We have been learning about being healthy this week, looking at exercise and healthy foods. The children love chatting about the exercise you do as parents in the gym! We have a fantastic set of ideas from Sporty Mini’s – really fun games to promote fun active sessions. We will be sharing a few of these on our facebook page and here is the website if you would like to have a look at the video ideas too – www.sportymini’s.com/on-demand

Outside you will be able to see our wonderful Garden Centre, it has been rather drenched by all the rain so we will be keeping it out next week as well before moving into some farm role play too. We love to take care of our garden and will be planting lots of bulbs and veggies again this term. We have also been working hard on being fit outside, playing football and chasing balloons and bubbles, bean bag target games and brushing bubbles and colour into the puddles!

Inside we have been learning about fruit, making fruit art, trying interesting fruits such as figs and passion fruits, we have made smoothies together and fruit kebabs and mini pizzas as well which we enjoyed for snack time too. We have counted all the fruit each day in the lunchboxes and please do try to include one little bit of fruit a day if you can. We have recently attended a First Aid course which covers choking in great detail and there are a couple of new pieces of info that we need to share – mini marshmallows and popcorn are now on the foods to avoid list for packed lunches for us as they are a choking hazard. We may mention this to you if they are in a lunchbox so that we can avoid any potential risks to your child, lunch is supervised very carefully indeed with choking being at the top of our worry list, when a child chokes it can be silent and hard to initially spot so we take every precaution – cutting grapes into quarter lengthways and cutting blueberries, cherry tomatoes and sausages.

The stars have been really happy in their circle time and there are some wonderful photos on the gallery, they have been exploring being healthy and clean and mark making. Activities have included painting on foil, foam painting, mark making in coloured salt, washing babies, talking about showers and baths and brushing teeth and hair and cutting up and trying broccoli and apple and then using those for painting.

The Sun and Moon groups have been very active, balancing, jumping, moving, yoga and exercise competitions, talking about brushing teeth and treat foods and healthy foods too, learning about fruit and drawing fruit and trying fruits too. It is part of the Department of Education’s curriculum that we teach the children these topics but please do chat to us if you have any questions at all.

Forest School was a little wet on Thursday but sunny and beautiful on Friday, learning about butterflies. Amazing facts from the session – butterflies can see colours that humans cannot see! They have 4 wings and not 2, they don’t live for very long – some species only live for 10 days and the largest butterfly is the Queen Alexandra and has wings that are over 25cm wingspan.

Next week we continue with our exploration of food, counting items that are dairy based in lunchboxes. More exercise and garden role play outside and cafe role play inside – please send us photos of your food! We laminate them and use them in our cafe for the role play and the children love to spot their plates!

Another wonderful week at pre-school, we have had a Santa sleigh arrive and lots of Christmas chatter and craft. Our learning has been focused on communication and language and singing and performing and carrying on the learning about jobs too. Robot Reg came for his last visit and the children love him so much and he will be back in the summer term. We will be attending some training at St Andrew’s on Phonics so will be able to pass the info on to you if your child will go there which will help them settle into their learning there in the Autumn. We use lots of different activities to teach the children about letters and sounds and recognising them.

As we look forward to our Christmas party and Nativity there are a few useful bits of info I thought I would share on the blog – the children have worked really hard to learn the songs and actions – sometimes stage fright kicks in however and shyness takes over! If your child does get upset on the stage we will try to spot you and see if you would like to come and get them, it is very overwhelming at times as we have had 100 people watching in the past! If they do get down please keep them with you for the rest of the performance please. We will have a slideshow running while you wait for he show to start and this features photos from this last week at pre-school and the children dressed in their outfits. Some children have been unwell so if your child does not feature it is because I have taken most photos just in the last few days.

Forest School has been pretty chilly so the fire has been very welcome and there are some wonderful photos of the children eating porridge that they made themselves outside on the fire, and some wonderful craft pics on facebook too. The mini beast of the week was the stag beetle, they eat decaying wood and tree sap. They are eaten by bats and birds and they look scary but their large jaws are only used to wrestle other males! They can live up to 7 years old and females can fly. “Is it a crab?” said one little boy and “I think they eat leaves”2 said another. A little girl thought the idea of them eating wood was awful “that’s disgusting” she said and one chap said “they look like antlers”!

I know there is concern in the press about Strep A and the rare version that causes serious illness, we have sent lots of info out so please read that through and any concerns or worries contact your GP or 111 or 999 in a life threatening situation. Please let us know if any child has Strep A diagnosed as we have new guidelines on what to do in the event that we have 2 cases or more.

Our circle times this week have been busy and full of music and singing and Christmas activities, we have played I Spy, decorated mini Xmas jumpers, enjoyed obstacle courses, throwing snowballs at targets, making candy canes pictures and snowmen too, and reindeer food and learning about different occupations as well. We have looked at Santa webcams and spotted some cheeky elves, heard all about the Elves in your homes that are cheeky too!

Next week we will enjoying an Elves wrapping workshop and reading stories and making Christmas playdoh and special food as well. Lots of party games and fun to end a really happy Autumn Term. Friday 16th December is our last day.

Thank you to our families for supporting our Children in Need fundraiser by sending your little ones in wearing spots! We are a charity ourselves and money is always so tight for us, we often make a loss at the end of the year as the government funding is not enough to cover the costs to run our pre-school so we need to be as full as we can be to try to break even! All extras such as Robot Reg, resources, new equipment and garden items are paid for by fundraising or grants that I can secure or by amazing donations from our families! If you can lend Rhi Bates a hand with any fundraising please do get in touch with her via the office or on the newsletter she shared her number – she is planning a sky dive for pre-school so if you fancy jumping out of a plane for us get in touch!!

The children have absolutely loved pre-school this week, it has been a really busy week with a hat and bag shop in the Sun room, we have set up a lovely home corner outside and this has encouraged lots of children into that role play area and there are some sweet photos of them having little tea parties! The stage has been extremely popular with Moana, Frozen and lots of other movie songs being played for the children to sing and dance along to. Lots of dressing up which promotes independence and turn taking with the favourite bridesmaid dress being much sought after!

Forest School children have been learning about hedgehogs this week. They now know that hedgehogs are intolerant to milk and that they can swim which was the favourite fact of the day! Hedgehogs eat beetles, millipedes and worms and slugs and snails. One child said “they furl when they are scared” and the hot chocolate this week was pronounced as “delicious”!

We had a brilliant two trips to Willowbank’s Forest School on Thursday morning with the Moons and Friday afternoon with the Sun group. they walked beautifully and absolutely loved the session, getting very muddy indeed!

Robot Reg came in on Tuesday and we made our own snack this week – jam muffins and some playdoh too – they do love to make and bake and create!

Sun and Moon groups have had a focus on numbers this week, learning what numbers mean, recognising numbers and matching amounts to the numbers too and the Star group have worked on seeing patterns and being able to find ones that match, a really important skills for future maths and working on basic counting too, songs and games support that really well. We have lots of info on our website so do have a look and a new document which shows our curriculum steps – our guide that we have built together on where children may be when they start and where we would like them to be when they leave us, ready for the next stage of learning having had a wonderful time with us we hope!

Any questions about any aspect of your child’s development or family life or worries please never hesitate to get in touch.