We have gone animal mad this week and we have created our own jungle in the Sun room! It is very atmospheric and the children have really loved playing “Longleat” and we even had photos of a monkey on a family’s car to share! The ladies have built safari cars and binoculars and set up a ticket office with laptops and leaflets from Longleat too. Alongside the safari park we have also learnt about sheep and cows and created animal fact sheets, we have made hungry caterpillar necklaces and Elmer craft with beautiful rainbow tissue paper.

Our Farm shop has been very busy undercover and the children have enjoyed the role play and have been carrying lots of shopping around the garden and the tills and play money are very popular – helping us to teach the language of money, look at the shapes of the coins and the numbers on them, matching them to the numbers on the tills.

The mud kitchen has been so busy this week with some wonderful herbs and petals, oats and out of date cereals to add into the mud pies.

We carry the theme of the week into our circle times as well and the Star group have danced and sung away to the Animal Boogie, they have made elephant footprints, taken part in animal yoga, made snakes for our display and paper plate chicks too.

The Sun and Moon group have learnt about turtles and parrots – we have had some fantastic feedback on our circle times during our parent consultations as the children do go home and chatter about what they have learnt which is so lovely for us! The group have made rainmakers to use in our pretend rain forest and really explored animal patterns and played a matching game on the laptop. The group have been really creative this week and are really learning to take their time and persevere and enjoy the process of making something rather than rushing back to free flow time. Robot Reg came last week but on Thursday the session was a literacy session with Michelle and the children were amazing, we can really measure the progress they are making.

We also had a lovely walk to the Walronds on Thursday afternoon with the Sun group – they explored the gardens there and we did the Willow trail which they loved! Lots of photos on the blog – we were hoping to take the Moon group on Friday afternoon but the weather is against us and we would have some very soggy children, we will rearrange the trip for another afternoon for them when the weather is brighter.

Next week we are continuing with our farm shop and creating a cafe as well – we would love donations of herbal tea bags, and any old metal tea pots, large or small to help us have enough for everyone to be pouring out the lovely fragrant tea for their customers! We will be concentrating on mark making and maths inside, and using the jungle for role play as well.

A wonderful week of dressing up! We have been promoting independence and supporting the children to learn to get dressed in the outfits and then take them off and pack them away, we have had princesses and princes and police and firemen and lots of fantastic role play outside with the ladies here making handcuffs, fire and flames and singing a lot of “Let it go”! The amp has been out for music which the children really love and it really makes us smile to see such brilliant dance moves!

Next week we will also be dressing up again as we have a week of partying for the Santa Domingo carnival and will be face painting and decorating masks and enjoying a party atmosphere. We will be dressing up in pink or red or wearing hearts on Monday for Valentines Day for a bit of fun too!

Our circle times have had a focus on the Winter Olympics this week in Sun and Moon and it has been great fun watching video’s of ski jumping and ski racing and the wonderful Bolero from the 1984 Olympics! The children loved the skeleton and the bobsleigh as well, joining in enthusiastically with our action games. We have talked about who we love and why, made some valentines cards, talked about being friendly/unfriendly and had a great time in our “Disney Dancing” circle time, I had a good explanation from a few children about why we can’t talk about “Bruno!” and another excellent explanation from a Mum when I asked her! We danced and sang to Moana, Frozen and the Greatest Showman, lots of smiles and laughter from children and ladies.

The Star circle has had a focus on numbers, counting and matching numbers, matching patterns on socks, printing selfie pictures and trying curling and exploring tunnels and music and stories.

We have a two ladies here who you may not have met properly called Claire and Jade, they have joined us over the last few weeks and are settled in now. Jade had children who came to the pre-school and Claire has recently moved to the area and has lots of experience in a school in Kuwait. Both are enjoying our lovely setting, having fun and are popular with the children. We will be taking their photo’s soon for the staff board so that your child can point them out to you.

Our Sun table has been a hub of learning, the topics we have covered are wide ranging – we learnt how to make….bread, crisps, chocolate, clothes, pasta, action figures, how Dinosaurs are made and toy cars.

Our continuous provision has been the mud kitchen, pull of mud pies, mud milkshakes and spices and herbs – next week we will be playing with water and ice.

Our growing garden is coming back to life with our crocus bulbs in flower and our daffodils coming up too. We have had a nice tidy and repotted some bulbs into hanging baskets which the children chose to hang in the tree.

We will be learning about music from around the world next week and playing musical games too.

We have loved the sunshine this week and exploring the ice that we discover on the grass and in the trays we leave out! Our planning has been based on proprioception work outside – this is the sense of our body in space and self-movement, this will help with body posture and movement skills. We have some new equipment that was bought from the £1200 book sales money from Tesco and the children love a new piece of equipment!! Lots of challenge and climbing and obstacle courses which are brilliant for exercise and co-ordination.

We have also had a visitor this week – Robot Reg! He is back and will be visiting for 6 sessions over this term – he is coming on a Thursday at the moment and we hope to book him again with his helper Rebecca for the Friday group in the summer term. It is great to hear the music and the laughter as the children learn letter sounds with them.

Thank you to everyone who donated compost, raspberry canes and seeds and pots for us, we have been enjoying making pots of cress to make cress heads and we will be having a tidy up in the garden ready for Spring too. Our bulbs that we planted in the Autumn are starting to come through now which is exciting.

The free flow time has been a lovely busy week and the children have loved mixing and baking and scrubbing the veggies and the fried egg tray and the pretend pancake tray too! We certainly have some contenders for Junior Bake Off in the future!!

Circles have been brilliant, lots of happy children competing to take the most steps and compare their pedometer scores! Shape work, exercise with stretchy bands to explore our arm muscles and learning to throw and catch tennis balls, working together and giving each other lots of praise and encouragement. The Sun and Moons have also worked on their literacy skills – enjoying a story sack and then re-telling the story, learnt letter sounds in their names and welcomed Robot Reg!

The Star group have built towers, enjoyed large scale painting, learnt about feelings, played hide and seek in the back garden and explored instruments too.

The Forest School groups enjoyed some chilly sunshine in the back garden, lighting the fire, having hot chocolate, making their own “walk the plank” games and the photos are wonderful on the blog. The children had an assault course as well with a sea saw and a badger tunnel and they have made a giant bug hotel together too.

Next week we will carry on with exercise in the garden to keep warm and get strong! Our new monkey bars are here which will provide a great challenge and will be used under supervision only. We will be mark making inside and learning about colour – linking that to our overall theme of nature and we look forward to another fun and busy week!