Autumn Term Week 7

It is amazing to think we have already completed 7 weeks of the year at pre-school and this half term has been filled with joy – and ending in two trips up to St Andrew’s Church for the school starter children. What a treat it has been to get out and about in our community again and we had a wonderful time – exploring the beautiful church and a warm welcome (and party rings!) from Carrie the Families Minister there. We will be back in the church in December to perform our Nativity for you and the new stage looks fantastic!

We have lots of other ideas for trips and in order to carry these out we do need extra helpers to ensure the children are safe and well looked after while we walk, we are hoping to get to Tufty Park, to visit the schools, to the CCA fields and to the train and motorway bridges, to the Walronds, and on the bus for an exciting adventure! Please do offer to help if you can. We are also planning to welcome visitors back into our setting – the lollipop lady is always lovely, dancers, children from CCC with musical instruments, we are hoping to hold an afternoon tea for grandparents, invite sports coaches in as well – we would also love to hear from you if you have any fun hobbies or skills you can share with us!

The children have had a really enjoyable week, we have dressed up and had our faces painted, been on treasure hunts, explored pumpkins and squashes, made banana ghosts for snack, made apple cake for snack, challenged ourselves on the new climbing blocks, played with the train tracks, enjoyed stories, made lots of Halloween craft and learnt new vocabulary, taken part in circle times and developed our ideas in our construction area outside. We have also had the hairdressers set out too and we have some wonderfully careful children who have obviously watched their Mum’s straightener their hair!

Circle times have been very popular again, the Stars have loved their Forest School experience this Friday morning which they took part in while the older children were out on a trip! They have also been using the instruments to take part in listening and attention games, made Halloween masks, made pumpkin pictures by apple printing. The group also got all dressed up and went for a pumpkin hunt and loved the sensory gloopy Halloween tray.

The Sun and Moon groups loved decorating Halloween biscuits and acted out the Room on the Broom story. We heard lots of laughter during Andrea’s 5 little duck game and great exercise as they jumped over a pretend river and during Michelle’s Halloween spider game! They all behaved beautifully on our Church visit, walking carefully, holding hands and following all the rules and they listened carefully to Carrie at the Church.

After half term we will be focusing on speech and language, learning about books, and we will have a book of the week which we would love you to read at home as well if you have a copy. We will also be lending books out to you to take home to promote reading at bedtime. We will also be learning about our planet and space for 4 weeks before thinking about Christmas and family memories.