We had a very exciting SNOW DAY on Thursday this week – we were able to get outside and enjoy the snow while it fell and then come in to warm ourselves up. It was our first ever Forest School session in the snow, we had an explore and the fire and hot chocolate and then came in to defrost and join our friends in the normal session. We apologise for needing to send the Star group home for the PM session – once Cullompton Community College and Willowbank School closed we were unable to meet our ratio for the Star group as we had a number of staff that needed to leave to collect their own children. We will ensure you are offered another session to replace the one you missed and you will receive an email from Mandy about that next week.

Our focus this week during our circle times has been maths – but not just numbers, we have been learning about patterns and there are so many Maths skills that are really important for life skills. Maths skills are essential and a building block for life and Maths is also an area that can cause worry – you often hear people saying “I’m no good at Maths” but Maths is everywhere! Timetables, patterns, routines, shapes, size, capacity, numbers, counting, estimating, guessing, we use shape and pattern to recognise places we visit, faces we look at, directions, layout of a shop or library, to learn about distance and orientation. We work hard to build a love of Maths, solving problems and feeling really confident.

Star circle – matching shapes and sizes, learning about one more and one less with numbers, colour matching and sorting colours, reading number stories and learning number songs and looking at animal patterns.

Sun and Moon – we have worked on repeating patterns, motivating mistakes and correcting them, playing lots of fun games and having competitions and races. Sorting colour beads and counters and making patterns as a team, working together to match colours for a pattern and making shape pictures, looking at numbers on a giant phone and matching the numbers and the order of numbers. The groups have also learnt about measuring too! We will continue with maths for another week, collecting really good observations for the children so that we know where to go next with their learning.

Outside we have enjoyed a theatre role play area and we will be bringing that inside next week, supporting the children to grow in confidence before our Nativity which we have now started to practice!

Our literacy trays have been lovely this week and the collection of photos will appear on Tapestry at the end of the series for inspiration for home learning! You should all have had a note from your key person by now to let you know when they have time to work on learning journeys and please add observations (not messages) for any info you would like to share and this can form part of your child’s learning journey.

Next week more Christmas activities will begin to appear at pre-school, cinema role play, a sleigh outside with a cosy Xmas book area in the gingerbread house and a yoga and chill out zone in the Moon room!

This is our last week before we all have a week off for Half Term and we have had a lovely time surrounded by pumpkins and dressing up and face paint and autumnal trays with all of the items that you have been collecting for us!

We have had a focus on being safe this week during our circle times and we have covered lots of different topics.

The Star group have talked about being safe outside at preschool, being safe walking along the roads, talked about traffic lights, emergency vehicles and how our family keeps us safe and how other people keep us safe too. They have also had a circle time about safety at Forest School ready for when they have their turn outside in the Spring Term.

The Sun and Moon children have learnt about the new “I need help” triangles which have appeared around pre-school these are laminated triangles with the word “I need help” and the room on them which can be taken to any staff member in the case of an accident or one of the ladies needing help. It has been a brilliant start to discussions about being safe at pre-school. We talked about the importance of coming in when the bell rings too. The older children have practised crossing a pretend road, revisited the rules here and talked about fire alarm practices, learnt a lot about people who help us and their jobs and sorting pictures of safe/unsafe activities like how to carry scissors properly, not climbing up the slide and touching plugs and cookers etc.

Alfie came again on Monday for a football session and we hope to book him in for a couple more if the weather is nice after the half term.

Outside we have had a communication friendly space – a nice seating area where there is always a teacher there to talk and chat and support speech and language work and it has been very popular!

We have also played with potions and cauldrons and had a good tidy up of the garden ready for the half term break.

We have made lots of pumpkin craft and created packets of seeds for the children to plant at home.

Forest School have continued to develop their tool skills – another area to learn about how to stay safe and have made lovely little wooden discs and chosen their pretty ribbons for them. The sessions this week have had a little Halloween treasure hunt and as I type I can hear them searching for the pumpkin! We will soon smell the lovely wood smoke drifting towards the office window too – such a wonderful experience for the children and one we are really proud of.

We hope you all have a wonderful, happy and healthy half term and enjoy any Halloween celebrations and we look forward to welcoming you all back after the break.

Our pre-school has been full of awe and wonder this week – we love to inspire the children and create really exciting experiences for them during their time with us. The group leaders plan their circle times to support learning and discovery and build skills needed for school and the children have been amazing this week. Some fantastic turn taking and waiting, lots of brilliant chat about the items and activities.

We welcomed Alfie on Monday morning from the Football Fun Factory and he ran two brilliant football sessions for our Sun and Moon children and he was super impressed with them –

“This morning I had such a great time with your little superstars and I was very impressed with their listening, engagement and effort. A big well done to them all! Also a big thank you to you, Amelia and all of your team for making me feel so welcome. I can’t wait to come back next week.”

Sun and Moon – have learnt about gravity and the moon, holding a light up moon model and looking through the telescope, they have made rain clouds in a jar, investigated technology, make fairy foam with an electric whisk and mixed colours, they loved the plasma ball and light up astronaut, making fizzy water with the soda stream and puff paint in a microwave and little caterpillars from tissue! What an imaginative and wonderful set of circle times.

Star – the younger children have also had a fun filled week of circles – exploring technology with phones and cameras, using the electric whisk for making fairy foam, rain clouds in a jar, exploring nature using conkers, magnets and volcanoes!

During free flow we have been supporting creativity this week with a lovely collage tray available and lots of glue! Puzzles out in the morning and an animal rescue in Andrea’s tray!

On our sun table we have had a maths theme with a focus on shape this week – some wonderful activities have been very popular – making shape rockets and other pictures, making a monster shape game, sorting shapes, drawing shapes on chalk boards and in foam.

The photos from the week are so lovely to look through – a happy week in some lovely sunshine outside!

Forest School has been a delight and the children have loved being in the back garden, enjoying the different style of learning – have a look at Tapestry for some photos of the Moon group last Friday.

Thank you to all the families and staff who joined our AGM on Monday – we are pleased to welcome some new committee members and will be working on new fundraising events with Naomi Cook – the Fundraising Lead

We would love some donations to support our planning next week please – we are a charity so money is very tight!

Items we would like:- frozen fruit, fresh lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruits, pumpkins, plain flour, cake sprinkles – thank you!

Our planning next week is for food exploration on the sun table, baking and cooking, learning about Autumn and Harvest time and we will be going to the Church on a trip on Thursday and Friday am. Outside we are working on our physical development and we will be making potions in our mud kitchen!