Week ending 29h January 2021

We have been talking in groups about our emotions and how we feel. We used face cards and different resources to encourage language and expressive words.

In our P.E session we practiced our 'Super Hero Training' and we hopped, skipped, balanced on one leg and even did star jumps.

Our letter and sounds activity was singing action songs in which included actions such as clapping, stamping our feet and patting our knees.

We had lots of fun playing 'Skittles' and the children took turns and took a guess at how many skittles they could knock down. Then they checked by counting the skittles.

Our words of the weeks were 'Food' and 'Clothes'.

Week ending 15th January 2021

As we take this opportunity to say Happy New Year and welcome back.

Our words of the weeks have been 'winter' and 'healthy' and we have been talking about the seasons, cold and we have used our 'Mr Chef' character to discuss foods that are good for you, healthy and unhealthy.

In our Letters and sounds activity we played our 'Feely sock' game, in which the children had to choose a sock and try to describe what they felt inside it. This encouraged lots of language and laughter.

Our maths activity was 'Mrs Tuck has a box' and the children had to listen for the sound of the hidden object that was being played/shaken, again this encouraged language and some imaginative guesses.

We have been encouraging imaginative play with our small world play sets and role play area and started to explore our emotions, looking at different pictures of faces and talking about how they might feel.

Week ending 18th December 2020

As we come to the end of a very busy and at times an unusual year, we would like to take this opportunity to say how fantastically the children have adapted to a new way of doing things and to thank you for all your continued support during these times.

We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy, safe New year.

Week ending 11th December 2020

We have been exploring different materials and tools and used playdough with lots of different tools, including rolling pins, sticks and buttons. The children also made 'snow people' in our snow factory'.  

The children also used story sacks to talk about the story, seeing if they can remember what might happen in it.

Our words of the weeks have been 'traffic' and 'family' and we have had lots of discussions about road safety and who is in our family.

Our letters and sounds activity was 'follow the sound', one person makes a sound and the rest of the circle has to copy the sound.

Our numbers and patterns activity was 'one bear alone', looking for the lonely bear under cups of different amounts of bears.

'Cookie the elf' is also visiting preschool at the moment and has watching over us and also getting up to some mischief, including making snow angels and making spells with the characters from 'room on the broom'.

Week ending 27th November 2020

We have been learning about the letter sounds 'p', 'b', 'm' and 'w' and used 'sound bags' with lots of items which start with those sounds.

We also have gave movement instructions to different musical instruments so that when an instrument was played we had to do the correct movement, such as, when you heard the drum you had to march, if you heard the bells you had to go on tiptoe.

Our words of the weeks 'size' and 'friend'. In groups we talked about being nice and what a friend means and we also discussed size using different sized animals, vehicles etc.

Our letter and sounds activity was action songs and the children really enjoyed getting involved, especially with 'If you're happy and you know it' and 'the wheels on the bus'.

Week ending 13th November 2020

We have been looking at flowers this week and we are beginning to understand the different parts of the flower, petal, stem, bud etc. We looked at pictures of famous flower paintings and pictures of garden flowers. The children used different media materials to create their own flower pictures. 

We also talked about poppies and remembrance day and on Wednesday we observed a one minutes silence in remembrance.

Our letters and sounds activity this week was 'describe and find it'. The children were given clues to describe an animal or vehicle.

Our maths challenge was a 'lucky dip'. The children put their hand into a box and had to guess what the item was that they could feel and describe it, i.e, 'bumpy', 'hard', 'soft', 'long'.

Our words of the weeks were 'Fireworks' and 'flowers'.

Week ending 22nd October 2020

We have been talking about Halloween and so the children have been busy creating pumpkin pictures using black and orange craft items. We have displayed them on the wall in the 'Pumpkin Patch'.

The children who will be going to school have also been making their 'faces' on paper plates. We talked about our reflections, our hair/eye colour and practiced using scissors to cut wool for our hair.

Our words of the weeks were 'challenge' and 'halloween'. The children enjoyed having 'challenges' in the playground such as 'can you find a circle?', 'can you find something yellow?' and 'can you find something bumpy?'.

We have also been on 'listening moments', played skittles, the children had to guess how many skittles they might knock down and they took part in super hero training!

Week ending 9th October 2020

The children have worked really hard getting to know their new friends at preschool and getting used to the routines. 

We have been looking at 2 special books, 'The Gruffalo' and 'Room on the broom' and we looked at lots of the words in them and talked about what they mean. The children liked lots of the words, including 'whoosh', 'purple prickles', 'knobbly knees' and 'tumbling'.

Our words of the weeks were 'Autumn' and 'Weather'. We talked about the weather each day, the clothes that we would have to wear and the changes that happen in Autumn.

The children have made models with various construction materials and played lots of imaginative games, including 'going on a bus to the beach'. 

In our group circle time we looked inside our 'Pirate box' and played the game 'one or lots'.

Week ending 25th September 2020

Hello and welcome to you all, our returning children and our new starters. We have had a wonderful start to the new school year, the children have settled in quickly and have enjoyed exploring and investigating all of the preschools areas. 

The painting easel has been extremely busy with the children creating fabulous pictures with lots of colours.

We have spent a lot of time outside playing in the water tray with jugs and water wheels or sea creatures, where we talked about sizes. 

Our words of the week have been 'kind' and 'rules'.

Week ending 17th July 2020

Over the last few weeks we have learnt lots of the school teachers and teaching assistants names and we even know the name of the Head Teacher, Miss Froggatt.

We all did a shape hunt around pre-school and found lots of shapes, which we enjoyed talking about. We also took a shape hunt sheet home so we could look for more shapes there with our family.

We have been doing lots of drawing, even on pieces of paper that were bigger than us and e made sure to write our names on them as well.

In our P.E sessions we have been practising our throwing and catching skills and we also did some superhero training.  

Weeks beginning 15th & 22nd June 2020

Over the last two weeks the children have settled into our 'new normal'. 

We have been practising alliteration by making up sentences with our names. The teachers joined in and we had 'Louise licks lemons', 'Jo juggles jellies', 'Paige picks poppies' and 'Caitlin carries cats'. We had to find our sentence on a challenge board. We were very good at finding our own sentence, even when Mrs Arlott tried to trick us by moving them around. 

We have been matching numerals to a group of objects outside. We used bears, animals and blocks. 

We have also explored different textures by having our own bowls of items. We felt cornflakes, rice, soup, jelly and cotton wool. We came up with some wonderful texture words such as 'crunchy', 'slimy', 'squidgy', 'crispy' and 'gooey'. We had lots of fun even though some of it was "disgusting".

8th June 2020

The bubble of children that have been to Preschool have been busy in the garden using small world sets, balance bikes and enjoying water play.

They have been practising their social distancing, working out what 2 metres looks like and talking about the importance of hand washing.

Also in the garden the children have been playing skittles and even creating new ways to play it, such as dropping the ball from above instead of rolling.

We have been listening to rhymes and rhyming stories and the children have been saying when they hear rhyming words.

Each day we have 'bubble leader' who helps to water the plants in the garden and chooses the story for the end of the session.  

Week ending 6th February 2020

On Tuesday it was pancake day and the children were able to have pancakes for snack.

We have been talking about and listening to our favourite books ready for World Book Day. We We shared lots of different books and stories and we also listened for rhyming words and played rhyming soup.

On Thursday the children and staff dressed up as their favourite book characters and everyone looked amazing.

We have been comparing groups of objects with the children telling us if  they had the 'same' amount or 'more' or 'less'.

In P.E we used balls for rolling, throwing and catching and we did our 'keep fit' for 'superhero training'.

Week ending 14th February 2020

We have been talking about prepositions in preschool and the children used animals, houses and tunnels to show us under, behind, on top, in and next to. 

We also started an experiment to see what would happen if we put daffodils into different coloured water. We them into blue, red, green, purple, yellow and orange coloured water. The children noticed after just one day that the tips of daffodils that were in the blue water had started to turn blue.

Our words of the week have been 'words' and 'love'.

In our P.E sessions we played animal games and did some races.

Week ending 31st January 2020

In Preschool we have been talking about shapes, their names, how many corners, sides, straight or curved lines. We have sorted and matched shapes, been on a shape hunt outside and discussed the shape of everyday objects, e.g. wheels, books, windows, tables, sandwiches.

We used our musical shakers and listened to the sounds and talked about if they were 'loud' and 'quiet'. 

In P.E we have played ring games and made an obstacle course for balancing, jumping and rolling.

Our words of the weeks have been 'shapes' and 'clothes'

Week ending 17th January 2020

Happy New Year and a big welcome back to you all, our returning children and to our new members of preschool.

The children have been excitedly telling us their stories of Christmas, what they received, what they did and where they went.

We have been making musical shakers and listening to the different sounds they can make with either lots or just a little pasta inside, using the words loud and quiet.

In P.E we used musical instruments and made movements to match the sound. The children used tip-toes, marched, fluttered and slithered depending on the sound. We also used the parachute, We played under it and made big and small movements to make the parachute move.

Our words of the week were 'friends' and 'earth'. 

Weeks ending 18th December 2019

The children have been very busy and festive lately. They started by making Christmas cards which they then took to the post office to get some stamps so that they could post them home. A big thank you to all the parents that were able to accompany us on the walk.

We have also had a visit from one of Santa's Elves, who the children named 'Twinkletoes'. The children have been very interested to discover what the elf has been getting up to around preschool and telling us what their own elf has been doing. This activity promoted lots of language.

We also had a playdough snow factory, where the children could make their own snowman. They could use twigs, buttons and pebbles to make their creations.

On Monday 16th December we held our annual Christmas craft morning and the children made lots of Christmassy items such as angels, robins and hand print Father Christmas.

Thank you to everyone who came.

We would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We will see you on 6th January 2020.

Week ending 29th November 2019

Our words of the week have been 'gigantic' and 'language'.  The children have been using the word 'gigantic' when building towers with blocks, making themselves as big as they can and making models.

In group and circle time we talked about the language we speak and different languages that others speak, we also tried to say hello in several different languages, including french and german.

The children have enjoyed using the dark den, torches and other light sources. The dark den made another interesting place for the children to socialise with friends investigating the lights and dark together.

In P.E one of our sessions was different obstacle stations for the children to climb onto, balance or jump off. The other session was dancing and races.

The children used the i-pad to show their skills at using technology. 

Week ending 15th November 2019

We have been exploring colour and what might happen when we mix colours together. The children used their fingers to press, squeeze and mix the paint in a small zip lock bag. The results were quite amazing and we have put them on our display wall. They used words such as; squelch and squishy.

We also have been practising our maths techniques and the children used pipe cleaners to collect the correct amount of beads to match the numeral. They also showed that they could give 1 or 2 beads, to someone, from a large group of beads. We also used different objects to sort and count.

The children have been making up their own turn taking games and playing them with friends.

In P.E we practised our balls skills and played group games such as the bean game and the animal sleeping game.

Our words of the week have been 'fireworks' and 'help'

Week ending 1st November 2019

Preschool have been busy making marks in shaving foam and coloured sand and telling us all about their pictures. We have used 'spooky jelly' to stimulate lots of language and encourage lots of different words, e.g. squishy, wobbly

In P.E we used the parachute and the children enjoyed going under and moving it.

Our words of the week have been 'weather' and 'halloween'.

Week ending 11th October 2019

We have been developing our understanding of the concept big, little and small and the children have been investigating lots of different areas to understand this.

Outside  they have been using different sized stepping stones, dinosaurs and making models of different sizes.

Inside, the children explored Goldilocks and the 3 bears story sack, discussing the bowls, spoons, beds, chairs and the different sized bears.

In P.E we used the hall to practice some races and play games such as 'the bean game'.

Week ending 27th September 2019

We have been enjoying our new willow house in the garden and the children turned it into a home, a reading den and a place to sit and talk to friends.

The children have been making paper plate faces of themselves for the Class of 2020 wall. They used mirrors to look at their eye colour, hair length and colour and talked about if they were the same as the other children's.

Our words of the weeks have been 'similar' and 'friends'.

In P.E we played ring games as 'Mr Bear and the honey pot', 'The Farmers in the den' and 'Chase the hoop'.

13th September 2019

We would like to offer a huge welcome all our new starters and their parents to Pre-school and a big welcome back to all our returning children. The children have settled in really quickly and have enjoyed exploring all the areas and activities.

We have been using our mark making skills to decorate 'Elmer the elephants' for the wall and have been practising our communication skills in the role play area.

In our P.E sessions we have used the parachute, the children enjoyed wiggling it and going under it and we also had obstacle stations for balancing, jumping off and wobbling on.

We would like to give a huge thank you to Neil Bates who has painted some wonderful pictures of Manea for our outdoor area. The pictures have encouraged lots of speech and interest.  

Week ending 19th July 2019

We have been talking to the children about their favourite things at Preschool and about going to school. We have had school uniforms on the dressing up trolley for the children to wear and school bags to use.

We have been trying to build up the children's vocabulary to reflect their experiences and on the field the children found a snail. In small groups the children talked about it was doing, what it might eat, where it might go.

In P.E we have been using hoops and balls on the playground and this week we had movement stations in the hall, e.g. jumping off the box, balance beams and the wobble boards.

The words of the week were 'celebration' and 'school'.

The children going to school have been practising for their graduation.

Week ending 5th July 2019

Numerals have been all over preschool as we are trying to recognise numerals and match them to quantities. We used our caterpillar and pieces of fruit, bugs and flowers and the holiday packing game.

We have lots of opportunities for mark making in our inside and outside areas and the children used these to practice their writing skills and holding pens and pencils.

The Life Bus visited school and we went to see Harold the Giraffe in the bus. He showed us all about our bodies, what we need to keep healthy and how to look after ourselves, washing, cleaning teeth and brushing hair.

In P.E we used balls to practice our rolling, throwing and catching, kicking and bouncing skills.

Week ending 21st June 2019

The children in preschool have been extremely busy making special cards, using tools and developing an understanding of growth, decay and changes over time.

We had a very special visit from Mrs Bateman and baby Elizabeth and the children asked questions about what Elizabeth could do and compared it to what they could do.

We watched what happened to some fruit that we had left out, observing the changes and the decay.

Our words of the weeks were, 'emergency' and 'superhero'. The children told us lots of meanings to these words, such as, "fire truck puts on siren to get to the fire and the cars get out of the way" and "can rescue people"

Week ending 7th June 2019

In Preschool we have been looking at the features of objects and shapes in our environment, around preschool. We have looked at the shapes of windows, doors and log slices for example. We have also been using shape dominoes, shape snap cards, and 3d shapes on the light box.

Before half-term we had a sports session that we invited our parents to and the children showed everyone what we like to do in P.E. The children showed us how they can balance, jump off an object and wobble on the wobble boards. It was lovely to see so many people there. Thank you for your support.

The children have been joining in with 'sound story time', where they had to join in with making 'voices' for characters and sounds for 'footsteps', 'wind' and other 'movements'.

Week ending 3rd May 2019

We have been discussing different occupations and ways of life at Preschool.

Over the Easter holidays the children took home 'Jobs' forms to fill in with family and to think about what they might like to do when they are older. The results were all wonderfully varied.

The children enjoyed using the dressing up clothes and props to enhance their play with occupations.

Our word of the week was 'time' and the children thought of 'before', 'after school','clock, it goes round and round', 'it has numbers on it'.

In P.E we played circle and ring games, we put new words to older circle songs, such as 'the farmers at the farm'.

Week ending 5th April 2019

In Preschool we have been looking at how stories are structured, their beginning, middle and end. To do this we have looked at some familiar, well loved stories and used story sacks, such as 'the 3 little pigs' and 'Goldilocks and the 3 bears'. This also encouraged the children to join in with repeated words or phrases form these stories.

We made special cards for Mothers Day and the children told us about what the special person does for us and and how they make us feel.

Our words of the weeks were 'Love' and 'Easter'.

We also had an Easter Craft morning and our parents were invited in to make crafts with their children. Lots of flowers, eggs, chicks and lambs were made.

In P.E we played our 'bean' game and had 'races' such as running, jumping and going through the hoop.

Week ending 22nd March 2019

Our 'words of the week' for the last 2 weeks have been, firstly 'help' and secondly 'worried'.

The children told us what these words meant to them; 'help' - 'mummy', 'daddy', tidy up', 'police', and 'teachers'. 'Worried' - 'about doing belly flops', 'someone taking tiger' and 'really fast roller coasters'.

The children and staff took part in 'Dress up Day for Comic Relief' and came into Preschool in their pyjamas. We talked about Red Nose day and why we were wearing our pyjamas and raising money.

In P.E we have spent some time doing ball control by throwing and catching. Our second session was an obstacle course so we practised balancing, peanut ball roll and see-saw wobble boards.

Week ending 8th March 2019

We have been talking about feelings in Preschool, how we feel  and what can make us feel that way, happy, sad, cross, upset.

Our word of the week has been 'sharing'.

We have also been encouraging lots of mark making and have used chalks, sand and paint to do this. Also we have had pictures of flowers on the table for the children to get inspiration from to copy or to do their own flower. They used pencils, crayons and felt tip pens to do this.

In P.E we used the parachute and  practised our ball skills.

We went to the Forest School on a bear hunt and did lots of investigating.

On Thursday the 7th March we dressed up for World Book Day and the children looked wonderful in their costumes.

Week ending 15th February 2019

Pre-school have been busy investigating shapes. We have been playing with shapes, making arrangements with shapes and looking for shapes in our environment. The children were detectives trying to find as many shapes as they could and found some in very strange places.

We have also started a 'word of the week' to introduce and discuss with the children. Last week our word was 'family' and the children told us what it meant to them. This week our word has been 'pattern' and we have been talking about stripes, spots and recurring patterns that include 'big bear, little bear'.

As it was valentines day this week, the children have been colouring love and heart pictures and using pink playdough, cutters and rolling pins.

Week ending 1st February 2019

We have been busy drawing with our fingers and small tools in dry sand to create pictures, lines and circles. 

We have also investigated different textures and the children have been encouraged to describe them. They have used words such as 'bumpy', 'scratchy', 'hard' and 'soft'.

The children have also been reciting numbers as they 'peg on' dinosaur spikes.

We also made the most of the snow and frost. The children have made tracks in it, worked together to fill their dumper trucks and used magnifying glasses to look at it. The children were surprised at the different patterns and way it looked.

In P.E we have played ring games and had a keep fit session with action stations. The children even tried to balance on the wobble board.

Week ending 18th January 2019

Happy New Year and welcome to a new term at Pre-school. We have had some children join us this term, so a big welcome to them and their families.

We have been talking to the children about Christmas and they have been telling us what they did on Christmas day and about the presents they received.

Our role play area is a home and the children have been using it to 'look after their families' and recreating Christmas.

The children have been showing their independence at snack time by spreading their crackers, pouring drinks and washing up.

In group time we used the 'Pirate box'. Inside were lots of items that a pirate might use and the children thought about what the Pirate could do with them, what the keys could be for and were they might live.

Week ending 14th December 2018

In preschool we have been using story sacks, such as 'The 3 little pigs' and 'Goldilocks and the 3 bears', to help us when talking about the 'PANTS' rule and staying safe, feelings and secrets.  

We've also had a visit from Twinkletoes, Santa's elf  and the children have enjoyed finding out what he's been getting up to. We have found Elf drawing, making toys frozen and flying around the room.

In P.E we have played bumper car hoops and balloon tennis, both of which the children thoroughly enjoyed.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

We will welcome you all back on Thursday 3rd January 2019.

Week ending 30th November 2018

In Pre-school we have been recognising Road Safety week and have been having lots of discussions about crossing the road, wearing seat belts and wearing helmets. We have also been looking at the 'look out on the road' book and using puzzles to encourage awareness of safety.

We have had lots of writing and mark making equipment in all areas of the Preschool to encourage holding equipment correctly.

In one of our P.E sessions we used instruments and made different movements to the different sounds, e.g fluttery movements to the chime bars, giant stompy steps to the drum and jumping to the castanets. In our other session we made an obstacle course so that the children could go over benches and under the cargo net, jump off boxes and balance on beams.

Week ending 16th November 2018

The children have been looking at and talking about our similarities and differences, our hair and eye colours, hair length and our heights.

We have also been discussing our feelings and emotions and used our emotion mobile and books to encourage language.

In the garden the children helped to plant bulbs and plants in the new planters, some of which are fragrant after they have been touched. The children had great fun investigating them!

Weeks ending 2nd November 2018

We have been having a fantastic time using dinosaurs in our learning. The dinosaurs helped us to use different language while we talked about size, the noises they might have made, where they lived and what they could have eaten. We also used playdough to make our own dinosaurs and the children used buttons to give the dinosaurs 'spikes' and 'bumps'.

This week we also had a 'slimy, spooky' time exploring jelly that had insects inside it. This also encouraged lots of lovely language as the children described the textures.

In P.E we did the 'dinosaur stomp' where we thought about how dinosaurs might move and we also did some 'superhero training'. The children did brilliantly and are well on their way to becoming a superhero.

Week ending 12th October 2018

Pre-school have been busy collecting leaves and conkers and talking about Autumn and all the  different colours we could see. We have been on walks around the field and to the forest school to look at the trees and looking at the features of the environment.

We put all the items we found on a tuff tray so that we could talk about them and discuss where they came from and the changing seasons.

We have also made pictures using paint and rolling conkers through it.

In P.E we have used the parachute and in our next session we made an obstacle course for weaving in and out, jumping off and balancing.

Week ending 28th September 2018

We have been learning about similarities and differences. To do this we have looked at ourselves in mirrors, made paper plate faces and then looked at our friends to see if they have the same or different.

When we have had a song or a story we encouraged the children to fill in the missing words when we left it blank. The children enjoyed doing this with stories such as 'We're going on a bear hunt' and 'Room on the broom' and with songs like 'Twinkle twinkle little star' and 'I had a little turtle'.

In P.E we played ring games and practised our ball skills with throwing, catching, rolling and kicking.

Week ending 14th September 2018

All of the children have been extremely busy exploring the indoor and outdoor areas. We have been giving the children lots of opportunities to mark make and draw lines and circles. The children used dry sand, paint, pens and crayons. 

The children made 'listening ears' and we went on a 'listening walk' to see if we could hear lots of different sounds. Some of the sounds we heard were cars, an aeroplane, lorries and birds.

In our P.E sessions we used the parachute and made an obstacle course with things to balance on, jump off and go under.

Tuesday 4th September 2018

Hello and a big welcome to all our new starting children and welcome back to all of our returning children. We hope you've all had a wonderful summer break and are ready for the new term.

We have a newsletter being sent out this week with lots of relevant dates for your diary, including term dates and 'come and read' sessions.

We look forward to seeing you soon.