We have celebrated the Jubilee a week early as we are not open next week for half term!

The children have had a wonderful week getting ready for the party on Thursday and Friday, making decorations and learning our song, baking biscuits and exploring our sensory trays and the whole pre-school has been red, white and blue!

Next week is half term and when we come back in June we will be learning about life cycles and our caterpillars will arrive ready for us to care for and then we will have our annual Hungry Caterpillar week ending with a super party in the back garden where we release the butterflies.

The week was full of Jubilee activities, we made crowns, tiara’s, dressed up, made crown biscuits and had a stage outside for our own concerts over the week – mainly Disney songs were sung! Inside we had a focus on numbers and mark making in lovely trays that Andrea creates and the circle times also had a Jubilee theme with all groups making bunting at the start of the week! We read our new book which celebrates the Queen’s reign and we have all written our names in it so that we can keep it as a souvenir of our celebrations. Other activities during circle included planting out our seeds that we sowed the previous week – lots of loud gasps as the children spotted how much their seed had grown. There was some Jubilee counting work, drawings of our families and pin the tail on the Corgi.

Our week ended with two wonderful Jubilee parties, the children dressed up and so did the ladies, we had a delicious afternoon tea street party and sang the song we had made up for the Queen. We decorated the pathway with bunting and laid out the special party tea. The children loved the change of scene and the decorations and we hope we have given them all really happy memories of the Jubilee.

We hope you all have a really wonderful half term, celebrating the Jubilee and time with your family and we will look forward to welcoming you all back on the 6th June for the last 6 weeks of this year! Lots of amazing plans for those 6 weeks including a trip to the Walronds, Robot Reg is back for the Friday children this time, an animal experience has been booked and trips to school and stay and play sessions for the new starters as well.

Our Teddy Bear’s picnic here and at the CCA fields were defintely the highlight of the week! On Thursday morning we enjoyed games, a story, chasing bubbles, searching for teddies and a good sing song. The children loved the change from the usual routine and we enjoyed a picnic snack in the sunshine too. On Friday morning we were really lucky to be able to get out for a lovely walk to the CCA fields with our teddy bears and enjoy our snack and a play in the park. We are so pleased to be able to offer these great experiences to our children.

We have stayed with our pirate theme this week but will be moving onto exercise next week outside.

Our circle times have been fantastic in the Sun and Moon groups and they have made bridges to cross a pretend river and all came up with really individual ideas which is brilliant and really displayed amazing team work. We learnt about our 5 senses and tried lots of exoptic fruits, looking, feeling, tasting, smelling them and listening to the sounds as we cut them up. The children are learning about different countries as well, looking at the foods from around the world and buildings from around the world as well and this work will be going up on a new display in the Moon room.

The Stars have been super busy too with their brilliant circle times learning about sinking and floating, becoming more independant and pouring their own drinks and learning the differences between letters/numbers and drawings. They have also played lots of listening games – matching musical instrument sounds and playing musical statues and bumps together, they finish the week exploring music from around the world and different dancing.

Next week we have a focus on learning about our town so we would love you to take photos while you are out and about or pictures of your front door and send them into us and we can print them off to share with the children. We will be enjoying exercise in the garden, gym, yoga, activities and dancing and learning about rhyming and numbers as well with some work on our emotions too.

Nigel from Willand Tennis Club will be visiting next week to coach the children – he brings all the equipment with him and they have a lovely time trying a new sport!

Don’t forget the School Starter Information Evening on Monday at pre-school at 6pm! A relaxed hour with a cup of tea or coffee to chat about school and learn more about how to be “school ready”

We have started to celebrate Easter at pre-school with lots of craft and sensory trays and next week we will be cooking as well. Outside we have been playing with water – lots of creative ways to move it and carry it and creating foam and using our gutters and boats and ducks and paddling pools for ponds! We have a real pond in our back garden which has frogs in it so we have been taking inspiration from there and will be making a new pond in the growing garden this year as well and are hoping to find some frogspawn too!

The children have been enjoying story sacks and ring games in the Sun room and have helped me check all the puzzles that we have – organising a box of lost pieces and a box of puzzles that are missing pieces – we managed to put 12 different puzzle pieces back to create a full set!

Our role play has been the babies on the carpet, lots of very kind parents and carers looking after their babies, dressing them and brushing teeth – all a great learning experience while we talk about how to take care of children and how to be healthy.

Our circle times have looked at lots of different jobs together and we have a great list of who would like to be what when they grow up – one little girl would like Mandy’s job! The children have learnt about taking care of pigs, talked about journeys to pre-school and routes and road names, healthy eating has also featured in circle time, learning about treats and healthy items. Robot Reg came to visit on Thursday and a small group went to St Andrew’s on Friday afternoon for a lovely school experience. The star group have made houses using shapes, learnt about colour mixing, played hide and seek and What’s the time Mr Wolf, made daffodils and more easter craft as well.

Next week we will be baking and creating and exploring shape and pattern and learning about Easter, making potions, rivers, life cycle work and the weather too!