Pumpkins, witches, wizards, potions, bats and craft, a Halloween cabin, cats, rats and badminton, autumn craft, colour, listening skills, role play, monster movers, snack, bike races, Halloween cauldron races, timers and puzzles, sensory leaves, beautiful conkers, lunch, circle, forest school and fire. Another amazing week at Cullompton Pre School!

The photos show just how happy the children are, despite lots of illnesses and absences we are still well enough to have lots of fun and dress up and play and learn. Pre-school has been such a happy place to be this week. We are looking forward to sharing all the photos and progress with you at our parent consultation meetings and we will be working on home learning ideas for you to have a go at in your homes, just a little bit of fun (not homework we promise!) to help us with our teaching here.

The games we have played in our circle times have really focused on listening and attention in a fun way to develop those skills needed to make more progress towards being ready to learn for longer periods later in the year.

The Star group have been working on listening and attention as well, listening to animal sounds CD’s and matching instrument sounds. They have been developing their understanding too, sorting by colour and showing their wonderful bags with the items they collected for our nature area.

Forest School had a rather wet day on Thursday and the fire didn’t light completely but no spirits were dampened and the children made some really beautiful spiders which they are very proud of – especially choosing the furry pipe cleaners for the hairy legs!  This week’s theme was spiders and they learn some amazing facts – spiders have 8 eyes, they have pale blue or green blood which the children loved to learn!! In one hour they can spin a web with 1000 contact points using silk that is 2 m long and one chap let us know that they use the webs to collect flies to eat!

We hope you all have a wonderful half term, some ideas for activities and games will be posted on our facebook page and do have a look at the home learning page on our website. Other ideas include supporting independence, perhaps you can support your child to put their own shoes on, walk instead of going in a pushchair, go to the park to build strength and help you sort the washing into colours or items like socks and t shirts maybe! See you all on the 31^st October after Half Term Holiday. We will be learning about Bonfire Night, Remembrance Sunday and safety and Space!

Our farming theme is great fun and we are really enjoying learning about harvest and where our food come from and we have been cooking, making mini pizzas, making soup and roasted veg and also made smoothies together and the children here really enjoy taking the time to sit and talk and learn and practice their new skills using the knives.

Our farm shop is now empty of all its goods and has been tidied away in preparation for next week’s fun and games and we will be exploring the theme of transport after watching some of the children pretend to go on a bus! The children have been really settled this week and we are really pleased with how the sessions are going. We have a long list of reminders for the toilet so we will be working really hard to ensure there are no wee accidents as we get to know the children more and know their timings a bit better – who needs a reminder before snack and who needs a reminder during their play. It is completely normal for children to regress a little given new surroundings and timetables and very hard to leave a lovely activity where someone else may take your spot if you leave to go to the toilet!

Forest School is such a wonderful experience for the children, the Sun group go on a Thursday and the Moon’s on a Friday and after half term we will swap around so that all the Sun and Moons have that experience. There are some gorgeous photos on the blog this week as well, and I have added the Friday photos in so each week the pics from the previous Friday will be on the blog.

Circle times have been wonderful, we have a routine which allows the children choice and free flow time to extend their games and activities and learning but we still really value those small group times and we will be starting nurture groups as well with children to focus on different areas. Your key person has been completing an on entry assessment to help us decide which children may need nurture – often it is just a different way of us spending time with a smaller group of 3 children to work out what they know and where they are developmentally. Some children find it hard to share in a larger group so nurture work is key to ensuring we know where each child is individually.

The Star group are doing brilliantly, lots of great photos of them this week. They have used lots of building towers and learning names and getting settled into the routine of the circle time.

Other free flow activities have included spending some fantastic time in our sensory garden enjoying potion making, natural craft and a wonderful Teddy Bear’s Picnic. We have rescued animals from being wrapped in wool – it was truly amazing to watch how carefully and delicately children were snipping and unravelling the wool around the figures!

Next week we have a transport theme and will have a story reading focus so if you would like to come in and sit for 15 mins and read a story that would be wonderful! Please let Mandy know if you would like to do that – usually at 2.50PM in our Sun and Moon groups.

What a wonderful first week we have had, we have been so happy with how the children have settled in. A few tears on the door are completely to be expected and understood and the team here are experts at nurturing and settling and ensuring your child has a lovely time with us. We have been getting to know the children and their interests and have listened carefully to all the info you gave us during home and session visits too.

Our week has been very wet! We have had water play out when the weather allowed which is a very calming activity and always works well in the first week, the children have been exploring the garden, learning the routines of the day and taking part in an adult led circle time. The circle times are a brilliant part of the day which allows us to spend time in small groups, learning each others names, making friends, learning about our day at pre-school and we move through our curriculum, teaching specific skills and areas through games and activities led by an adult.

We have had lots of small world toys out this week, castles, dinosaurs, cars and the farm. We have had baby role play, the bikes out on some days (we have no-bike days we all to support collaborative play) and sensory activities, lots of mark making and painting and number trays and story and song time too. There are some lovely photos in the gallery!

We plan really carefully to ensure all children make really great progress with us in all the areas of learning – you will learn more as the weeks pass and we will be sending you info on our curriculum and ideas to help learning at home over the coming weeks. Please have a look at the link below for more info now.

A parents guide to the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) | Family Corner

We also have lots of links on our website under the heading Home Learning.

We create a paper learning journey for each child and as this grows it will be available for you to look at, we will write an on entry sheet so that we know where your child is developmentally in all areas and we will share that with you – if you have any questions or worried we are here for you so get in touch via email or phone or stay for a chat at the end of the day – sometimes it is better to talk without your child listening so you are always free to come back at 2.50pm while they enjoy a story and you can chat to your key person or Amelia or Andrea any day.

We are always asking for donations as we are a charity – to support our planning for next week we would love donations of empty plastic bottles (for fire extinguishers!), string and pretty sellotape, bull dog clips and big paintbrushes (we are going to paint the fence with different colours – good for arm strength!) – thank you!