We have been welcoming our new children into our setting this week for their session visits, it doesn’t seem long ago that we were welcoming the children who are now off to school! We have taken the St. Andrew’s children for a stay and play session this week which went really well and we have shared lots of information with the team at all of the schools to support all of the children.

There are a couple of stay and play sessions at Willowbank w/c 10th July which are for parents to take the children along to.

This week we have been focusing on numbers and shapes, we have had all our junk modelling out and have made some brilliant creations using lots of different ways to join and combine and fix and build our ideas. We would love donations of the following items to replenish our cupboards :- sellotape, string, treasury tags, split pins, and bull dog clips too please!

Our circle times have had a shape and rhyming focus in the sun and moon group – we have lots of different and engaging activities to make sure circles are fun and interaction and promote a love of learning. The groups have made great progress in number recognition and have made shape pictures and described shapes using the language of points and edges and sides.

The Star group have had a music and movement focus and have been singing and dancing all week! Taking part in exercise action songs, singing, reading stories with rhymes and playing instruments and following instructions.

We have been practising our songs for the graduation celebration and we may sing a song together at the fete if there are a few children present that are feeling confident to join me on the steps!

We love Disco Thursday! Before lunch on the other days we have a lovely story together but on a Thursday we dance! Do mention it to your child if they attend and it is always a great laugh and a really fun part of our week and if you and your family have a favourite pop song please let us know so we can include it. We had a request for “Paradise City” this week!!

We are setting up a real home corner next week with lots of heavy plates and cups and will be working on how important it is to take care of items here at pre-school. The whole of the sun room will be set up as a home corner during free flow with a kitchen and sitting room and a table to eat at and a TV and we would love donations to help us please – old kettles and pans and plates and mugs and table mats and table cloths and fake flowers and anything else you can think of that you may have in a shed that we could use! Thank you and have a lovely weekend

We have loved the sunshine this week and we have been outside nearly all day enjoying the warmth of the sun! The Stars have had two wonderful Forest School sessions learning about bees and how important they are, the stars made bees from pine cones and rescued bees using tweezers in the tray.

The highlight for the Sun and Moon groups was definitely our Teddy Bears picnic trips on Thursday and Friday so a HUGE thank you to all of the parents and grandparents who have helped us hold hands! The children absolutely loved the trip – “That was so fun” and “I loved that trip”! I have put the photos in a separate gallery for you to look at.

We have been working on countries this week and construction – we have learnt about different houses around the world and made models of some. We learnt about France and Italy and Australia – talking about foods and other characteristics of each area. The children have learnt dances from around the world and our last Robot Reg session – we can’t wait to welcome him back with Rebecca in the Autumn.

Our main activity in the Sun room has been painting and it has been lovely to be able to concentrate and focus on that and teach the children about mixing colours and all the different ways you can make using paint.

The star circle times have had a “feelings” focus and we have also been reading feelings stories at lunchtime – you may hear your child say “I am green”! This means feeling calm or “Red” is angry. There have been some lovely discussions about what makes us happy and sad. The Stars have made faces showing feelings and talking about happy, sad and angry has been a good discussion.

Next week is our last before a week off for half term – we can’t believe we have only got one half term left before our Sun and Moon’s leave us and new children come for their session visits! Exciting times ahead for us all.

Our Summer Fete is going ahead on the 8th July 11.30-2pm and we hope to see many of you there and if you can lend a hand or bake a cake to donation that would be lovely – please let Mandy know.