This week has been a little disrupted following a couple of COVID cases at local school, this meant a number of staff had to leave work to go and collect children and we would like to thank you all for coming early on Tuesday to collect your children in response to our text. This may become part of life over the winter months and we thank you in advance for your patience. We will do all we can to operate as normal but you will be aware that sometimes this will be beyond our control and the safety of the children, the staff and their families will always take priority.

It is a reminder to ensure you use the hand gel, that the children wash their hands often here and that we follow social distancing at all times.

We have had a really enjoyable week here with more puppet shows and acting, more music and dancing, the children have loved the soft play and waited perfectly for their own turn, building patience and strength!

We have started planning for our Christmas performance which we hope will be streamed live and a recording to be available but we have changed the date so we encourage you to check the newsletter.

Circle times have been lovely with lots of emphasis on friendships and fun and numbers and the world around us.

The Star group have worked on numbers quite a lot, singing songs, playing matching games and counting. The children have also enjoyed listening and joining in with Sticky Kids which is a great exercise CD, they have joined in games with friends, explored size concepts and learnt new vocabulary too.

The Sun and Moon groups have been busy learning about growth and decay with lots of items Alison left out to go mouldy! They have talked about and learnt about and recreated animal skin patterns and practised scissor skills, made patterns themselves. The have made clay sculptures, looked at their faces in a mirror and made self portraits and spotted words on packaging and talked about logos too.

Lots of clay out this week which is great for hand strength and imagination, lots of tools – hammers and screwdrivers on the table with us teaching the children how to use them safely!

Our planning for next week involves lots more learning about the world, practising who, what and where questions while reading stories and while out and about on a walk to encourage conversation, do some simple drawings together – send them in with your child and we will start to learn Christmas songs and made decorations so have a look on your phone from last Christmas and show your child your tree from last year!

We enjoyed a fantastic week leading up to half term with pumpkin fun and our fantastic fire station outside! The children really enjoyed creating lots of art work so we will plan more of that in for after the half term looking at bonfire night as well. We had rice and creepy crawlies from the Halloween section in Tesco which the children enjoyed matching and playing with, we made packets of the pumpkin seeds that we had scooped out and hope that you will be able to grow your own pumpkins next year!

The Star group have been working on mark making to songs, moving and taking on animal characters and experimenting with colours as well.

The Sun and Moon groups have been learning about 3 D shapes, making them with clay and learning about their properties, they have written stories in a group and have brilliant imaginations! They played letters and sounds bingo and talked about what they are good at!

After half term we will be focusing on making friends, our understanding, strength in our bodies and arms and hands through moving and exercise and numbers, writing, drawing, being imaginative and the world around us. To support this learning at home you could help your child to recognise their names, to build strength in their arms by having playdoh on the table while you are making tea, encourage them to lift heavy boxes and help unpack the shopping. Look at the world around you, notice differences and changes and lots of counting! Count your stairs as you go up to bed, count weetabix at breakfast or glasses on the table or cars as you walk along to pre-school.

We hope you all have a wonderful COVID free half term and see you on the 2nd November.

Our week has been full of exploring and brilliant fun in the mud kitchen – we have had mud, flowers, conkers, fruit tea bags all giving texture and lovely smells for the children. The children love to be outside and the staff expertly support them in their play and make sure that the children are working well together and I had read so many wonderful observations this week of the children paying well, helping each other, being kind, giving each other great ideas and collecting items to enhance their play.

We have been building worlds on the floor in the sun room during the free flow time and this has been great for promoting lots of chat about our town and our homes. We have photos from around the town on boxes and lots are very recognisable to the children. Please do email in photos from your garden, the park, the CCA fields and from around the town for us to use next week.

The Moon room has been open for quiet play, we let the children choose what they would like to get out and then this is a lovely quiet area for children to move to if they want to, with an adult there to play with them and promote clear language. We are also really impressed with how the children have learnt the rules and the routine of the day – we use a visual timetable to help with that and all staff carry around the little widget cards to represent the day.

Our circle times have been fantastic and very well planned:-

Star – the children have been using musical instruments through the week, they have listened to the Animal Boogie CD and practised all the moves and I have seen some very enthusiastic dancing! They have been learning the positional language using puppets such as on, next to, between and under. They have learnt new songs and learnt the language of size as well – building structures that are tall and short. Story sacks are very popular as well and the Star children sit beautifully for the story.

Sun and Moon – the school starter groups have been busy as always, learning about weight and capacity, floating and sinking, heavy and light, tall and short and similarities and differences. The group leaders have helped the children look carefully at their features and make a self portrait with collage, they have enjoyed water play using different cylinders and watching for the splashes as the water spills, they have explored rhyming words with objects – matching them together house and mouse, bat and hat for example and played a listening and attention dragon game!

Next week we will be exercising outside depending on the weather! Yoga, Gymnastics and dancing, inside we will have the ever popular “Science week” – as we are a charity and money is tight through fundraising being cancelled due to COVID we would love donations of the following items please:-

Vinegar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, food colouring, jam jars with lids, cheap shaving foam (not gel), gravel and play bark. Thank you!