This week has been so much fun, dominated by practising and then performing our Christmas Nativity on Thursday – twice! We absolutely loved being in the Church and huge thanks to St Andrews for making it work for us and setting up the live stream so that parents could watch from home. It went very well indeed, the children were amazing, they sang and danced their heart out and what a treat for us all to celebrate together and share that with you. We hope you enjoyed watching it – the recording of each performance will be on our website shortly and you will have an email with a password.

The children all walked back so well holding our hands all the way back from the Church and then enjoyed a party with a snack and games before going home with their handmade gifts and present from Father Christmas.

It takes a lot of commitment from all of the team here to make it all happen so as always a big thank you to them.

We have still been learning and playing as well, making lots of Christmas craft and learning what our elf names would be and making badges! We have played more bingo with letters and numbers, learnt about feelings and how to deal with conflict over toys and how to be kind. The children have danced and sung and ridden the bikes and pushed each other in the Polar Express train, they have played musical bumps, Santa Says, enjoyed having the train track out, the aeroplanes out and learning all about colour too.

Home learning – to support our learning here you could make pictures of the different seasons and have a look online for photos to print out and stick in, or chose photo memories from your phone for each season and email them in.

Next week is our last week and will be filled with fun and songs and music and dancing and Christmas craft so carry on wearing Christmas clothes if you would like to and thank you for the kind gifts we have received this week – we are very lucky and those choccies and mince pies certainly helped us re-fuel after the two performances on Thursday!

Enjoy your weekend and see you all next week!

This week has been a little disrupted following a couple of COVID cases at local school, this meant a number of staff had to leave work to go and collect children and we would like to thank you all for coming early on Tuesday to collect your children in response to our text. This may become part of life over the winter months and we thank you in advance for your patience. We will do all we can to operate as normal but you will be aware that sometimes this will be beyond our control and the safety of the children, the staff and their families will always take priority.

It is a reminder to ensure you use the hand gel, that the children wash their hands often here and that we follow social distancing at all times.

We have had a really enjoyable week here with more puppet shows and acting, more music and dancing, the children have loved the soft play and waited perfectly for their own turn, building patience and strength!

We have started planning for our Christmas performance which we hope will be streamed live and a recording to be available but we have changed the date so we encourage you to check the newsletter.

Circle times have been lovely with lots of emphasis on friendships and fun and numbers and the world around us.

The Star group have worked on numbers quite a lot, singing songs, playing matching games and counting. The children have also enjoyed listening and joining in with Sticky Kids which is a great exercise CD, they have joined in games with friends, explored size concepts and learnt new vocabulary too.

The Sun and Moon groups have been busy learning about growth and decay with lots of items Alison left out to go mouldy! They have talked about and learnt about and recreated animal skin patterns and practised scissor skills, made patterns themselves. The have made clay sculptures, looked at their faces in a mirror and made self portraits and spotted words on packaging and talked about logos too.

Lots of clay out this week which is great for hand strength and imagination, lots of tools – hammers and screwdrivers on the table with us teaching the children how to use them safely!

Our planning for next week involves lots more learning about the world, practising who, what and where questions while reading stories and while out and about on a walk to encourage conversation, do some simple drawings together – send them in with your child and we will start to learn Christmas songs and made decorations so have a look on your phone from last Christmas and show your child your tree from last year!

We enjoyed a fantastic week leading up to half term with pumpkin fun and our fantastic fire station outside! The children really enjoyed creating lots of art work so we will plan more of that in for after the half term looking at bonfire night as well. We had rice and creepy crawlies from the Halloween section in Tesco which the children enjoyed matching and playing with, we made packets of the pumpkin seeds that we had scooped out and hope that you will be able to grow your own pumpkins next year!

The Star group have been working on mark making to songs, moving and taking on animal characters and experimenting with colours as well.

The Sun and Moon groups have been learning about 3 D shapes, making them with clay and learning about their properties, they have written stories in a group and have brilliant imaginations! They played letters and sounds bingo and talked about what they are good at!

After half term we will be focusing on making friends, our understanding, strength in our bodies and arms and hands through moving and exercise and numbers, writing, drawing, being imaginative and the world around us. To support this learning at home you could help your child to recognise their names, to build strength in their arms by having playdoh on the table while you are making tea, encourage them to lift heavy boxes and help unpack the shopping. Look at the world around you, notice differences and changes and lots of counting! Count your stairs as you go up to bed, count weetabix at breakfast or glasses on the table or cars as you walk along to pre-school.

We hope you all have a wonderful COVID free half term and see you on the 2nd November.