We have been blessed with fantastic weather for our first week back after half term! What a shame we didn’t have this weather for half term as well!

We hope you all enjoyed your time away from rushing to Pre-school and we are really happy to welcome back some more of the children. The Pre-school feels busier and almost back to normal now with only a few to come back once the schools return on Monday 8th March.

It is at this time of year that we really start to think about getting ready for school in September and once you know which school your child will go to we will be making plans for transitions and meeting teachers etc. We are really hoping that we will be able to visit the schools and we have lots of info ready to give you nearer the time about how to plan for the move to school. For now the Sun and Moon groups will continue with their mini forest school sessions and circle times with the staff tracking progress and making observations. I will also be checking on their progress next week and new next steps will come out to help you support any learning gaps at home.

We are still focusing on our animal theme and our display will start to go up now, we have been learning about construction outside with staff supporting children’s ideas and helping to extend them and we have been enjoying the sunshine with water play and the bikes out too.

Circles times for the Star group have been based on following instructions through songs and games and actions, exploring the back garden in preparation for some mini forest school sessions next term and working with numbers and learning about less and more too.

Sun and Moon’s have been busy with writing – names, making badges, matching letters and also learning about lots of animals and linking letters in too with animal I Spy and actions and also using alphabet pots to match the first letter in our names. The children really loved exploring the new light panel – they wished it was a TV initially but they were then very engrossed in how it worked and exploring items that I put on the top!

Next week we will be continuing with animals and construction, along with some small world play, lots of craft and lots more fact finding and activities around our themes. To support us at home you could look up some fun facts about a favourite animal and send that to me, you could print off and colour in an animal picture, watch an animal video on kids tube or send in a photo of your pet!

We have enjoyed a fantastic week, despite the heavy rain and showers we have been able to get outside most days and enjoy the fresh air and a good run around! We have played in the Space are undercover, really enjoying the lights in the dark tent! Inside we set up a Vets surgery with lots of time that were donated by one of our parents, we added lots of cuddly toys that needed taking care of and needed bandages and plasters and medicine and lots of cuddles and sleep in nice cosy beds! We have some very talented vets here! The children have really taken part in the role play and it covers so many areas of learning, lots of writing and listening skills and turn taking and chatting and imagination too. We are going to carry on with role play each week in the sun room and dedicate that area to imaginative play with an adult there to help and lead and support and facilitate the children’s ideas – next week will be castles and knights and fairies and dragons!

The circle times have been wonderful again this week, lots of great observations for the children which all get read by me, then given to the key workers to assess and add into their special books ready for evidence of their progress and then you get to keep them all once the children finish with us. We hope you have enjoyed the progress reports and a big thank you to all for your comments and feedback. If there are any books at home still could you please bring them in as your lovely key person is waiting to glue in lots more pics and obs from the last couple of weeks.

Stars have been playing turn taking games, learning how to put their own coat and shoes on, shape matching and making houses using shapes and enjoying story sacks too.

Sun and Moon groups have been learning about time this week, making clocks, learning about being healthy and clean and taking care of ourselves, eating healthy food and what are treat foods. They have also worked on colour mixing and created some wonderful pictures and some rhyming work too which was great fun.

We will be working on shape recognition and using shapes to make pictures next week so home learning ideas can include cutting shapes out of paper and sorting them into matching piles, looking for shapes out and about, making pictures using just shapes – circles for wheels on a big tractor using squares and rectangles – please send us a pic of your creations! You can also use recycling to make robots teaching your child the 3D names of the shapes too.

What a fantastic last week we have had, full of Christmas fun and joy and music and dancing! Today we finish for the Christmas break for two weeks and we are due back Monday 4th January to start the new year 2021! Do keep an eye on your emails just in case of any COVID changes to the opening dates!

The children are certainly looking forward to Christmas and have really enjoyed seeing our Elf Buddy in his curiosity cube and have told us lots of funny stories about what their elves have been up to in their homes – toilet roll around the tree and making a mess and eating all the chocolates!

We have sparkly Christmas playdoh out which smells of cinnamon and we also did two sing-a-longs with St Andrews on Tuesday and Willowbank on Thursday! It was great fun to sing our songs to them and see their faces and recognise old friends! We heard their songs too which were brilliant and we have really missed going out and about to visit the schools so we hope things can return to normal at some point in 2021.

Thank you again for all the lovely cards and gifts that you have given us, we have saved some of the choccies for January as we know they will be needed in that first week!

The sun and moon circle times have been super busy – making Christmas crowns, Christmas tree cards, decorating Christmas jumpers, playing Christmas bingo, they enjoyed a game of pass the parcel which Alison won as it was her birthday and it contained her present from Michelle! We have played party games, coloured in Elf pictures, learnt some Christmas cosmic yoga moves and made a giant gingerbread man picture!

The Stars have also been fully immersed in Christmas! Christmas craft, reindeer faces and party games and Santa says and snowball throwing!

We had a really good key person meeting on Monday and chatted about all the progress the children have made this term and we are really pleased with how everyone is getting along! We will be sharing the progress with you in January and will be working out the best way of doing that – perhaps a virtual parents evening!

We would like to wish you all a really happy, safe and COVID free Christmas and a Happy start to 2021 and we look forward to welcoming you all back to pre-school for a busy and happy Spring Term! Do keep in touch via the main email cullomptonpreschool@gmail.com (This will be checked on New Year’s Eve to plan for our return on the 4th) or via the pre-school mobile 07927057415.