Science fortnight

Hello Everyone,

This week we have had a creative week. The children have enjoyed painting with potatoes and describing the texture. Some of the group did not want to use the potato so they got a brush or a sponge out. We also encouraged mark making with the shaving foam and the children made some very interesting marks and patterns.   Towards the end of the week the children were waiting for the arrival of our fish.

Friday morning there was great excitement when they could see our new pets. At news time we discussed some names and decided on ‘Nemo’ for the darker one and ‘Goldie’ for the lighter fish. We have put up a feeding chart so all children will have a chance to help look after them.

This week we will start our two week Science topic.  We will be doing some simple Science experiments and making Lava lamps. We hope the children will start to make simple predictions about what may happen next, while having lots of fun.

Letters and Sounds

The children have enjoyed playing a traditional game of pass the parcel using a puzzle in a box. Each time the music stops they have to add they piece to a tray puzzle. This has helped with team work and taking turns. During the ‘Lost Teddy’ game the children have started to play the drum themselves to guide the other children to the bear, which has been great to watch. 

This week we will be listening to different instruments and describing how they sound. We will also listen to some different music to see how it makes us feel.

We will be hiding a ticking clock in the room and seeing if the children are able to locate it using their listening ears!

Jigsaw

The children are enjoying short discussions during Lunchtimes about people who are important to them. They are being very caring and kind to each other which is lovely to see.  The children have started to really listen to teach other and ask the adults about who is important to us which is very thoughtful. They also now starting to understand that we don’t live at Pre-School and have our own homes!

This is to help reinforce Personal, Social and Emotional Development and help them to make life choices. 

Home Learning 

Please continue to bring in any WOW moments and remember you can always email through photos and we can write stick them in your child’s Learning Journey.

If they have been very helpful or kind we would love to hear about it. 

Notices

Don't forget to bring in your child's WOW moments. We love to share and celebrate these with everyone. There are spare WOW's by the WOW board in the corridor. 

It was lovely to see some of you at Stay and Play on Friday.  This week Stay and Play will be on Wednesday 31st January from 8.30-9.00am. Everyone is very welcome including younger and older siblings. Hope to see lots of you there.

If you have not returned your session request for next half term, please could you bring them in as soon as possible to enable us to plan staffing.

Don't forget it is a staff training day on Friday 9th February so the last day of term will be Thursday 8th February. 

Please sign up for parents evening which is the second week back after half term. Sign up sheet in coat peg area on door. 

There is a POWSA meeting on the 6th February in the main school staff room at 7.30pm. Please ask Julia for more information. 

On 10th February from 2-5pm is another community make over day of the wildlife garden. Everyone is very welcome. If you are able to help, please do come along.

Zoe and Pre-school Team

Textures and experimenting with new ideas

Hello Everyone,

This week we have been very busy making our ‘Rainbow Fish’ for the display board.  The children were very good with their scissor skills and deciding which colours to use. The children have been talking a lot about fish and are looking forward to our fish arriving. We will have to choose some names so if anyone has any inspiring ones let us know.

This week we will be learning all about textures / experimenting with new ideas. 

We will be very creative painting with all sorts of tools. We will link painting to music and how this makes us paint and feel.

During story times we have been having finger puppets to act out the story. The children have loved this and it has meant they have played a very active role in the stories. They have been joining in with any repeated refrains, working together as a group to come in at the right times. It’s been really fantastic to watch.

Letters and Sounds

Sound shaker activities have been progressing well, we have added a couple of new sounds boxes. The children came up with some quite inventive ideas of what to put in them. We also played ‘Who’s under the blanket’ one person goes out while someone goes under the blanket, then they have to see if they know who is covered up. It’s a great game for getting the children to learn each others names.

We went on another environmental walk and picked up lots of new sounds and had to listen very carefully as the school children were out in the play ground. 

This week we will be playing ‘Lost Teddy’ game. The children have to listen very carefully to the sound of the drum. One of the children goes outside while we hide the Teddy; they come in and listen to how the drum is being played. If it is quiet they are along way from the Teddy, if it’s loud they are close by and have to find it. They have picked this game up really well.

Jigsaw

We will continue to talk about our Families and who is in our Family.

We have started a new display of our families or special places we like to go so, please bring in some pictures to add to this. 

This is to help reinforce Personal, Social and Emotional Development and help them to make life choices. 

Home Learning 

If you could talk about the textures of things you find around this week that would be great. This will help to build up descriptive language around their familiar surroundings.

Lovely to see so many of you at the stay and play session this weekend. Look out for our new arrivals in Pre-School; I’m sure your child will be quick to tell you when they spot them! 

 Have a lovely week.

Notices

Don't forget to bring in your child's WOW moments. We love to share and celebrate these with everyone. There are spare WOW's by the WOW board in the corridor. 

It was lovely to see some of you at Stay and Play on Thursday.  This week Stay and Play will be on Friday 26th January from 8.30-9.00am. Everyone is very welcome including younger and older siblings. Hope to see lots of you there.

If you have not returned your session request for next half term, please could you bring them in as soon as possible to enable us to plan staffing.

Don't forget it is a staff training day on Friday 9th February so the last day of term will be Thursday 8th February. 

Zoe and Pre-school Team

Hello Everyone,

We have been really had a lot of fun with activities involving ‘Stickman’ the children have been great at re telling the story and remembering what happens next. We talked a lot about the colour of the branches and how colours change throughout the year. 

This week we will be moving on to a new story of ‘Rainbow Fish’ and linking this to colours and shapes. We will be making masks, paper plate fish and doing some display work. We also hope to have a new feature in our room very soon which is a fish tank. Fish will be very therapeutic for the children to watch, the children will be having feeding duties each day. 

Letters and Sounds

Sound shaker activities have been going well and the children have quickly identified which bottle and matched the contents with the sound. The children are going to be helping to make their own sound shakers to add to our collection.

The children really enjoyed the ‘Tappy sticks’ they have picked up the new songs really well and have had lots of fun singing together.

 This week we will repeat the ‘Smelly socks’ activity. Adding extra items. We will  have a band to see if the children can identify each of the instruments and start to learn some of the names.

Jigsaw

We will continue our Jigsaw theme this week with helping other to feel welcome. We will have talk times about our families and who is in our family. This is to help reinforce Personal, Social and Emotional Development and help them to make life choices. If you could bring in some family photo’s this would be great and we can add them to our display board.

Home Learning 

If when you are out and about you could help your child with shopping skills. We have been modelling this in the role play area and they have been very good at being the shop assistants and handing over the money etc.

Looking forward to a great week.

Zoe and Preschool Team

Notices 

Don't forget to bring in your child's WOW moments. We love to share and celebrate these with everyone. There are spare WOW's by the WOW board in the corridor. 

It was lovely to see some of you at Stay and Play on Wednesday.  This week Stay and Play will be on Thursday 18th January from 8.30-9.00am. Everyone is very welcome including younger and older siblings. Hope to see lots of you there.

On Saturday January 20th is our stay and play Saturday morning from 10.00-11.30. Hope to see lots of you there. 

On Saturday January 20th we have got our community make over afternoon from 2pm till 5pm working on the wildlife garden. It would be great to see you there.

Zoe and Pre-school Team

Stickman

Hello Everyone,

We have been really interested to hear all about your Christmas news this week.

All of the children have settled back really well which is lovely to see.  Our two new members of the group are making themselves at home and enjoying the company of their new friends.  ‘Stickman’ has really caught the children’s imaginations. They have made some lovely models of their own which are displayed next to the family tree.  They were very skilled using the elastic bands which also took a lot of patience. Painting using sticks, this was a very popular activity. They used the sticks with care and skill making few holes in the paper while painting. 

This week we will be continuing with the ‘Stickman’ Theme constructing a display, making swans. Sorting sticks in to sizes and making a real life nest for the swans. We will listen to the story and watch the film before we move on to a new focus next week. 

Letters and Sounds

Teddy lost in the Pre-School was really good with some very encouraging results. They were listening really carefully to how loud the drum was playing before moving which was great to see this progress from when we played before Christmas.

This week we will be experimenting with sound shakers to see if they can identify the object in the pot that is being shaken. We will also introduce ‘Tappy Sticks’ this will involve singing, following instructions as making a response.

Jigsaw

We are starting our Jigsaw theme this week starting with helping other to feel welcome.  This is to help reinforce Personal, Social and Emotional Development and help them to make life choices. We will be talking about our Families so if you would like to bring in any photos that would be lovely. Siblings, Pets, anything special and unique to your family. We can make a lovely display area.

Home Learning 

If when you are out and about you could listen to sounds and see if your child is able to identify anything new. Please let us know and you can share it on a Wow. 

Looking forward to another fun filled week.

Notices:-

Don't forget to bring in your child's WOW moments. We love to share and celebrate these with everyone. There are spare WOW's by the WOW board in the corridor. 

It was lovely to see some of you at Stay and Play on Friday.  This week Stay and Play will be on Wednesday 10th January from 8.30-9.00am. Everyone is very welcome including younger and older siblings. Hope to see lots of you there.

On Tuesday 9th January there is a POWSA meeting at 7.30pm in the school staffroom. Would be lovely to see you there. Please let me know if you would like more information. 

On Saturday January 20th is our stay and play Saturday morning from 10.00-11.30. Hope to see lots of you there. 

Zoe and Pre-school Team

Happy New Year

Hello Everyone,

We hope you have all had a lovely Christmas with your families and that Santa was kind, I’m sure you were all on his ‘Nice List’

We are looking forward to seeing all your children’s smiling faces back this week. We would also like to welcome our new starters to the group who I’m sure will soon settle and build strong friendships in year 1. We will be developing our visual timeline in the rooms as some of the children are now extending their sessions and it will give them security knowing what is coming next in the daily routine. 

During the week we will be doing some recall about the magical Christmas you have spent together and what we enjoyed most.

We will be focussing our activities this week on one of the children’s favourite books ‘Stickman’ we will all be creating our own Stickman throughout the week.

Painting using sticks, listening to the sounds that sticks make when tapped. Matching sticks by colour and shape and linking this to counting work.

We will be talking about emotions Happy, Sad and upset and how they can express themselves.

Letters and Sounds

We will be working on our outdoor drumming to see how many different sounds we can make. Playing Teddy’s lost in the Pre-School and sound lotto.

Jigsaw

We are starting our Jigsaw theme this week starting with helping other to feel welcome.  This is to help reinforce Personal, Social and Emotional Development and help them to make life choices. We will be encouraging the children to pay together, select recourses and be confident to try new experiences.

Home Learning – Please could you bring in any shoe boxes and old pairs of shoes your child may have out grown.  We are going to be creating a shoe shop in the Role Play area.

If you would like to share any Christmas pictures then please bring some in as we would like to do a display after Christmas to help the children with their recall skills.

Also any WOW moment you have captured over the holidays to pin up on our board.

Notices-

Don't forget to bring in your child's WOW moments. We love to share and celebrate these with everyone. There are spare WOW's by the WOW board in the corridor. 

It was lovely to see some of you at Stay and Play on Thursday.  This week Stay and Play will be on Friday 5th January from 8.30-9.00am. Everyone is very welcome including younger and older siblings. Hope to see lots of you there.

On Saturday January 20th is our stay and play Saturday morning from 10.00-11.30. Hope to see lots of you there. 

Heres to a great first week back.

Finally we would like to wish you all a very happy New Year, looking forward to the exciting year ahead. 

Zoe and Pre-school team