We have had a focus on healthy habits this week and this will continue into next week as well and the children have really loved our farm shop outside. We managed to buy some of the wonderful wooden grocery sets from Aldi and these have …
Our theme this week has been exploring Autumn and learning about where our food comes from and cooking and baking and creating and tasting! Outside we have been working on our physical development with good balance needed for the obstacle courses we have been building …
Our pre-school has been full of awe and wonder this week – we love to inspire the children and create really exciting experiences for them during their time with us. The group leaders plan their circle times to support learning and discovery and build skills needed for school and the children have been amazing this week. Some fantastic turn taking and waiting, lots of brilliant chat about the items and activities.
We welcomed Alfie on Monday morning from the Football Fun Factory and he ran two brilliant football sessions for our Sun and Moon children and he was super impressed with them –
“This morning I had such a great time with your little superstars and I was very impressed with their listening, engagement and effort. A big well done to them all! Also a big thank you to you, Amelia and all of your team for making me feel so welcome. I can’t wait to come back next week.”
Sun and Moon – have learnt about gravity and the moon, holding a light up moon model and looking through the telescope, they have made rain clouds in a jar, investigated technology, make fairy foam with an electric whisk and mixed colours, they loved the plasma ball and light up astronaut, making fizzy water with the soda stream and puff paint in a microwave and little caterpillars from tissue! What an imaginative and wonderful set of circle times.
Star – the younger children have also had a fun filled week of circles – exploring technology with phones and cameras, using the electric whisk for making fairy foam, rain clouds in a jar, exploring nature using conkers, magnets and volcanoes!
During free flow we have been supporting creativity this week with a lovely collage tray available and lots of glue! Puzzles out in the morning and an animal rescue in Andrea’s tray!
On our sun table we have had a maths theme with a focus on shape this week – some wonderful activities have been very popular – making shape rockets and other pictures, making a monster shape game, sorting shapes, drawing shapes on chalk boards and in foam.
The photos from the week are so lovely to look through – a happy week in some lovely sunshine outside!
Forest School has been a delight and the children have loved being in the back garden, enjoying the different style of learning – have a look at Tapestry for some photos of the Moon group last Friday.
Thank you to all the families and staff who joined our AGM on Monday – we are pleased to welcome some new committee members and will be working on new fundraising events with Naomi Cook – the Fundraising Lead
We would love some donations to support our planning next week please – we are a charity so money is very tight!
Items we would like:- frozen fruit, fresh lemons, limes, oranges, grapefruits, pumpkins, plain flour, cake sprinkles – thank you!
Our planning next week is for food exploration on the sun table, baking and cooking, learning about Autumn and Harvest time and we will be going to the Church on a trip on Thursday and Friday am. Outside we are working on our physical development and we will be making potions in our mud kitchen!
All of the children are settling in so well, moving through the third week has been getting easier for those who feel a little upset at drop off as the routines are becoming familiar, names are being learnt and friendships made with peers and relationships …
We have had a wonderful week creating our own Disney land! Lots of dressing up, chatter, singing and dancing, games and crafts and our own Disney castle outside in our garden. The children have really enjoyed talking to us about their favourite films and characters. …
What a wonderful week we have had! There have been some fantastic moments with happy children, busy in the garden – lots of water play and themed colour mud kitchens, making new friends, creating collage work, learning about colour and our routines. Some harder moments for some parents with children being upset but that is all part of the settling in process and we are always happy for you to ring the office to ask how your little one is doing. We can give you lots of individual news when you ring as Mandy and Sarah always come and ask for feedback for you. We will always tell the truth about how your child is doing and we are really pleased to be able to say that they have settled down and have stopped crying and are relaxed enough to be taking part in a circle time or eating snack or moving and exploring and playing during free flow. Those tough moments for you are so hard but it is very short lived once you have gone we promise. Hopefully looking through the photos on the blog will reassure those of you who are worried and provide joy for all parents to see their child happy and engaged and busy in all we have to offer. The teachers here are extremely experienced, caring and nurturing and all children will make fantastic progress with us emotionally and developmentally and we are thrilled with our new cohort and how well our old Stars have settled into their new sun and moon groups. The children listen well, they are kind and enjoy playing and exploring so we can see a lovely year ahead.
We have been teaching the children our names and learning each others names, talking about the groups and which sound belongs to each group (Stars have a shaker to call them for circle time, Moons have a tambourine and the Sun’s have a triangle), we have talked about the routine of the day, how to be kind, how to unpack your lunch and tidy up afterwards and we are so impressed with how quickly the children have learnt the flow of our day!
We are getting to know all of the new children and will start work on their learning journey’s over the next couple of weeks, some info will come to you on email and we all write observations on all of the children so the team here get to know every child really well and the children usually end up having at least two favourite ladies so if their key person isn’t in they are still secure and happy!
Our Breakfast and After School clubs are available on a Wednesday and Thursday 8.05-9.05am and 3.05-4.35pm you can book in by emailing the office on admin@cullomptonpreschool.org and you can use it as a drop in session or book for a half term at a time. The cost is £6.75 per hour, you can book full hours or half hours and if the need increases we can review opening on more days.
We look forward to welcoming the children back next week, and we will be creating our own Disneyland at pre-school – if you have any memories from trips to Disney we would love to have them on email – photos or pictures of tickets etc. We will also be exercising outside, painting in the Sun room, mark making on a large scale outside and playing with our lovely small world toys and loose parts collection too. Have a lovely weekend!
We have started our Autumn Term! The doors opened on Thursday and we welcomed back lots of friends and enjoyed seeing our new friends again – it has seemed a long time since the session visits but we had lots of smiles and a lovely …
Our last week has arrived and we have our two celebrations of the children’s time with us with our graduations on Thursday and Friday afternoons. It is a special time and an emotional time saying goodbye to the children, some of whom have been here …
Another exciting week at pre-school as we head towards the end of term, visits from primary school teachers and the lovely Marie from Animals 2 U came on Thursday and Friday mornings for the Sun and Moon groups. She brought some wonderful animals with her and the children were amazing and listened really carefully to her facts about each animal and to her instructions on how to be gentle and touch the animals. We were really proud of our group who all sat beautifully for the sessions. We had chinchillas, a tree frog and bearded dragon, a snake, black tailed gerbils and a giant snail.
We have packed a lot of learning into the last week, our focus been on creating a lovely display ready for our celebrations next week and we have chosen a jungle theme to work alongside our visits from Marie so we have been creating some beautiful artwork in free flow and in our circle times and have had our vet surgery out as well for role play.
Our circles times have been great fun this week as we prepare the children for their transitions.
Star circle have been learning about expressing feelings through drawing and movement and drawing and singing and about sequencing and following instructions and enjoying a fun obstacle course, cheering on friends and understanding that it is hard to lose sometimes and still be pleased for the friends that won.
Sun and Moon circle times have played emotion bingo, feelings charades, looked at lots of our emotions resources too. We have practised our pen grip and worked hard to write names.
We have had the bikes out a lot this week, transporting things around and taking turns with lots of water play.
Next week is another busy week with a Teddy Bears Picnic for the Sun and Moon group and the Stars will have one here so please bring a teddy in, more school visits for parent to take children to and our graduation celebration from 2.30pm on Thursday and Friday.
We will be emptying the baskets next week of all the bits and pieces that are in there for you to take home and a reminder that our last day is Monday 15th July.
First of all a HUGE thank you to all those families who supported our summer fete – it is one of our favourite days of the year and the final total raised will be shared next week once all the bills have been calculated and …