We have finished our first half of the spring term with a week full of partying and carnival fun! We have been face painting, exploring world music, dancing and playing games and enjoying looking at lots of photos of carnivals around the world and in Santa Domingo where one of our children will be moving to in March. We were very envious of the blue skies in the photos as we look out over a very muddy pre-school garden!

We were very sorry to be closed on Friday to keep everyone safe from Storm Eunice but some staff live quite far away and with the advice not to travel we could not risk them coming in and also with the local schools announcing their closures we then did not have enough staff to open either so a mixture of reasons and sadly nothing we could change. We will check the guidance when we return after the half term break about alternative sessions and refunds for those who pay.

The staff will now be enjoying a well earned break from pre-school for half term, it has been a very long half term at 7 weeks and a very enjoyable one and we will be ready to come back full of new ideas and energy for the next half of term. We have lots of trips and visits planned which will be brilliant and our wonderful Forest School will also continue. This was a real highlight of the last week – Sophie and Jackie made a bigger fire than usual and cooked soup which all of the children enjoyed very much and they toasted marshmallows and had a really special morning out in the back garden.

We wish you all a very happy and healthy half term break and look forward to sharing our planning ideas in the next blog.

Winter sunshine and new toys! We have new equipment this week which has been funded by the money from the Tesco book stall and is providing some great challenge in the garden, we are really noticing that lots of the children have really strong legs from all their lockdown walks but arms are not so strong as the parks and soft play areas were closed. It is so fascinating to see the effects of the pandemic on the children but we will be identifying any little areas to work on over the coming months to ensure all of the children are ready for the next stage in their learning.

We will be exploring the wider world over the coming weeks – Chinese New Year, the Winter Olympics and a festival that one of our families celebrate in the Dominican Republic – The Carnival which is celebrated through February into the Holy Week in March. We will also learn about Holi when we come back after half term and our theme of colour will bring it all to life. During these themes we add in all our learning and our over riding aim to to create awe and wonder about the world around us and beyond – we use our ideas to teach the children, to cover all aspects of the areas of learning within each idea and extend and support where needed. Our globe will be on the table next week while we look at different countries, music, food and climates.

We have had a brilliantly colourful week, enjoying so many different activities that have promoted listening skills, turn taking, science, maths, speech, new vocab and processes and individual ideas. There are some lovely pics of the week on facebook, including a mini Forest School album to look at and Andrea’s Story Sack week too. Our learning will focus on adding Maths and Literacy as well for key workers to check their children are on track in these areas and we can share some home learning ideas for you as well.

Circle times this week:-

Sun and Moon groups – have learnt about the natural world locally, compared summer hydranga blooms with the cuttings from a shrub that are now crispy and brown due to winter, we are working hard to learn to draw and use colour, the children have been engrossed in learning their letters and writing their names and learning how to recreate patterns (maths).

Star group – the children have been sorting items by colour, matching brick shapes, enjoyed a number hunt in the back garden and learnt nursery rhymes and played listening games with musical instruments.

We are planning the next few months at the moment, looking at getting out and about in our community so that we can learn about our town and experiences and compare those to other children and families around the world. Please do help with walking with us if you can, we always need extra hands as we like to have a high ratio when we go out on a trip to ensure everyone is safe and can relax and enjoy the outing.

We have had a wonderful first 4 days back at pre-school – the children bounded in with big smiles on Tuesday and were full of stories from home about Christmas and their gifts and happy times! Thank you again from us all for the lovely chocolates and presents and cards we received.

Our hospital role play has been a great success and we have heard some brilliant tales to trips to hospital for the children, their siblings or family – we even have the X-Ray’s from someone’s Grandad’s foot after he fell off some scaffolding – the X-Ray is fascinating because it shows the metal that he now has in his foot. Please do send in any baby scans or X-Rays that you might have! We are continuing to have that role play inside next week alongside an activity table which will focus on being healthy.

Outside we will be enjoying construction role play – lot of large scale building and planning and designing and drawing and transporting to keep the children engaged and develop their imaginative play.

Forest School has started again in our new fantastic shelter – the sun group take part on a Thursday morning and the Moons on a Friday morning, please do wrap them up warmly and we supply the waterproofs.

Circle times are going to be based on Maths and literacy in the sun and moon groups and have a theme of health and wellbeing too. We will also be learning about the change in seasons and learning lots about our garden and what we can grow and where food comes from too.

We spend time developing the children’s independence and have a few riles that we like them to follow – they get lots of praise and stickers when they complete some important tasks – please support us with this at home and encourage the following:-

Hanging their own coat on a peg when they take it off

Putting their own shoes on

Recognising their bag and shoes and coat

Help to tidy up toys

All these things help them at the end of the day when they collect their belongings and come to story time in each room.

Next week we are learning about healthy foods and will be trying new fruits and foods. We would love donations of the following items to help please :-

Raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, cornflour, shave foam, cheese, tinned pineapple and tomato puree!

The Star group have loved their week talking about their favourite TV shows and characters, dancing along to Sticky Kids and exploring treasure baskets and drawing around their hands and using fingers to count.

The Sun and Moon group have had a very varied week, talking about Christmas, drawing their presents, making thank you cards, they have played feelings games, learnt about 3D and 2 D shapes and talked about their experiences of hospitals and the doctors – some really fantastic vocabulary and chatter.