We have enjoyed the sunshine this week and the children have loved the paddling pools to help us all cool down! Please do remember to apply all day suncream to the children.

The new “normal” is working really well at preschool, we are really enjoying the smaller groups and the children are really benefitting from the higher staff to child ratio and the well planned group times.

We are still splitting into two circle times and each groups has a different activity! We have talked about our homes, written dream shopping lists, learnt more letters and sounds, made cards for friends and family and practised our writing too. The children have painted using watercolours and made ice creams and loved science Friday with some volcano action! We have also been counting outside in our natural environment, learnt to draw shapes, played parachute games and played with a lot of water!!

We have three more weeks left of our summer term and have lots more fun learning planned, an ice cream shop and unicorn craft, learning about the frogs in our pond, forest school activities and more water play I am sure!

We are really looking forward to welcoming a few children back this week who we have been able to slot into a session with an increase in staffing making that possible.

We missed writing the blog last week as our website was down but we are back online and have had a great week at preschool! I am sure you will all enjoy looking at the photos and they are a lovely picture of our week. We have enjoyed lots of activities this week – dressing up is a real favourite and we have had lots of children as superheroes around pre-school! The red table has been home to lots of strength building games such as trying to wrap rubber bands around pine cones and animals – all brilliant for building finger strength and co-ordination and we made bead towers and started to do some Easter craft as well. Outside we have taken advantage of the nicer weather to play games – egg and spoon races, parachute games, relay races and we also have our mud kitchen outside with lots of nice herbs for ingredients too.

Circle times – we have had a few circle swaps to ensure that all children are learning the skills they need and sometimes a move to Red or Blue can really help to support listening and attention and to have another go at an activity – learning by repetition is a great way to consolidate a new skill and a good way for us to check what progress the children are making and where we can take them next! Please do support your key person with the next step info – lots of parents send us photos on our email address cullomptonpreschool@gmail.com or to me amelia.cullomptonpreschool@btconnect.com to share what their child has been learning at home. We love to see the pictures.

The greens have been working on counting and recognising numbers and using marks to represent them, scissor skills and safety, dancing, name recognition and drawing and also listening games.

Reds have been learning about changes over time with some science experiments, they have also learnt about hand washing and looking at themselves and talking about differences and similarities and then producing some lovely self portraits. They explored how to create big bubbles too.

Blues have been talking about what they are good at, counting and letter bingo, they have enjoyed story sacks and have been outside learning to sit and listen and describe what they can hear. Then coming back inside and drawing what they could see and hear.

We have sent all families information on the Corona Virus and we get updates from Devon Council. If all schools are told to close by Public Health England we will also be closed. We will let you know if this needs to happen as soon as we can. If you child is unwell with a cough or temperature they must stay at home for 7 days and you must follow the Government’s advice on what to do next if you are worried. If any of our staff are unwell they will also stay at home and self isolate for 7 days. In the event that more than 2 staff are unwell the pre-school may have to close but we will keep you up to date at all times.  Please ensure that you and your family wash hands before coming to pre-school and please try to keep extra adults coming into pre-school to a minimum.

It has been a wonderful week at pre-school, full of sunshine, space, rockets, animal craft, construction outside, sand play, potion making, puzzles, valentines curiosity cube, child led choices in the blue room and frozen dinosaur eggs have been the big hit of the week!

The group of children we have really enjoy having an area where they can choose to play with different toys rather than us planning a specific activity, we keep to a theme to ensure there is learning taking place and use the opportunity to also develop their skills in tidying away and taking care of the environment. We have also done a litter pick in the garden this week and have spent time in our mini growing garden looking after it, tidying it up, re-building the bug hotel and harvesting the last of our leeks.

Green group have been busy making some wonderful butterfly pattern pictures, they have danced away to the animal boogie, used the parachute to dance with, sorted shapes and loved an obstacle course in the back garden. They have practised their size vocab and knowledge and worked hard to complete hard puzzles.

Red and Blue have also done a lot of moving this week, lots of tricky obstacle courses to learn and this develops their listening and attention skills as well as their co-ordination. It is so important that your child is strong physically before school, that they can climb up the climbing frames and crawl along the floor on their tummy and jump off blocks and balance as well. Some of the red group make hedgehogs or porcupines during the week and some children made wonderful animal craft items during the circle times as well. Lots of learning new vocabulary and chatter about where animals live and what size they are and what is our favourite!

Next week is the last week before half term and we will be doing some gardening now that a little bit of sunshine has appeared! We have lots of requests for donations please –

Compost (- urgent please), spring bulbs, flower seeds, veg oil, cheap coloured hair gel, black paper, cornflour, shave foam, old keys, cream of tartar, food colouring!

I would also like to say a huge thank you to all the parents who are helping us out with cleaning our toys, we have a huge amount to get through each week so it is very much appreciated.

We hope you all have a wonderful weekend and see you next week!