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 …
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 …
The week has flown past and we have had a really lovely time! Thank you goes to Costa Cullompton who via social media donated a brilliant set of resources for our role play – thank you very much. The photos of the mini barista’s here are very sweet and the role play area has grown using lots of the children’s ideas.
We have continued with our brilliant Fairy Tale theme and we have loads of amazing creations across pre-school. There is a full scale growing operation in action, lots of magic beans being planted, pretend beanstalks have been made, lots of play and acting out the fairy tales we have been reading and pink noses and pig craft! The children have been really imaginative and excited by repeating the stories and have really learnt them well and can re-tell them perfectly with lots of enthusiasm.
Circle times :-
Star – have read Jack and the Beanstalk again and the 3 Little Pigs. They have counted out magic beans, practiced their understanding of prepositions by placing magic beans, read Goldilocks and looks at the sizes of the bears and counted bricks to match the height. They acted out the story and learnt a new song, sequenced the story and made little pig faces, planted beans and build bridges for the Billy Goats Gruff! What a week full of learning!
Sun and Moon – Lots of similar activities as above but with added maths and literacy and more complicated work to stretch them and to ensure progress. These two groups have also planted magic beans – in pots and in zip lock bags on the window! Designed castles, sorted items from different fairy tales, build houses for the little pigs and bridges to help the gingerbread man escape! They have ordered beanstalks in size order and drawn Jack, used a hair dryer to blow lots of different materials across the room to see what would be the strongest for a house. Painting and craft and sings and more stories all add up to a very busy week and it has been a really connecting theme across pre-school.
Outside we have also been singing along and using instruments outside and dancing away.
On the sun table we have been baking and cooking (all vegan recipes which are suitable for all the allergies here too) and making smoothies.
The Forest School sessions have been fantastic with Sophie and they children explored the wind on Thursday and Friday.
Next week we will start to talk about school and moving groups – we will be looking at uniforms and photos of the teachers. We know some of the children have had home visits this week and there are stay and play sessions at Willowbank and we are taking a group to St. Andrew’s too. We will be sharing the transition documents with you over the coming week and then finishing the special learning journey for you to keep when your child leaves us.
We hope you all have a lovely weekend
Welcome back to the last half term of the year, we can’t believe how quickly the year has gone and before long we will be busy meeting our new children at their session visits and then saying goodbye to all our friends who are off …