We have wrapped up warm this week while playing outside in our wonderful sleigh and gingerbread house! We did hope for some snow flurries on Thursday but sadly nothing appeared from the cloudy sky!

Forest School sessions began inside for a while for the craft activity (amazing little owls!) and then moved outside to enjoy the fire and snack time and the garden.

Robot Reg has been to visit for his last session this term – he is such a huge hit with the children and he will be back in the summer term for a new set of sessions, we will hope to be able to afford 6 sessions in the summer so let’s fundraise as much as we can over the year!

Preparations are underway for our performance on the 12th December and all families should have the final information – you are welcome to bring grandparents along with you to the Church and we look forward to welcoming you all.

We have been decorating the trees in each room with the children and very kindly we have received a big donation of decorations with a wonderful light up little town and lots of individual donations from parents too – a big thank you!

We hope that you have all enjoyed your parent consultations and looking at the learning journeys, they will fill up over the year ahead and become treasured memories we hope for you and your family. We feel we know the children really well after this first term and have great ideas of where to go next with their learning, with your information from home and next steps handed out we have lots of new plans for January already!

The learning focus has been maths this week and lots of the circle times have given us some great observations. The children are making good progress in this area and we will revisit this in January.

Star group – working hard on patterns and matching patterns, counting dots and singing number songs, they have made some lovely Christmas trees counting out the pom poms and enjoyed singing number songs and using shapes to make Christmas trees too.

The Sun and Moon group have been learning about recognising numbers, matching numerals to quantity and counting out the right number of items for each numeral. We have learnt about 2D and 3D shapes and made tally charts, matched and organised and counted Christmas decorations and played a Christmas sound matching game.

Our free flow Christmas post office has been full on children mark making and talking all week and we have been persevering to complete Christmas puzzles and now it is the 1st December the Christmas tunes have started!

Next week we are going to be setting up lots of Christmas craft for the children to make to bring home and Christmas stories in our cosy gingerbread house and wrapping station. The sun room will have Christmas cooking activities and gingerbread playdoh too.

Our week has been full of space and planets and our solar system and the children have soaked up so much knowledge and have been fascinated by the theme. It is wonderful to see them all totally engaged in so many different ways by our teachers here. More detail on the circle times further along in my blog but a favourite moment from the week “I will be an astronaut when I am bigger but I will stay inside my rocket, I won’t do a space walk like Tim Peake, I don’t want aliens to get me!” – wonderful language and a lovely thought process, it made me smile a lot that our teaching and learning has inspired this.

We will be tidying up the rocket and the space station today and may revisit that again later in the year as it was a really popular topic and so easy to add in new vocabulary, physical development, counting, colour, stories and create awe for the world and what is around us.

Forest School has started again and this half term the Moons are out in our forest school on a Thursday and the Sun group on a Friday. They have been lighting the fire, enjoying hot chocolate and using the tools this week – the photos are wonderful.

We have also welcomed back our friend Robot Reg! He visits every Thursday and Friday afternoon to see the Sun and Moon groups and helps us to teach letter sounds to the children, he comes with his helper Rebecca and makes the children dance and laugh and learn. He is very popular indeed!

Our circle times have been focused on space with lots of added extra learning –

Star group – have chatted about the moon and stars and practised their pen grip, they have made moons and rockets – helps to learn about shape and creativity, they have learnt about where different animals live on our planet, enjoyed space rocket dancing and watched Tim Peake launch into space and then loved stamping on our rocket launcher to send their own rockets into space.

Sun and Moon – started the week learning Andrea’s planet and solar system song, they have created planets using chalk looking carefully at colour and learning facts about each planet and choosing their favourite. The groups have also made rockets using shapes, made craters using flour and big pebbles, and chosen a planet each and moved around the sun to replicate the solar system’s movement. Lots of facts and communication and sharing of ideas. We finished the week making a poppy wreath to thank those who keep us safe and to remember Mandy’s husband Bill who sadly passed away recently – he was in the RAF and we will be laying the wreath we made at the Memorial in Cullompton on Sunday if anyone would like to support that.

Next week we have a shift to a new set of planning and our theme for the week will be literacy, we will be reading, enjoying story sacks, choosing books, creating a cosy book area outside in our hut and encouraging all children to take time to sit and listen to a lovely story.

We have started Disco Thursday! It was a great success last year and we would love to hear what favourite songs get your child moving! Follow us on facebook and comment on the post to let us know what to add to our playlist.

In line with this and to build confidence ahead of our Christmas performance we will have a theatre week – lots of dressing up and dancing and moving and singing.

Next Friday is Children in Need – we will be dressing up in SPOTS – if you have something spotty please send your child in wearing it over the whole week and please if you can, make a donation into our box in reception. We will be spotty on FRIDAY.

This half term has gone so quickly – only one week left before we close for a week. The children are so settled and learning so much at their group times. We have had a focus on being healthy this week which will continue into next week as well, leading up to our half term break. Halloween will creep into our play next week and we will have lots of craft going on which we will send home for you to use to decorate your home if you take part in Halloween! Lots of the children are talking about Halloween and Home Bargains is full of bits and pieces to buy!

Our circle times in Star have been focused on learning to be independent and recognising our bags and shoes and coats, practising taking shoes on and off and the stars are amazing! They chopped up their own snack and poured their own mil and water, talked about how to keep clean and washing hands, brushing teeth and hair and also enjoyed some wonderful Autumn craft as well.

The Sun and Moon groups have also been working on independence and self care skills and can all take their shoes off and put them back on independently which is brilliant – especially as we move towards wetted weather when the children need to be able to take off their shoes, put wellies on and be ready to go and play outside in the puddles! They have been learning about their bodies, bones and muscles, skin and our brain, feelings and exercise, self care and healthy foods.

Outside we have been working on our strength buy crawling and playing sports and playground games like What’s the time Mr Wolf! Our bike repair and wash shop has also been full of chatter and turn taking and hard work!

Our Forest School groups have made wands outside in the garden and explored the mud kitchen and lit fires and have their lovely hot chocolate and story time. We continue these sessions whatever the weather and the groups swap after half term – MOON on a THURSDAY and SUN on a FRIDAY.

We would like to invite Grandparents in for a coffee morning on Monday 30th October OR Wednesday 1st November – from  9.45-10.45 – we will have some Halloween and Bonfire Night craft available and a coffee or tea and a cake! The invitation will come out today and please RSVP by Wednesday 18 OCTOBER to admin@cullomptonpreschool.org

Next week we will be off to the Church with two groups – Moon on Thursday with Amelia and the Sun group on Friday with Louise W. We would love your help to walk there and stay with us for the hour – it is a lovely trip and we do need walkers to make it possible – please call into the office if you or a grandparent can help – 01884 35018

We hope you all have a lovely weekend, our newsletter was published yesterday and we will be handing out more key worker info next week for you and some photos from the first half of term!