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

Our week has been full of play and learning, with some gardening, more planting, learning about growth, learning about numbers, exploring real food and cooking, learning about being kind and we are still settling back into a busy pre-school life post lockdown for schools!

The children are being fantastic but it is a challenge for some who find the higher numbers difficult and for some children who have just come back into the setting so we are working really closely with all of the groups and carrying out lots of great activities with a focus on learning all around the pre-school. We have our Moon room open during each free flow session which can be a quieter space for children with an adult there to support learning and next week this room will be home to lots of lovely Easter craft and sensory trays and chatter. The Sun room is also our current base for role play and the farm shop this week has been fantastic – thank you for all your donations. Outside is also well planned for and this week have had a numeracy focus – playing number games, making number craft for the trees and enjoying a numbered obstacle course amongst other games!

The circle times are always a lovely focus for each morning and afternoon and provide the children with a calm space to learn and enjoy a really huge variety of activities which are all based on the curriculum that we follow but planned by the group leaders to really inspire the children and create a sense of wonder about each session.

Moon group – have been learning how to stop different patterns and match them, learnt about Spider plants and how the have extra shoots that grow into new plants, they have explored the plants in our own back garden and then drawn them and learnt about where food comes from.

Sun group – have made number CD’s, counting out gems from a big pile to match their number, made an all about me – talking about themselves and what they are good at, been shopping in our pretend farm shop and then helped to chop up the veg and made soup and made a lovely vase with fresh wild flowers collected from our front garden.

Star group – have been exploring the sounds of different instruments, learning about what grows in our garden, enjoyed learning the butterfly life cycle and a butterfly dance, painted to wheels on the bus and to music and practised how to use one handed tools safely.

We still run our Mini Forest School sessions for small groups and this week they have been making owls and drilling the wood themselves.

Next week we will have a focus on mark making outside, painting on the fence, using water to mark make and big chalks on the patio. We will also be learning about Easter and enjoying the pretty colours and crafts that are popular at this time of year. To support our learning we would love it if you took photos of numbers on your front door and the name of your street or numbers on the road or of road signs too and sent them in to us amelia.cullomptonpreschool@btconnect.com