We had a really enjoyable week keeping warm outside with brilliant obstacle courses which supported good balance and some risk as well. The children planted some bulbs which we will look forward to seeing those flower in the Spring and we are working on our growing garden and our sensory garden over the coming weeks as well.

Our focus has been maths – but in so many fun ways, we have learnt about size and shapes and numbers and counting and Maths is part of so many areas in our lives and the children are doing brilliantly and making really good progress. We will be handing out home learning ideas over the coming week based on the areas of learning that you can support your child with, this will really help with progress so please let us know how you get on and then we can plan for the next step in their learning here at pre-school and at home.

Forest School was half inside and half outside this week given the below freezing temperatures and the children learnt to use the saw safely and enjoyed their hot chocolate around the fire, keeping warm. Lots of ice to find and explore and smash!

Our circles were based on planning for maths development, shape work, shape recognition, number games and learning about routines and a little reminder of some of our rules!

Our Sun room was a lovely dressing up zone, we are working on developing independence with getting dressed which is another area that you can support at home, encouraging children to put their own coats on and zipping them up would be brilliant and a very important skill needed for school. We also had lots of technology out this week, the children loved the old phones and cameras and the old computer bits and pieces.

We also used our sun table to learn about different animals that the children chose from looking at non-fiction books. We learnt lots of facts about stick insects, pandas, penguins, skunks and wombats among others! This type of activity is a lovely way to support learning, lots of chat and using books and the ipad, watching a video, drawing a picture, watch us writing and having a go themselves, colour and pattern and environment and food and so many other areas of vocabulary.

Next week we will be tidying the garden and moving some things around to refresh it with the children and asking them what they would like to add into the mud kitchen. Inside we are going to learn about dinosaurs next week, and create some dinosaur craft. Pretend baking in a tray and some dinosaur safari role play in the Sun room.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas!

We have had a very quiet week with so much illness around us, we really hope that those children and staff who have been unwell are on the mend and it really does sound like a terrible and very contagious sickness/flu bug. By Friday we only had two staff available to work so we are very sorry for closing the Star group on the Friday but had no other available option to us.

The children were absolutely wonderful at our two Christmas performances and we were thrilled to have such lovely emails and comments from you, it means the world to us and we are also very grateful for all the cards and gifts and boxes of chocolates (all stored ready for the January term!!).

The am and pm parties were great fun and the photos from each party are on the parent gallery now.

Have a lovely break and we return on TUESDAY 2nd January 2024!

Christmas has arrived at pre-school! We love this time of year and making the pre-school feel festive and exciting and full of wonder and joy. We have a beautiful Arctic book nook outside, filled with blankets and cushions and winter themed books and stories and it has been a lovely addition, time to sit and talk and read and people watch! We have a list there to see which children use the book nook a lot and which children we need to encourage into it to enjoy a book so that we have time to chat about the story, test understanding and knowledge and work out next steps for literacy. It is working really well and it is a lovely place to talk and watch what is going on in the garden and is really giving children who like a quiet space time to be relaxed and learn.

Our Santa Sleigh is in progress and can seat 27 children! The term will race past now and we are really looking forward to our Christmas Performance on the 12th December. There is some more info on the noticeboard in reception but we will be at the Cullompton Community Centre all day so the pre-school gates and building will be closed all day. Drop off to the Centre and please call the mobile on the day for any absences.

We have enjoyed our focus on literacy this week and the children have made huge progress and really are able to recognise the initial letter and sounds at the beginning of their name and start to write the letter too! We have been thrilled with how well they have engaged and learnt this week and with the brilliant attention and listening skills we are going to work on some Maths next week to see where they all are and where we can start with planning their next areas of learning. The curriculum we have is so fun and exciting with so much to cover over our year in a sequence so observations of the children are really important and we are lucky to be a free flow setting and all staff can observe all children.

Circle times

Star – we have all had a focus on early literacy so lots of stories and the beginnings of talking about letter sounds and seeing the difference between words and pictures, letters and numbers and rhythm and rhyme.

Sun and Moon – Name hunts, recognising letters, reading stories with story sacks, opening a letter from Pudsey and reading what was inside, finding and saying letter sounds and another brilliant visit from Robot Reg.

We are practising our Christmas Songs now so here are two for you to practice at home!

Twinkle Twinkle Christmas lights

Lighting up December nights

Red and Yellow, orange and blue

Making such a lovely view

Twinkly twinkle Christmas lights

Lighting up December nights

Donkey Donkey don’t you stop

Just let your feet go clippety clop

Your tail goes swish and you say eyore

We are nearly at the stable door

We look forward to our last half of this half term – finishing on the 15th December and back on the 2nd January.