We have continued with our space theme this week and have expanded our space control command centre in the garden and made our own moon buggy after learning about the International Space Station last week and lunar landings. We have supported the role play with …
Welcome back after the half term break – we hope you all had a happy and healthy week off. We are back into preschool life – full of Bonfire Night chat, stories from home and learning about space. We use the themes or subject as …
This is our last week before we all have a week off for Half Term and we have had a lovely time surrounded by pumpkins and dressing up and face paint and autumnal trays with all of the items that you have been collecting for us!
We have had a focus on being safe this week during our circle times and we have covered lots of different topics.
The Star group have talked about being safe outside at preschool, being safe walking along the roads, talked about traffic lights, emergency vehicles and how our family keeps us safe and how other people keep us safe too. They have also had a circle time about safety at Forest School ready for when they have their turn outside in the Spring Term.
The Sun and Moon children have learnt about the new “I need help” triangles which have appeared around pre-school these are laminated triangles with the word “I need help” and the room on them which can be taken to any staff member in the case of an accident or one of the ladies needing help. It has been a brilliant start to discussions about being safe at pre-school. We talked about the importance of coming in when the bell rings too. The older children have practised crossing a pretend road, revisited the rules here and talked about fire alarm practices, learnt a lot about people who help us and their jobs and sorting pictures of safe/unsafe activities like how to carry scissors properly, not climbing up the slide and touching plugs and cookers etc.
Alfie came again on Monday for a football session and we hope to book him in for a couple more if the weather is nice after the half term.
Outside we have had a communication friendly space – a nice seating area where there is always a teacher there to talk and chat and support speech and language work and it has been very popular!
We have also played with potions and cauldrons and had a good tidy up of the garden ready for the half term break.
We have made lots of pumpkin craft and created packets of seeds for the children to plant at home.
Forest School have continued to develop their tool skills – another area to learn about how to stay safe and have made lovely little wooden discs and chosen their pretty ribbons for them. The sessions this week have had a little Halloween treasure hunt and as I type I can hear them searching for the pumpkin! We will soon smell the lovely wood smoke drifting towards the office window too – such a wonderful experience for the children and one we are really proud of.
We hope you all have a wonderful, happy and healthy half term and enjoy any Halloween celebrations and we look forward to welcoming you all back after the break.
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 …