Hello, We have had another great week at Pre School, despite a few bugs going around! This week we have been learning all about our families. The star group have built houses and put their family members in them (we have a set of mini …
Hi All, Apologies that my update is a bit later than usual, we had another very busy Friday! The week started really well – once I’d remembered it was Tuesday and not Monday!! Tuesday Morning saw Alfie return for the second session of football, the …
Hi Everyone,
We have had a really busy week all finished by saying goodbye to Amelia. Today we had a party day for her last day, we had sports day this morning and then this afternoon we are having a Hungry Caterpillar party – this is Amelia’s favourite day of our year but unfortunately we won’t be releasing any butterflies today but we will be having all the food from the story! We have had music, face painting, lots of laughter and some tears!!
We are all going to really miss her, she has helped all of us at Pre School over the years. She has believed in us all to do our best for the children and I personally wouldn’t be in this position now without her guidance and encouragement. I have huge shoes to fill and I will do my very best to do that and as a team we will continue to give your children the best start to their education.
Back to this week, we continued with the pirate role play. The children have made parrots, flags and eye patches and even a mermaid tail! We have also had large scale maths activities – using chalk to write numbers on the path, playing hopscotch, making big clocks and sorting & counting natural items found in the garden.
We continued the maths theme at circle times with counting pirate treasure, matching coin sizes and treasure hunts.
Inside we have been looking at items the children may not have seen or used before – we’ve had rotary hand whisks, eyelash curlers, a metronome and a massage (this was very popular!).
Next week we will be having a garage outside for role play and water in the mud kitchen. Inside we will be doing large scale art and circles will be looking at recognising letters from our names, writing our names and learning new songs.
We have Alfie again for football on Tuesday, the Moon group will be going to the milkshake shed on Thursday and the Suns on Friday.
I’ll post some pictures of the Hungry Caterpillar party soon.
Have a great weekend and bank holiday and we’ll see you Tuesday.
Many thanks,
Louise
Hello, I hope you all had a lovely Easter and that you all enjoyed the holidays. We have had a brilliant first week back in the sunshine, we have enjoyed hearing all about the children’s adventures and how many Easter Eggs they had!! They have …
Dear Parents, As many of you know, I will be stepping into the role of Pre‑School Manager, Amelia’s shoes are big ones to fill, but I wanted to share how excited I am to continue working with you and your children in this new role. …
This blog is my last!!
From next week the Blog will be written by Louise Waring who is taking over from me as Pre School Leader on Monday 20th April – I will still be working for two weeks to support her and my last real day will be the 1st May.
I have been here at pre-school since July 2014 which is nearly 12 years! I have written a weekly blog for the whole of that time which means I have written over 400! Each time feels like a new story, a new week and every time I add the photos I smile and feel joy at the children’s faces, enjoying all we plan and work hard to deliver – exciting experiences and activities, warmth and care and a really amazing journey with us. Many families may not know that I grew up in Cullompton and went to St. Andrews and then to the brand new Willowbank School, I was in the very first class there so going back over the last 12 years to both schools to take children on visits has been very special. I will miss being around in the town, saying hi to past parents and children, although seeing some of the first children I have taught now choose GCSE’s does make me feel old!
I will miss so many things about pre-school life and leaving on the 1st will be a tough day! I know the team here will continue to be incredible and I wish all of the children and families a really happy Summer Term and onward journey to primary school or the sun and moon groups!
Our week started really quietly with two small sun and moon groups due to a few different illnesses, this allowed us to head out of a couple of impromptu trips on Monday morning and the photos are on our Tapestry app for you to see! Andrea took a group to the library and I took a group out to walk to the fire station and then to the Waldronds for a picnic snack and a wander back through our town. We took some great photos in the launderette and the children loved running around in the gardens in the Spring sunshine. We also had a trip for the Moons on Wednesday to St Andrew’s Church to learn about Easter and thank you to the two family members who came to help hold hands for the walk!
Our launderette in the Sun room has been busy! Lots of good skills have been learnt and there has been some very careful ironing! Lots of folding clothes and washing and drying and we have also used the proper washing machine and hung up wet washing too.
Our natural world trays have been full of interesting conversation starting objects, we have drawn new things to put in them, learnt about habitats and read books, we have collected natural items for them from our garden and taken a photo of each one and those are on facebook.
Circle times in the Star room have had a focus on learning about colour – they have explored colour trays, mixed food colouring, learnt the rainbow song, played with coloured scarves and read Grandpa’s handkerchief story which is based on colour too!
The Sun and Moon groups have been learning about jobs – dressing up, matching jobs and vehicles, talking about jobs their parents do, listening to siren sounds and looking at videos on kids Tube of emergency vehicles, learning new vocabulary and talking about what they would like to be when they grow up.
Outside has been a circus playground! Loads of exciting games to learn – splat the rat, balloon juggling, stilt walking, flaming hoops, a tight rope on the floor and skittles.
We have also filled our digging area with some trucks and diggers and spades, pretend roads and planks and buckets and spades!
Next week we are continuing with some work on jobs and will be creating a fire station in the Sun room during free flow, the circles will be learning about Easter and incorporating maths as well. We have our Easter craft mornings next week too on Monday and Wednesday and we finish our Spring Term on Thursday 2nd April!
Thank you all for your support and I wish you, your children, Louise W and the team a very happy, joyful and safe future at Cullompton Pre School – Amelia
What a beautiful couple of days of Spring sunshine! The children have loved being outside and the sun has warmed up over the week! We started in a little bit of a chilly drizzle on Monday for the annual sponsored bike ride, the children complete …
Our week has been full of letters and their sounds! Since Robot Reg arrived the children have really developed a love of learning the sounds and our circle times have focused on that and the progress is amazing! The Sun and Moon circles have listened …
We have enjoyed our World Book Day week! Lots of cosy pyjamas on show and lots of reading stories and promoting a love of books with the children. The two library trips were wonderful earlier in the week and the children walked so well and loved the spring flower treasure trail too. Andrea’s group brought back some books from the library for us all to enjoy and thank you to all the helpers that made the trip possible!
Our Star children have loved story sacks and a stories and have built little houses from the 3 little pigs story and acted our the Bear Hunt and made Rainbows fish craft. The Star group are amazing at listening to and concentrating on stories and when they already know the book they are filled with enthusiasm to tell us what will happen!
The Sun and Moon children – have learnt about non-fiction and fiction books, written their own stories, had props to help them start and write a story, learnt about the vocabulary about books, and made Rainbow fish, built dens for the three little pigs, taken story time outside and acted out the Bear Hunt in the Forest School garden!
Robot reg has returned for his Thursday and Friday sessions and Forest School has been a delight as always with Sophie leading, the Thursday group were just sitting down to a beautiful fire – Sophie was really pleased with it and then the fire alarm went off!! Just a practise, nothing to do with Sophie’s fire but she had to tip water onto it and put out on of her best fires she said! All good practice for the children and next week we will be practising our whistleblow procedure which is where we lockdown pre-school in case of an emergency outside.
Next steps will come out via Tapestry next week for all of the children and we also have parent consultation appointments next week for you to find out what progress your child has made and to chat over any worries or concerns that you may have. Our nurture groups for the next few weeks will be finalised on Wednesday and if your child is in one you will get that info from your key person.
We do have a case of chicken pox so please do keep an eye out for blister type spots, it is an excludable condition so do have a look at the link below if you are unsure.
Our parent gallery will be live on Tapestry later today.
Next week – we are planning large scale mark making outside to build physical skills, a farm shop role play inside to support building relationships and turn taking and transient art to support creativity and individuality.
Welcome back to the second half of the Spring Term! Another very busy time for us with lots of trips and visits and fun plans ahead. We will be celebrating World Book Day next week by wearing pyjamas for Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday and we will be taking …