We have started a farming week this week and the children have enjoyed the tractor that we built outside! It has been a really happy week full of smiles and laughter and the photos have been a joy to look through and chose for the gallery. We have read lots of stories to check the children’s progress and development in literacy and sung lots of songs as well, we have continued inside with our home corner, acting out birthday parties and making pretend pizzas in our pretend oven and looking after the babies too. Outside we have the mud kitchen with herbs and spices to use to make interesting potions and mud cakes. We have played hook a duck and made hay bales and animals for the farm!

Forest School has been wonderful as always, with Jackie and Sophie in the garden with their groups on a Thursday and Friday am. They have learnt about snails this week for their mini beast focus and enjoyed bird watching too. The fact sheet for snails includes learning that they move around on one muscley “foot” and they can live in sea water, fresh water and on land. They can climb walls using slime and eat pretty much anything! Some good quotes form the children include “they slither” “they make slime” “they don’t have legs” and “they hide in their shell”!

Our circle times have been based on patterns for the Sun and Moon group and there are some good photos on the gallery of their hard work. The Star group have learnt about animal patterns and lots of shape work too.

We have had a focus on Maths this week with lots of activities first thing in the morning using our lovely wooden maths equipment. On the round table we have used lots of different small world toys, the children enjoyed playing with the castle, unicorns, mini food sets, dolls house and the farm toys too.

Next week is our last week before the half term break and we will be learning about bread and making bread, we will carry on playing farms outside and with the mud kitchen and will do a bit of Valentine’s Day craft as well.

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.