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. We have posted lots of photos of the activities from our week on facebook and we will be collecting consent forms so that we can share group photos from our session on our Tapestry news feed.

We have been mark making outside, chalk on the stones, painting the fence, large scale painting on long rolls of paper using big and small brushes and mud painting.

Our circle times have been Disney themed as well and we pop lots of learning opportunities into our planning so that the children make progress but within themes and activities that they find really exciting and fun.

The Sun and Moon group have learnt some new games – Frozen Tag, Hulk Hero mission and What’s the time Woody!, they have also talked about favourite films, created their own superhero’s, make Rapunzel plaits with salt dough, spotted and glued down missing pieces from Rapunzel pictures, lots of colouring, Disney Bingo and Frozen I Spy, built Disney houses and made Mickey Mouse biscuits.

The Star group has played a Disney dance and freeze game, done some pom pom painting for Mickey mouse, made king and queen crowns, built towers for Rapunzel and made Disney “Up” balloon pictures. The star circle is quite short while we work on building up concentration and learning the routines and then we go into our snack time before going outside.

Next week we will carry on our Disney wonderland with more dressing up, a Disney cafe outside with fairground games in the garden.

Inside we will be playing some maths games to inform where the children are with those skills so that we can work on areas together, we will also be having Story Sacks out which are bags full of props for each story which really helps with listening and attention skills. We have added in some construction on the carpet as well as this is an area that the children are showing a real interest in.

We would love donations of the following items to help with our planning as we are a charity and funds are tight! Food colouring, pots of dried herbs and cinnamon and ground ginger please. Thank you!

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 for more than half their life – with one child having attended for 8 terms! We are so grateful for all your support over the year and your kind words and cards and gifts, we absolutely love our job and we know that we have created a really special environment here where children thrive and are safe and happy, learning and have lots of fun before heading off to school.

We had a teddy bears picnic in our back garden this week, enjoying the time searching for the bears and talking about their names and singing and having our snack outside.

The week has been full of fun and repeating favourite circle times, playing games, having the bikes out and letting the children lead with their own play.

We have had two special Forest School Sessions with all of the sun and moon children and Sophie has led them beautifully, with Jackie returning for the Friday session which is wonderful! Lots of creating and exploring and beautiful nature crowns and lovely photos to celebrate the end of their time in our back garden.

I would like to share my thanks to all of my team here, through any tough times in their lives they persevere, come to work and leave any worries at the door – supported by each other, we bring enthusiasm and joy and fun and humour to our days, making the pre-school such a special place for the children to be.

We wish you all a very happy and sunny summer holiday and we will be open on September 5th 2024 to welcome old and new friends for another fun year ahead.

Our Costa coffee shop has been open for another week and we have seen lots of wonderful role play there, supported by the ladies extending and helping the children learn and play with real imagination.

Our Costa has now been attached to an airport and we have been travelling across the UK and the world in the sun room during free flow – again brilliant role play and language and imagination and we have a plane, boarding passes, tickets to Longleat and Butlins, air plane windows, posters of places to visit, holiday brochures, suitcases and bags and a scanner!

We will be having a tidy up today and packing the coffee shop away ready to play with next year and to make sure the pre-school is tidy for our fete tomorrow! 11.30am – 2pm and the sun is going to shine we think!

Our circle time theme this week has been change and growth. There is a lot of change coming for the Sun and Moon children as they prepare to move up to primary school and for the Stars as they move to the Sun and Moon groups. The activities have been fantastic again this week, lots of brilliant work, chat, drawing and writing from the children.

The Star group have learnt about animals and their young, looked at their baby photos and their pictures that we took at the beginning of the year in Star and then learnt about which groups they are moving to in September, looked at their special books, talked about seasons and the stages of the year and of how we grow and have been amazed by how the beans we have planted have grown too!

The Sun and Moon children have learnt about differences between babies to children to adults, talked about what they can and can’t do yet and how to achieve new skills like riding a bike. The children have also used their baby photos and compared them to their circle photos taken last September and organised the photos into piles for which school they are going to which has really helped them to visualise who they will move with. They have tried on uniform and looked at the school photos that we have, learnt about animals and their young.

Forest School this week is for the Moon group on a Thursday and Sun on a Friday and the Thursday Moons had an idyllic tie out in the back garden with Sophie and Eva, the garden is looking beautiful for the Forest School and the Fete – thanks to Ray (married to Claire!)

Next week we will be looking at any last gaps to help the children with and we will be creating a wonderful jungle display for the graduation celebration along with learning about being independent, we have a football coach coming to give us two sessions and we have the new children coming in for their session visits. Have a lovely weekend and hope to see you all at our Summer Fete.