a nature walk. For technology we have been using the ipad and Alexa which has been a great hit with lots of the children knowing how to use her and having good ideas for games she can play with us!

We have also completed our sponsored bike ride, the children did 10 laps of the outside area and we have over £1500 pledged in sponsorship which is absolutely amazing! I am hoping to use some to pay for the Forest School training for Jackie and Sophie and save some of the funds for a set of Monkey bars as well.

Forest School has created the smell of wood smoke again around the pre-school and they made tree cookies by sawing a slice of wood, drilling a hole near the edge, threading
string through the hole, and decorating the disc. Par of Forest School is lighting the fire with the children, talking about the safety rules of Forest school. The group then meet at the end of the session to talk about their time together, enjoying marshmallows cooked over the fire.

Home Learning ideas – we have sent home next steps for nearly all of the children now, Andrea is sadly off sick with a bad back so hers are a little delayed. To support our work next week can you chat to your children about mini beasts, bugs and insects in your garden, look them up on kids tube and take photos of any you spot! We will also be learning about weddings so send us a photo of your own wedding or a friends/family wedding to amelia@cullomptonpreschool.org

Don’t forget we are closed on bank holiday Monday 3rd May. Have a lovely long weekend