We held our first ever Grandparents coffee mornings this week to celebrate that wonderful relationship and we were thrilled to have 18 grandparents on Tuesday and the same again on Wednesday! We had a brilliant time together and the children absolutely loved having their Grandparents here with them, making flowers for a new display and then enjoying a coffee and a scone. After that they went outside to play with the children and then we sang a song for them and waved them goodbye and there were a few tears from the children as they said goodbye but we have put the photos onto the gallery that we took so you can see what a happy morning we had! We will certainly do this again in the Autumn Term for new families and hope we can persuade some of the Grandparents to come on trips or come in and share a craft activity over the year ahead.

The Star group are loving Forest School and this week they have made potions with Japanese role petals, found 6 frogs in the pond and we thought we only had 4 and they ate wild strawberries that were picked and read “Apples are magic”. The children also found a moth in the garden and were keen to know what it was called – it was a Scarlet Tiger Moth.

Two butterflies appeared on Thursday after the hot weather and a few more have emerged today, we will leave them lots of nectar and fruit to eat over the weekend and they will be ready to fly away at our party next week.

Our circle times have been busy learning about rhythm and rhyme, looking at baby pics and how we have changed, we talked about emotions and being worried or excited and the children made some wonderful butterfly pictures too.

The stars have used shapes to make pictures – rockets and houses and been counting bricks to make tall towers, they have enjoyed transient art and learning about letters and numbers too.

Outside the garden centre has been very busy and the digging pit has also been well used – we will take a break from that now to ensure the children keep making progress and learn different skills (sorry for all the muddy clothes and shoes!) and we will be building castles outside next week and have set up a creation station as well. Inside on the sun table we have made mini gardens together which has been so lovely!

We have celebrated the Jubilee a week early as we are not open next week for half term!

The children have had a wonderful week getting ready for the party on Thursday and Friday, making decorations and learning our song, baking biscuits and exploring our sensory trays and the whole pre-school has been red, white and blue!

Next week is half term and when we come back in June we will be learning about life cycles and our caterpillars will arrive ready for us to care for and then we will have our annual Hungry Caterpillar week ending with a super party in the back garden where we release the butterflies.

The week was full of Jubilee activities, we made crowns, tiara’s, dressed up, made crown biscuits and had a stage outside for our own concerts over the week – mainly Disney songs were sung! Inside we had a focus on numbers and mark making in lovely trays that Andrea creates and the circle times also had a Jubilee theme with all groups making bunting at the start of the week! We read our new book which celebrates the Queen’s reign and we have all written our names in it so that we can keep it as a souvenir of our celebrations. Other activities during circle included planting out our seeds that we sowed the previous week – lots of loud gasps as the children spotted how much their seed had grown. There was some Jubilee counting work, drawings of our families and pin the tail on the Corgi.

Our week ended with two wonderful Jubilee parties, the children dressed up and so did the ladies, we had a delicious afternoon tea street party and sang the song we had made up for the Queen. We decorated the pathway with bunting and laid out the special party tea. The children loved the change of scene and the decorations and we hope we have given them all really happy memories of the Jubilee.

We hope you all have a really wonderful half term, celebrating the Jubilee and time with your family and we will look forward to welcoming you all back on the 6th June for the last 6 weeks of this year! Lots of amazing plans for those 6 weeks including a trip to the Walronds, Robot Reg is back for the Friday children this time, an animal experience has been booked and trips to school and stay and play sessions for the new starters as well.

Our Teddy Bear’s picnic here and at the CCA fields were defintely the highlight of the week! On Thursday morning we enjoyed games, a story, chasing bubbles, searching for teddies and a good sing song. The children loved the change from the usual routine and we enjoyed a picnic snack in the sunshine too. On Friday morning we were really lucky to be able to get out for a lovely walk to the CCA fields with our teddy bears and enjoy our snack and a play in the park. We are so pleased to be able to offer these great experiences to our children.

We have stayed with our pirate theme this week but will be moving onto exercise next week outside.

Our circle times have been fantastic in the Sun and Moon groups and they have made bridges to cross a pretend river and all came up with really individual ideas which is brilliant and really displayed amazing team work. We learnt about our 5 senses and tried lots of exoptic fruits, looking, feeling, tasting, smelling them and listening to the sounds as we cut them up. The children are learning about different countries as well, looking at the foods from around the world and buildings from around the world as well and this work will be going up on a new display in the Moon room.

The Stars have been super busy too with their brilliant circle times learning about sinking and floating, becoming more independant and pouring their own drinks and learning the differences between letters/numbers and drawings. They have also played lots of listening games – matching musical instrument sounds and playing musical statues and bumps together, they finish the week exploring music from around the world and different dancing.

Next week we have a focus on learning about our town so we would love you to take photos while you are out and about or pictures of your front door and send them into us and we can print them off to share with the children. We will be enjoying exercise in the garden, gym, yoga, activities and dancing and learning about rhyming and numbers as well with some work on our emotions too.

Nigel from Willand Tennis Club will be visiting next week to coach the children – he brings all the equipment with him and they have a lovely time trying a new sport!

Don’t forget the School Starter Information Evening on Monday at pre-school at 6pm! A relaxed hour with a cup of tea or coffee to chat about school and learn more about how to be “school ready”