What a fantastic last week we have had, full of Christmas fun and joy and music and dancing! Today we finish for the Christmas break for two weeks and we are due back Monday 4th January to start the new year 2021! Do keep an eye on your emails just in case of any COVID changes to the opening dates!

The children are certainly looking forward to Christmas and have really enjoyed seeing our Elf Buddy in his curiosity cube and have told us lots of funny stories about what their elves have been up to in their homes – toilet roll around the tree and making a mess and eating all the chocolates!

We have sparkly Christmas playdoh out which smells of cinnamon and we also did two sing-a-longs with St Andrews on Tuesday and Willowbank on Thursday! It was great fun to sing our songs to them and see their faces and recognise old friends! We heard their songs too which were brilliant and we have really missed going out and about to visit the schools so we hope things can return to normal at some point in 2021.

Thank you again for all the lovely cards and gifts that you have given us, we have saved some of the choccies for January as we know they will be needed in that first week!

The sun and moon circle times have been super busy – making Christmas crowns, Christmas tree cards, decorating Christmas jumpers, playing Christmas bingo, they enjoyed a game of pass the parcel which Alison won as it was her birthday and it contained her present from Michelle! We have played party games, coloured in Elf pictures, learnt some Christmas cosmic yoga moves and made a giant gingerbread man picture!

The Stars have also been fully immersed in Christmas! Christmas craft, reindeer faces and party games and Santa says and snowball throwing!

We had a really good key person meeting on Monday and chatted about all the progress the children have made this term and we are really pleased with how everyone is getting along! We will be sharing the progress with you in January and will be working out the best way of doing that – perhaps a virtual parents evening!

We would like to wish you all a really happy, safe and COVID free Christmas and a Happy start to 2021 and we look forward to welcoming you all back to pre-school for a busy and happy Spring Term! Do keep in touch via the main email cullomptonpreschool@gmail.com (This will be checked on New Year’s Eve to plan for our return on the 4th) or via the pre-school mobile 07927057415.

Christmas has started at pre-school! Our post box is up now and waiting for some cards to be posted – we do have lots of children with the same name this year so please try to use the surname if you know it – we have 4 Olivia’s for example!

Decorations are going up, we have made a home corner undercover for role play and we have been wrapping presents and making a fire and food this week. We will be building a Polar Express train next week with a snowy log cabin to play in as well. The children have worked on their own Christmas cards and a present for you all and we are practising our play! We still don’t quite know how it will all work but please bear with us and we will let you know as soon as we can but the important bit to remember is every child will only do a HALF DAY on Thursday 10th December. We will let you know if it is the AM or PM party session.

The week has been busy with lots of craft and exercise, we have had the soft play out again and have been doing “Sticky Kids” which is an excellent movement CD that we love to use. We have played music and danced and learnt our new songs.

The Sun and Moon groups have been working on lots of gross motor skills which has been great fun and really interesting to see how tired the children get with some of the movements. We have worked hard on making matching patterns and repeating patterns together and have played Bingo, practised our writing by making labels and packaging and have also shared our Christmas wish lists! So far children would like – Dragons and Unicorns, a new tractor, a hot tub, puppy, jet, orange bike, Bumble bee game and toy, a red nerf gun and red car, a toy puppy with a lead, a wand, a dolls house and lots would like a skateboard too!

The Star group have enjoyed pretend tea parties, practising their pouring skills and danced around expressing themselves and learning about feelings. The have learnt the new Christmas songs and worked on their understanding too of “what” and “where” and “why” questions.

Home learning wise we would love it if you could make some Christmas craft or decorations for us and send them in with your child for us to display – we would also love to see photos of you out on a walk or spotting numbers at the shops! We would love to hear what your favourite Christmas movie is and teach your child how to do some wrapping up to support good co-ordination. Also may be start to have a go at writing their name in a Christmas card – copying letters and cutting up old cards to make labels for parcels this year.

We hope you have a lovely weekend and see you all next week.

We have opened a jewellery and hat and bag shop this week which has been very busy indeed! We have made watches, the children have loved playing with the real jewellery and making pasta necklaces too! Shop play is a brilliant way to introduce lots of learning – numbers, writing, chatting, vocabulary, making friends, fine motor skills threading, helping to tidy away, counting money and using the tills and turn taking. Next week we are going to enjoy theatre role play – lots of dressing up and music and songs and movies and soundtracks and developing our imaginative play!

Ideas to help the learning at home – please let us know your child’s favourite film and songs from the radio, encourage them to dress themselves, lots of counting at home please and recognising numbers, look for numbers on shop receipts and prices in the shops while you are out. Look at the changes in nature, talk about the differences in items – colours and sizes of plates or bottles in the bathroom – help your child notice the world around them!

Our circle times have been brilliant this week, the Star room have been sorting away, pom poms into colour order, identifying action words to support understanding skills, lots of practical catching, throwing, kicking balls and matching numbers as well.

The Moon group have worked really hard on recognising numbers, and then matching numerals to quantity counting lots and playing fun games like car bingo and matching padlocks! They have also learnt about Autumn and the differences in the leaves, using colours to represent the changes and we have been checking their understanding too – can they follow two part instructions.

The Sun group have enjoyed similar activities, number bingo and car bingo, feeding Penn the Penguin fish, counting out how many to give her and  have also loved lots of action games – rolling, pushing, balancing, throwing, catching and skittles and egg and spoon races!

Forest School has been great this week even though sadly we were not able to welcome Rachel back fore the last sessions due to the new lockdown. We were due to have a full day, enjoying the environment here and cooking sausages before heading out for a walk to the leat but none of this could happen. The team have absolutely given the children a wonderful experience over the last 6 weeks and finished today by making wonderful stick men and bird feeders together.

We have all enjoyed bonfire craft and watching fireworks on the ipad, sad to miss a bonfire night this year but we all hope to stay safe and healthy through the lockdown period ready for some Christmas fun. Thank you all for wearing masks and following all the new guidance, we do all we can to keep safe and to stay open as we know how important that it for the whole family. Enjoy your weekends.