Summer Term Week 1
Hello,
I hope you all had a lovely Easter and that you all enjoyed the holidays. We have had a brilliant first week back in the sunshine, we have enjoyed hearing all about the children’s adventures and how many Easter Eggs they had!! They have all come back smiling and have been very busy.
Most of the children have been playing in the garden where we have built a pirate ship in the garden, they have walked the plank, made treasure maps & boxes and played cannon ball games with balloons. We have also had a different water tray each session – fish, animals, balls, fountains, jugs etc. It is great to be outside without having having to worry about wellies and waterproofs!
Inside in the Sun Room we have been exploring all of our senses. Each day we have looked at a different sense. We began on Monday with sound – we did experiments with popping candy in different liquids to see if they made different noises, made a water xylophone, played a sound matching game and made sound tubes. Tuesday was touch – the children had to feel different items in boxes, feel items while having socks on the their hands and we had a sensory tray with cooked spaghetti. Wednesday was smell – we had paper bags with different smells in and the children tried to identify what they were and we made potions and perfume with scented water, lavender and herbs. Thursday was taste – we tried sweet, salty, sour, spicy foods, gherkins and grapefruit weren’t very popular!! Today is sight – we have blind drawing, ispy bottles and a red magnifying glass experiment. These activities have been great for developing new language and trying new things, even when they weren’t sure at first.
Circle times this week have all been about technology and how things work and why. The Stars have played sound matching games using the iPads and CDs, listened to different everyday noises and identified them and done pirate yoga. The Suns and Moons have talked out different technology that can help us, this again developed lots of new language and thoughts – I was told about the Chinese robot that runs, that you need an oven to melt the cheese on your pizza but if you want cold pizza you need a fridge, if your phone runs out of battery you need to charge it with electric, and cars need batteries to make them work – we have a very clever bunch of children! We used our little robot, Beebot, and programmed it to go around the room, used Michelle’s mini printer to print out photos, made caterpillars, used magnets and floating & sinking activities.
Forest school has been taking place, the Suns on Thursday and the Moons on Friday, they can at last get outside in the sunshine rather than the rain and the children have been loving it.
As you can see we have been very busy and we will continue with these themes next week and add in maths to circle time. There will be more pirate themed activities, maths games outside and inside we will be having a “chatterbox” tray – the staff bring in interesting items from home and we then talk about them, use them etc to create curiosity and get them chatting.
We also have football starting again on Tuesday with Alfie from the Football Fun Factory, this is always good fun.
And finally, Friday will be Amelia’s last day with us. We would all like to wish her the very best for her new adventure, we will all miss her hugely and want to thank her for everything that she has done for the Pre School, the children and their families. We all have great memories of the last 11 years and the transformation that Cullompton Pre School has undergone during this time, topping it off with three Ofsted Outstanding inspections!!
Thank you,
Louise
