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 all come back smiling and have been very busy.

Most of the children have been playing in the garden where we have built a pirate ship in the garden, they have walked the plank, made treasure maps & boxes and played cannon ball games with balloons. We have also had a different water tray each session – fish, animals, balls, fountains, jugs etc. It is great to be outside without having having to worry about wellies and waterproofs!

Inside in the Sun Room we have been exploring all of our senses. Each day we have looked at a different sense. We began on Monday with sound – we did experiments with popping candy in different liquids to see if they made different noises, made a water xylophone, played a sound matching game and made sound tubes. Tuesday was touch – the children had to feel different items in boxes, feel items while having socks on the their hands and we had a sensory tray with cooked spaghetti. Wednesday was smell – we had paper bags with different smells in and the children tried to identify what they were and we made potions and perfume with scented water, lavender and herbs. Thursday was taste – we tried sweet, salty, sour, spicy foods, gherkins and grapefruit weren’t very popular!! Today is sight – we have blind drawing, ispy bottles and a red magnifying glass experiment. These activities have been great for developing new language and trying new things, even when they weren’t sure at first.

Circle times this week have all been about technology and how things work and why. The Stars have played sound matching games using the iPads and CDs, listened to different everyday noises and identified them and done pirate yoga. The Suns and Moons have talked out different technology that can help us, this again developed lots of new language and thoughts – I was told about the Chinese robot that runs, that you need an oven to melt the cheese on your pizza but if you want cold pizza you need a fridge, if your phone runs out of battery you need to charge it with electric, and cars need batteries to make them work – we have a very clever bunch of children! We used our little robot, Beebot, and programmed it to go around the room, used Michelle’s mini printer to print out photos, made caterpillars, used magnets and floating & sinking activities.

Forest school has been taking place, the Suns on Thursday and the Moons on Friday, they can at last get outside in the sunshine rather than the rain and the children have been loving it.

As you can see we have been very busy and we will continue with these themes next week and add in maths to circle time. There will be more pirate themed activities, maths games outside and inside we will be having a “chatterbox” tray – the staff bring in interesting items from home and we then talk about them, use them etc to create curiosity and get them chatting.

We also have football starting again on Tuesday with Alfie from the Football Fun Factory, this is always good fun.

And finally, Friday will be Amelia’s last day with us. We would all like to wish her the very best for her new adventure, we will all miss her hugely and want to thank her for everything that she has done for the Pre School, the children and their families. We all have great memories of the last 11 years and the transformation that Cullompton Pre School has undergone during this time, topping it off with three Ofsted Outstanding inspections!!

Thank you,
Louise

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 10 laps of the garden path circuit on bikes and scooters and tractors with support from staff and parent helpers! Thank you to everyone who came along to help us. Certificates are being handed out from the office and we are absolutely thrilled with the total that has been pledged so far – should get us what we need to buy a new wobbly bridge we hope!

We have had a brilliant time out at Forest School in the warm sunshine and the photos will be on our Tapestry app for parents on Monday once we have the Friday pics downloaded!

In the Sun room this week we have been enjoying our hairdressers and nail salon, some wonderful imaginative play, and the children are so kind when they are brushing and styling their friends hair and our hair! In the morning on the table we have been looking at numbers and jobs that people do around us which will lead into more learning in this area next week too.

Our circle theme has been shapes for the Star children and they are amazing! We have some brilliant observations and well planned circle and just the right level for the children in the group. Looking for shapes around the room, matching shapes, a shape hunt and shape splat same.

In Sun and Moon we have had a focus on our maths area of learning – talking about routes and where we live, how we get there and distance and describing our homes using shapes and size and that they are next to each other, near-by or behind. We have used Google earth to look at Cullompton and our roads and see how close we may be to friends at pre-school, we went out for a walk and took photos of what we could see and draw a map of our route, lots of other maps and drawings were done in our circle times and making our own houses and learning our addresses too.

Outside we have been practising ball skills all week, playing football and catching, tennis and egg and spoon races to learn co-ordination along with making maps of the garden and following instructions and directions too.

Next week we would love donations of empty fabric softener bottles or power boxes for our role play launderette and if anyone has a mini ironing board to lend us that would be lovely please.

Next week we have a trip to the Church for Easter, last Robot Reg sessions and a week full of circus games outside too.