We have loved the sunshine this week and we have been outside nearly all day enjoying the warmth of the sun! The Stars have had two wonderful Forest School sessions learning about bees and how important they are, the stars made bees from pine cones and rescued bees using tweezers in the tray.

The highlight for the Sun and Moon groups was definitely our Teddy Bears picnic trips on Thursday and Friday so a HUGE thank you to all of the parents and grandparents who have helped us hold hands! The children absolutely loved the trip – “That was so fun” and “I loved that trip”! I have put the photos in a separate gallery for you to look at.

We have been working on countries this week and construction – we have learnt about different houses around the world and made models of some. We learnt about France and Italy and Australia – talking about foods and other characteristics of each area. The children have learnt dances from around the world and our last Robot Reg session – we can’t wait to welcome him back with Rebecca in the Autumn.

Our main activity in the Sun room has been painting and it has been lovely to be able to concentrate and focus on that and teach the children about mixing colours and all the different ways you can make using paint.

The star circle times have had a “feelings” focus and we have also been reading feelings stories at lunchtime – you may hear your child say “I am green”! This means feeling calm or “Red” is angry. There have been some lovely discussions about what makes us happy and sad. The Stars have made faces showing feelings and talking about happy, sad and angry has been a good discussion.

Next week is our last before a week off for half term – we can’t believe we have only got one half term left before our Sun and Moon’s leave us and new children come for their session visits! Exciting times ahead for us all.

Our Summer Fete is going ahead on the 8th July 11.30-2pm and we hope to see many of you there and if you can lend a hand or bake a cake to donation that would be lovely – please let Mandy know.

Our pirate role play has continued this week with some more craft and props to support it and we have been exploring the water area outside, with frozen treasure and balloons which we filled with water and froze which rolled down the gutters very satisfyingly! Next week we will clear away the pirate ship and work on our physical development outside, lots of games involving movement and building strength and listening to instructions as well, and more water play alongside – in warmer weather we hope!

Don’t forget that our preschool is closed on Monday.

At present we are open as usual to ALL children on Tuesday but there are strikes planned in the primary school and secondary school. Unfortunately we do have 4 staff that are unable to work as they need to care for their own children – please check your emails/texts on Tuesday morning in case we have to close the STAR ROOM if any other staff are off sick on that day as we have no cover available to us at all.

Our Stars are LOVING mini forest school which will prepare them beautifully for the main sessions when they turn into sun and moons! The photos are lovely and they have made dandelion playdoh this week and enjoyed the hot chocolate for snack time under our wonderful shelter.

Our Sun and Moon groups have been working on literacy – letters sounds and rhyming and counting and measuring this week – lots going on in the circle times such as being measured to see how much they have grown since the Autumn, organising straws into matching lengths and talking about long/short/tall/medium. The groups have been counting as well and playing sounds games and will enjoy a visit from Robot Reg on Friday afternoon.

The Star group have been making great progress with their number work as well and talking about routines at home and pre-school and practising putting on their own coats and shoes to develop independence.

We will be celebrating the coronation next week and would love donations of any coronation decorations please! We will have a little street party on our path for the children that are in on Thursday and Friday mornings and will be learning about the King over the next week as well. We will have a celebrations theme in our role play inside next week and would love any donations of old bridesmaid dresses or smart boys clothes so that as many children can dress up as possible.

We will explore some sensory play, learn about emotions, shapes and have ordered some clay too! Lots going on at pre-school – it is always so much fun!

We hope you all have a wonderful bank holiday weekend.

We have had a fantastic week at pre-school and out and about in our community. One of the many highlights is our Sponsored Bike Ride which has been incredibly well supported by our current families with some amazing fundraising brought in and we will reveal the final total once we have all the money in – big thank you to everyone who has been involved and helped with counting the laps!

We also took the Moons on a trip to St Andrew’s Church for an explore and play and to learn about what Easter means to the Church. We had a brilliant time, the Church is looking beautiful with the daffodils lining the path.

We have been learning about how and why in our sun and moon circle times which has been a wide ranging topic this week with lots of really creative ideas from the group leaders – the group have played with a soda stream and made and tried fizzy water, they explored the plasma ball that Michelle brought in and there are some lovely photos on the children exploring the ball! They have learnt about hot air balloons, facetime, walkie talkie’s and magnets and metal detectors too and we will carry on this theme next week as well so if you have any ideas or interesting items or technology at home that we can share that would be amazing!

The Star group have had a really busy week covering lots of areas of learning – they have been colour sorting pompoms with tweezers, learning new longer number songs, exploring the tadpoles, flattening flowers for craft, using pipets and Kim’s Game – so many different and fun ways to build the skills they need to develop over their time with us.

Outside we have had a maths focus and there have been some brilliant outdoor learning opportunities with children who may not join in with some activities inside. The children have had all the bikes out as well this week with the bike ride and the garage so they have been loving that, moving through the car wash, filling up with petrol and completing their ten laps to make money for pre-school for new toys!

Our sun room has turned into a big train station which has been on of the most brilliant role plays yet this term! The child have been so imaginative and had so much fun – next week we will turn it into a pretend school! We are going to let the children take over and run a circle time or a letter of the day activity or a show and tell so please send your child in with a show and tell item – we will be on hand to guide and help and ensure everyone gets a turn!!

We hope to welcome you to our Easter craft mornings on Monday and Tuesday – please RSVP by the end of Friday so that we can plan what we need and we will also like the children to collect twigs and sticks and leaves for some natural Easter art as well and some empty washed and clean egg shells which we are going to fill with water and flowers and freeze.

We would love donations of the following items please :- daffodils, paper plates, potatoes, potato mashers and kitchen roll!