Summer Term Week 9
Hi, What a week!! Firstly I wanted to thank you all for being so flexible this week with the changes in opening times. We never like to close but as I’m sure you noticed at pick up times our building gets extremely hot. Our main …
Our Blog
Summer Term Week 8
Hi Everyone, Hope you have all had a good week. We have had a great week here, the children have all been really busy and we have finished our week by releasing our butterflies! We started the week with setting up a pizzeria in the …
Summer Term Week 7
Hello,
Hope you are all well. Week 7 has come and gone so quickly! School visits to Willowbank have begun with more to come along with visits from and to St Andrews and all the other Primary Schools. I will be making a display of who is going where once we have received consent from you all. We are also going to start talking about school next week during circle times, we have photos of the the classrooms, spare uniforms for most of the schools and lunch trays. It is a very exciting time for the children but can also be a bit daunting so we try and make all the activities fun and light hearted so they are not overwhelmed by it all.
This week we have extended our coffee shop to the top patio and undercover when the rain came, we added bikes into the mix and the children became Deliveroo drivers – taking orders for coffee and food and transporting it around the garden. They have also enjoyed playground games such as What’s the Time Mr Wolf and using the parachute.
Inside we have been doing lots of Hungry Caterpillar craft and watching our caterpillars turn into cocoons – I think we will have butterflies by the end of the week. If we do, we will have a little party to celebrate releasing them. We have also been making large scale small world scenes – there have been beaches, jungles, ponds and my favourite a football pitch! Next week we will be looking at the World Cup, decorating outside with the nations flags, playing football, looking at the shirts and I’m trying to source a large wall chart that the children can help fill in – if anyone has a spare chart that they would like to donate we would appreciate it. Today at lunch time we are going to do a mini sweepstake, the winner will receive a small prize. I will send out a list so you know which country you need to support!!
Next week along with football we will be having a pizza restaurant role play area, playdough, puzzles and will be keeping an eye on the caterpillars.
I hope you all have a great weekend and see you next week.
Many thanks, Louise
Summer Term Week 6
Hi All, Another busy week here, dodging the showers! We had a donation from B&Q during half term of some plants which the children have helped Claire plant to brighten up the Pre School, they have really enjoyed getting their hands in the compost, watering …
Summer Term Week 5
Hi Everyone, I really hope you are enjoying half term so far and you’re all having fun in the sun! We had holiday club yesterday which was a hot one – we took the children on a mini trip to Aldi to buy ice lollies …
Summer Term Week 4
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 people), drawn their families, made family portraits and talked about their families and their pets.
The Suns and Moons have been doing similar activities, drawing their families, talking about brothers, sisters, cousins, Aunties/Uncles etc. and what they enjoy doing with them. They made paperchain families, and listened to stories about families. We also made postcards of days out and holidays – we are going to post the Moon cards to the Suns and vice versa as part of next weeks planning.
Alfie came again on Tuesday for the football session, the children and getting more confident with their ball skills and continued this during our free flow activities in the garden.
Forest School was a bit soggy this week but the all the groups still went out and enjoyed water play using the marble run and cleaning out the pond – they saw the 2 frogs again!
Outside we have had a coloured water tray, football, tennis and playground games and despite the rain and colder weather the children have been outside a lot.
Claire also did some gardening with the children, they did some weeding and planted the onions we had started off in pots and gave everything a good water. We are hoping that this will be a regular thing. If you have any spare seeds, especially sunflowers or lettuce, if you’d like to donate we would be very grateful – thank you.
In the sun room we have been looking at different styles of dancing – ballroom, tap dance, Bhangra, ballet and Irish dancing. We have watched and copied videos of the dancing, found out facts about the dances and coloured in pictures of the different styles. It has been lovely to see the concentration on their faces as they have mastered the moves. One of the children commented “how do they make their feet go so fast?” while watching the Irish dancing!
Next week we have a tennis session book in on Friday morning for the Suns and Moons.
Planning wise next week we are going to have a post office in the sun room which carries on from our circle times this week and speech and language activities – listening and attention, understanding, speaking, social communication and speech sounds – from our Launch into Language programme that some of the children are already part of.
I can’t believe that next week will be our last before half term, the term has gone so quickly!
Have a great weekend and see you all next week.
Louise
Summer Term Week 3
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 …
Summer Term Week 2
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 …
Summer Term Week 1
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
Spring Term 12
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. …