The Rainbow Fish

As a fun way of looking at and identifying colours this week, we shall be reading The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. Many of you may know this book already, which also talks about sharing and friendship.

We will be emphasising the importance of being kind to others and how we can be a good friend.

Every child will be creating their own rainbow fish with a combination of sponge painting and sticking. Please do look at the fish on display with your child.

As we always say please do take time, if possible, to look through the learning journeys with your child. Many of the children like to help themselves to their own journey and talk to us about the photos and drawings they've done, which we always encourage.

Thank you to those of you who have brought in wow slips, giving us an insight into life outside pre-school!

As we have become busier, welcoming new children, our staff colleague, Matilda Jackson, has joined us for three mornings a week.

As mentioned in the recent newsletter, please can we dissuade parents from letting their children bring in their own toys, books etc Unfortunately loss of items or sharing issues often occur leading to upset, which we are obviously keen to avoid. Thank you.

                                                             

Construction

We move onto the theme of construction this week, letting the children use their imagination to create their own ideas ( EAD )

Throughout the week there will be big and small construction pieces available to play with and explore. We'll be making a construction  number line with photos to display. There will also be workbenches with lots of hammering and fixing going on ! ( PD )
Our adult focused activity will be junk modelling encouraging the children to pick and make what they like.

The books which we'll be looking at are  I Can Build A House  and Toolbox Trouble. No doubt Bob the Builder will also feature!

As of this week, any child staying for lunch only, will need to be picked up from our first classroom ( book corner room ) as we'll be using the main classroom for lunches, rather than going in the main hall. Many Thanks.                                                 
                                                  
                                                      

Kipper's Birthday

This week we continue to look at Kipper stories by Mick Inkpen.

 The story Kipper's Birthday gives us an opportunity to talk about everything you would need if you were having a party, paying special attention to the cake!

All of the children will be visiting the kitchen to make their own cakes to take home. We hope they turn out better than Kipper's attempt! We will be asking  about what ingredients you might need and take turns to add and stir them together.

Using playdough, we will make pretend cakes and ask the children to think about how many candles they need to put on them, according to their age.

Obviously at story and songtime we will be singing  Pat a cake, Pat a cake Bakers Man! As one of our children also has a birthday this week we will be, as always, singing Happy Birthday at snacktime!

As the weather continues to be cold, please can we remind parents to provide warm hats and gloves for any outside play, thank you.

Kipper's Toybox

It was so nice to hear the children recalling what Santa had brought them for Xmas, together with other tales of what he'd eaten and footprints etc left behind!

As we discussed Winter and how to keep warm last week, the children produced some lovely work, now on display. With a combination of stamping, sponge painting and handprints they decorated mittens, scarves and hats.

This week we will be reading and exploring the book Kipper's Toybox by Mick Inkpen. Kipper books, as many of you will know, are always popular with the children and we will be focussing on another story  next week.

The Toybox story enables us to look at counting ( Mathematics: Numbers ) as we encourage the children to count up the toys in the box each time. To accompany the book we have the matching soft toy resources to re-enact the story, which will no doubt prove to be great fun.By the end of the week we will be listening to your child  individually, recalling some of the story and characters they can remember ( Literacy: Reading 30-50mnths ) Please do look at the photos and observations in your child's learning journeys in the coming weeks.
               

                                                            

Winter

Welcome back and Happy New Year! We hope you all had a lovely time during the festive season.

With this in mind,we will be reflecting on what we did in the holidays and discussing any presents received! These discussions always result in great written observations and speech bubbles to put in your child's learning journey.

Our theme this week will be Winter, discussing what we wear, if the weather is cold, to keep us warm.We will be doing  spongepainting and finger painting activities, decorating and identifying different clothes we may choose to wear eg hats, gloves, scarfs etc
We will also find out where wool comes from to make these clothes, and discuss and explore the texture of wool.

At story time we will be reading and talking about the books One Rainy Day and Let's Look At Clothes .

This term we extend a big welcome to our new children and parents - staff member, Kayley, will be joining  us every morning now ( inc. Friday now ) to accommodate this increase in numbers.

                                                         Helen and Kathryn