Welcome to our Pre-School blog!

Each week, we hope to share with you some of the learning that has taken place in our busy Pre-School. Maybe you could talk about what the children have been doing at school when you are at home with them?

Friday 26th April 2024

Literacy:

In literacy this week, our story has been Superworm! By Julia Donaldson. This is a wonderful story which the children have really enjoyed listening to! Superworm can fish Spider out of a well, and rescue Toad from a busy road. But who will come to Superworm’s rescue when he’s captured by a wicked Wizard Lizard? Luckily, all of Superworm’s insect friends have a cunning plan! The children had lots of fun joining in the refrain “Superworm is super long; Superworm is super strong! Watch him wriggle, see him squirm, Hip Hip Hooray for Superworm!”

Some of the children have also been developing their fine motor skills by making their own Superworms at the craft table. Lots of the children have been drawing their own minibeasts, using our small world toys as inspiration. I think you can agree we have some super artists in the making!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week, and the children are really getting stuck into our new Olaf dance!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have really enjoyed using lots of props to help our counting as we sing! The song 5 Little Ducks was especially popular, and the children are also learning not to rush as they count objects, which is lovely to see! Their learning even continued into lunch time, when the children enjoyed looking closely to count the number of wings and legs some minibeasts have! Some of our children are also now beginning to draw their own shapes and be able to describe their properties – well done! We have also had fun with lots of counting and sorting activities, as well as making beautiful patterns using shapes, which the children really enjoyed.

As part of our termly theme of Minibeasts, we had a special delivery here at pre-school this week – our very own caterpillars! The children have been very curious after looking at them in their pots, and have thought about what size the caterpillars will grow to! We are also enjoying hearing the children talk about not squashing minibeasts if they see them outside in the garden, showing real care and concern for their environment!

Well done, Pre-Schoolers!

Friday 19th April 2024

Forest School: There is no Forest School this term. It resumes in Term 6!

A warm welcome back to pre-school for what is going to be a fun, exciting and busy term!

Our theme this term is Minibeasts and so we have had lots of wonderful discussions about what Minibeasts are! The children loved naming many of them and we share a fantastic book which told us lots of exciting facts – did you know that some minibeasts fly through the air in a zig zag pattern, whilst others loop the loop!?

Literacy:

We had lots of funs creating our very own collage snails and it lovely to see the growing independence of children being able to access an activity with little help from the grownups! We think they look amazing!

The children are continuing to show a real love of looking at books, which is wonderful to see; often they will find a favourite book and retell the story in their own words.

Similarly, some of the children are enjoying their mark making and are so proud of their amazing creations that they bring home to you! They have also spent a great deal of their time carefully using different tools to model their plasticine – both activities demonstrating their developing fine motor skills!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week. It is lovely to see more children feeling confident to join in and have a go!  We all had lots of fun taking turns to say hello to each other and are now learning a fun new dance to “In Summer” where we dance just like Olaf the snowman from the film Frozen!

Maths:

In our Maths learning, the children have been working super hard to recognise numbers, using a number line to help them. They enjoyed playing a fun helicopter rescue game to practice this and it is fantastic to see their 1:1 correspondence skills developing as they count. They also had fun developing their counting skills by counting the number of spots on ladybirds!

Additionally, they have also had fun creating patterns and building with the polydron and building bricks, as well as developing their 2D shape knowledge creating patterns with different shapes.

It has been lovely to see so many children return their Independence Charts which they completed during the Easter holidays – this a wonderful start in their transition towards big school in September!

So, as you can see, we have returned to pre-school full of energy to carry on our amazing learning! It is sure to be a fabulous term!

Thursday 28th March

Forest School:

There was no Forest School this week due to our egg-citing Easter Singing performance to our parents!

We all had lots of fun singing our Easter songs – The Easter Bunny, 5 Shiny Eggs and Spring Chicken – check out the school Facebook page to hear just how amazing the children were! Additionally, we have also celebrated the last day of term and Easter with a traditional Easter Egg hunt in the garden! With the Easter bunny hiding lots of eggs, the children carefully hunted for their egg, which at the end of the session, Mrs Tuffs exchanged for a real chocolate egg! I think the children’s faces show you how excited they were!

Literacy:

In literacy this week, we have rounded the term off by revising the 5 letter sounds we have learned – S A T P and I.  The children have shown some super listening skills and are keen to show when they also notice these letters around the pre-school – well done!

As there was no Dance lesson this week, the children decided that they would once again love to make use of the fantastic space in the hall to play circle games – Duck Duck Goose being a favourite, along with the hoops and footballs! It was so much fun!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have used lots of language relating to positional language – up, under, behind and next to whilst being outside in the garden! A super fun way of learning!

And so we are at the end of another fun term! We have had a super busy term of learning through play and developing our imaginations – our annual Pirate Day provided the children with the chance to dress up as pirates and be custodians of the Pre-School Treasure! We have also celebrated a wonderful World Book Day, sharing our favourite books with each other, and of course a fantastic Red Nose Day too, all rounded off with our Easter Singing performances. This really was a fun-filled way to finish our term theme of Journeys!

On behalf of all the pre-school team, we wish you and your families a very happy Easter break and we look forward to welcoming you back on Monday 15^th April.

Friday 22nd March 2024

Forest School:

We spent a lovely morning in the Forest School and thankfully the rain stopped this week for us!

The children had lots of fun exploring once again. It was wonderful to see more children challenging themselves to have a walk across the balance beam, which I’m sure to a 4-year-old seems very high up!

Some of the children enjoyed being on the swing and it was here that we noticed the beautiful white blossom that is beginning to appear on some of the trees! A sure sign that spring and warmer weather is coming – we hope! We also found what we think is the world’s smallest ladybird! What do you think?!

Letters and Sounds:

In our letters and sounds this week our new letter sound is the letter I. The children have learned our song associated with this letter, as well as the cued articulation action – maybe they can show this to you and tell you the sound the letter I makes! Some of the children thought very hard and were able to associate the letter I starting the words “Ink” “Igloo” and even “Impressive!”

The children have all worked super hard this week developing their fine motor skills and learning to hold their pencils correctly. They have enjoyed using tracing sheets to complete patterns or the letters of their names, as well as using lots of messy chalk in the garden and we are really thrilled that some children are now writing their names independently!

There was no Dance this week; however, that didn’t stop the children having lots of fun playing with the footballs and hoops in the new school hall! It was lots of fun!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, our younger members have been singing 5 Little Ducks, 5 fat Sausages and 5 Little Snowmen using our fingers to help us. We have also looked carefully at dice and carefully counted the dots on each side.

The older children have enjoyed counting and matching activities; using our bug trays to carefully count out the correct number of bugs as well as sequencing the correct pattern on the pictures! We have also played a fun game on the whiteboard matching the correct shape to go on the shape monster’s mouth, whilst learning about the number of sides a triangle, square and rectangle have.

We have been super lucky with the warmer weather this week and we have really enjoyed being outside in the fresh air more! On Wednesday, we managed to find 12 ladybirds in the garden and the children took such care to look after them and keep them safe, carefully transporting them to our minibeast hotel and making beds of leaves and feathers for them! They also developed their counting skills by counting how many they found and when they found another, calculating what the new total would be! Super maths in action, as well as developing the children’s knowledge and understanding of the world around them!

It has been Stay & Play this week and we have loved welcoming so many of you into pre-school to have a chat with your child’s key person! The feedback we have received has been very positive and we hope you have enjoyed seeing what your child has been doing!

For those of you that have not been able to attend, a copy of your child’s Unique Story will be given to you, and we would be grateful if you could sign and return it, along with any comments or suggestions you have! Our last stay and play session of the academic year will take place in July.

So as you can see, it has been a super busy, fun and energetic week here in pre-school! We hope your child enjoys telling you all about it!

Friday 15^th March 2024

Forest School:

We had a fabulous time in Forest School this week! We made our own binoculars and became explorers – going on a bear hunt of course! As well as that, we noticed lots of different changes on the forest school – the blossom is now appearing on the trees, and we found some wonderful bird feeders children from big school made! We also discovered an empty snail shell and talked about what had happened to the snail!

Literacy:

In literacy this week, our story has been We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. We have enjoyed singing the song to the story and also had lots of lovely conversations about what happens at the end of the story when the bear is pictured alone walking along the beach. Some thought he was sad as he wanted to be friends, some thought he was going shopping, and some thought he wanted a cuddle!

We also continued learning our letter sound for P this week and the children were able to think of lots of words that begin with this letter sound, as well as making the cued articulation action associated with it. Other members of pre-school enjoyed playing a listening game, where they had to try and identify the different sounds that animals make! It was lots of fun and we had some quite varied answers!

We also used our fine motor skills this week, enjoying lots of threading activities as well as completing tracing sheets.

In Dance this week, Miss Georgia provided us with a fabulous lesson where the children learned moves to I like to Move It Move It! We also played a fun listening game where we had to run and stop quickly as well as our favourite Head Shoulders Knees and Toes!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have enjoyed lots of different counting activities! For our younger children, we have sung our favourite counting songs using our fingers to help us. Outside in the garden, we have also enjoyed number hunts where we had to carefully find hidden numbers and be able to tell our grown up what the number was!

We also completed our very own maps, tracing the journey we make through our story Going on a Bear Hunt. The children loved retelling the story as they sequenced the different areas!

The soft play area was lots of fun this week too, with children counting the stepping stones they went across, as well as playing a game where they had to show their grown up 1,2 or 3 balls!

Of course, Friday was Red Nose Day and we enjoyed coming to Pre-School wearing the colour red. We enjoyed creating our very own Red Nose portraits! I think you’ll agree they are fantastic!

Friday 8^th March 2024:

Forest School:

Due to our fantastic World Book Day event, we did not go to Forest School this week.

Literacy:

In literacy this week, our story has been The Journey Home From Grandpa’s.

We have enjoyed joining in the actions to the song and we have had lots of discussions about how we can travel to places – by car, truck, train, bus and even helicopter! When we were outside in the garden, the children also heard some of the sounds of these vehicles in their play! Learning about environmental sounds helps children hone their listening and recognition skills, as they listen for specific sounds around them. These skills will develop in later phases of phonics as they listen to words and pick out the specific sounds within them.

There was no Dance this week, however we still had lots of fun in the big school all playing with the hoops and footballs!

Some of us also continued learning our initial letter sounds this week; the letter being T. Together we learned the Jolly Phonics song for T. as well as learning the cued articulation action for it. We were also able to think of lots of words that begin with this letter sound – well done! Some children noticed the letter T during child-initiated play, carefully observing that letters are all around us!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have enjoyed singing lots of counting songs using our fingers! During our child-initiated play, we have also begun sequencing numbers in the correct order. We have also begun to count and find the correct number using a number line playing a fun game on the interactive whiteboard.

World Book Day!

Here in Pre-School, we all thoroughly enjoyed sharing so many wonderful stories to celebrate World Book Day, It was lovely to see the children arrive in their pyjamas, holding their favourite teddy and book, which they then enjoyed sharing with each other, We were very lucky to have a visit from Adam and Paula, who shared with us all their favourite stories too! The children also enjoyed making their very own bookmark to take home as well as listening to Mrs Tuffs read her favourite story, The Dinosaur who Pooped a Planet, Miss Brown read Monkey Puzzle and Mrs Milham read Stick Man! It was a fantastic World Book Day – we hope you enjoy looking at the pictures!

Friday 1^st March 2024

Forest School:

We had a lovely time back in the Forest School this week and the children who joined us in January also experienced their first visit! We were very impressed that the children had remembered the forest school rules not to run and to remember it is the animals and minibeasts home, not ours, so we don’t pick anything. The children really enjoyed challenging themselves – from climbing trees, walking high across the rope walk or balancing on the tree stumps! Well done pre-schoolers!

Literacy:

We have had a very busy week in our literacy this week! Our story has been The Magic Train Ride, which we all enjoyed singing along to! We have also developed our fine motor skills by carefully tracing over pictures to create our own trains. 

Outside in the garden, the children really enjoyed exploring colour mixing using chalks to create their own masterpieces – we saw some lovely self portraits as well as drawings of the teachers!

Some of us continued learning our initial letter sounds this week; the first letters being S and A. Together we learned the Jolly Phonics songs for them. as well as learning the cued articulation actions for them. We were also able to think of lots of words that begin with this letter sound – well done! Some children noticed the letter S during child-initiated play, carefully observing that letters are all around us!

Dance:

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia taught us a new dance this week to the song “I like to move it, move it!” You can imagine what fun we had and the children have loved singing this during their free play too!

Maths:

Our story of The Magic Train Ride provided us with the opportunity to create our very own trains using 2D shapes; some of us could name the shape and describe it! These will proudly go on our display board! The children also enjoyed exploring shapes during child-initiated play, using shapes appropriately to create houses, pizza, flowers and balls! Finally we had lots of fun playing a game on the interactive whiteboard where we had to choose the correct shape on the shape train to make a repeating pattern, as well as “feeding” the shape monster with the matching shape! This was lots of fun!

So as you can see, we have been super busy this week and had lots of fun!

Friday 23^rd February 2024

A warm welcome back to Term 4 here at Pre-School! We are looking forward to an exciting 5 weeks ahead!

Forest School:

Unfortunately, we were unable to go to Forest School this week due to the bad weather, however we have still had lots of fun exploring in the pre-school garden!

The children have enjoyed looking at some minibeasts they have found – including wriggly worms and tiny ants - and have also been noticing some of flowers that are starting to appear – hopefully a welcome sign that Spring is on the way!

Literacy:

We have a new theme this term of Journeys and in our literacy this week, our story has been Pirates Go to School! We have had a super busy week of learning through play and developing our imaginations – we have made pirate hats and pirate flags, developing our fine motor skills as well as singing pirate songs!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week, with the children joining in Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes, as well as playing musical instruments and dancing with scarves. Learning to listen carefully and follow instructions is an important skill, which means the children are building the foundations for literacy and learning. We had lots of fun learning and then the children transferred these skills to dancing independently during free play! Well done everyone!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, our Pirate Ship has provided us with lots of fun. We have used lots of language relating to position – up, under, behind and next to - whilst walking the plank!

We have also been enjoying many counting activities and some of us are recognising numbers we count to, too! We have concentrated on making sure we count 1 number for each object, known as 1 to 1 correspondence,

Of course, the highlight of this week has been our annual Pirate Day, which provided the children with the chance to dress up as pirates and be custodians of the Pre-School Treasure – which of course 2 naughty pirates (Mr Mason & Mr Clayson!) came and stole! The children loved being celebrities as they went over to the big school to re-capture our treasure! And of course, some were more than happy to bring the pirates back to pre-school to walk the plank! With pirate food, lots of singing and dancing and walking the plank at home time to parents, this really was a fun-filled way to start our term theme of Journeys!

As you can see, it has been another fun week of learning here in Pre-School!

Friday 2nd February 2024:

Welcome to our Pre-School blog! What a busy week we have had!

Literacy:

In literacy this week, our story has been The Gingerbread Man. We have enjoyed joining in the refrain “Run! Run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man!” and clapping our hands loudly to make a SNAP! sound as the fox ate The Gingerbread Man up! It has also been lovely to see the children retelling the story during their own child-initiated play.

Our letter sound this week has been the letter T. We have learned our special song and the cued articulation action we make with the sound and have noted that it is a quiet sound. Some of us could think of new words that started with the letter T – such as Tidy-up time, toes and Tuesday! Well done!

We have also worked super hard learning to hold our pencils correctly, which can be really tricky! We have loved seeing the children try their best though and persevere to complete some fantastic tracing sheets and being very proud of their work!

Maths

In our maths learning this week, we have continued learning to count one number for each object and some of us are working really hard to recognise numbers that we see around us!

We have also enjoyed looking at 2D shapes and had fun fitting shapes into the matching hole in a puzzle cube, as well as playing a fun shape train game on the interactive whiteboard.

And of course, Friday was the NSPCC Number Day, so we had lots of fun matching puzzles and going on a Number hunt!

Our craft activities have been enjoyed this week – with the children choosing how to decorate their very own Gingerbread men using collage paper. They will look beautiful on our Traditional Tales display board!

In our Dance this week Miss Georgia provided us with a fantastic lesson which involved having to listen very carefully – so we were jumping and hopping and clapping making lots of noise! We also loved joining in to Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, finishing up with our Sleeping Bunnies song!

On Thursday, the weather was so beautiful that we enjoyed our circle games outside in the garden! We can certainly say that the laughs we hear when we play our parachute game mean it is one of the most popular!

Well done everyone for another fun and fantastic week of learning and most importantly for never giving up!

Friday 26th January 2024

Once again it has been a fun and busy week here at pre-school. Our new starters are beginning to settle and are enjoying the activities on offer to them here, which is lovely to see!

Literacy

In literacy this week, our story has been Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. We have enjoyed joining in the actions to the Goldilocks song and some of us were able to retell the story, using puppets and pictures! It was lovely to see some of the expressions as the children acted out being Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear! We even had the opportunity to make our very own porridge to eat – it was fantastic to see most of the children willing to try something new! The children enjoyed thinking about where porridge oats come from and even remembered that Scotland grows the best oats due to the rain and long periods of light!

Our letter sound this week has been the letter A. The children have enjoyed learning the song associated with this letter sound and were able to hear the initial sound in lots of words!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week, which our newer members joined in with for the first time! Learning to listen carefully and follow instructions is an important skill, which means the children are building the foundations for literacy and learning. Plus, they are learning key skills like how to express themselves and make friends. We all had lots of fun taking turns to say hello to each other, “shaking our sillies out!”

Well done everyone!

Maths

Additionally, we have enjoyed exploring number counting and size through small world play.

In our child-initiated play, we have been busy developing our fine motor skills. There have been opportunities for the children to use scissors, as well as threading activities which they have all enjoyed.

Our craft activities this week showed how the children are really developing their listening skills. They were able to create some fantastic bears using googly eyes, choosing what colour their fur was! Additionally, they decorated a 3 Bears house and carefully stuck on the 3 bears inside! I think you will agree they look fab!

Enjoy looking at the photos of what we have been up to!

Friday 19th January 2024

Welcome to our weekly blog entry from Pre-School!

We have had lots of fun together and our new children are beginning to settle really well!

Literacy:

In literacy this week, our story has been The 3 Little Pigs. We have enjoyed joining in the actions to the story, especially “I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down!” and some of us were able to retell the story, using puppets and pictures! It was lovely to see some of the expressions as the children acted out being the big, bad wolf! We even made some piggy and wolf masks to help us role play the story!

Another craft activity was making some amazing houses for our display, which show the different types of materials used to make the piggies houses – straw, sticks and bricks! I think you will agree that the display looks fantastic!

We have enjoyed seeing the children showing us their amazing mark making – this week we have talked about friendships and have seen some lovely pictures as the children drew themselves and their friends!

Of course, the colder weather meant the children loved being outside, where we had lots of fun exploring the ice, and experimenting with lots of different tools to smash it up – these will all help the children develop their motor skills!

In our Letters & Sounds this week we have learned about the letter S and learned the cued articulation action associated with it. Maybe your child could show you! The song we learned can be found here:

https://youtu.be/bD7HXCl5v2c?si=oJYAlY5fj9yfR8j6

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week, Learning to listen carefully and follow instructions is an important skill, which means the children are building the foundations for literacy and learning. Plus, they are learning key skills like how to express themselves and make friends. We all had lots of fun taking turns to say hello to each other, “shaking our sillies out” and learning the next steps in our Zootopia dance!

Well done everyone!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, our story of The 3 Little Pigs has provided us with lots of fun. We have built lots of different sized houses and compared which materials would be heaviest – sticks, straw or bricks.

We have also enjoyed looking at 2D shapes and had fun fitting shapes into the matching hole in a puzzle cube, as well as playing a fun shape train game on the interactive whiteboard.

The colder weather also provided the opportunity for the children to notice and explore the patterns created by the frost as it formed on top of the leaves, as well as transporting the ice in different size buckets, using different tools to do so. Fantastic maths learning!

So as you can see it has been a week of fun and learning and for our new members, feeling safe and settled as their l

Friday 12^th January 2024

Welcome to our week of fun and learning!

We have had a super busy week here in Pre-School and the weather has been of keen interest to the children! We were lucky to have seen lots of frost and seen some snow flurries, which as you can imagine made the children very excited!

We talked about how cold our fingers felt and what the frost was made of and then outside in the garden, the children discovered lost of ice! We had some wonderful conversations about how we thought ice was made, and why it turned back to water when we held it in our hands!

We have loved watching the children develop their listening skills and motor skills as they asked again and again to play with our parachute – this week we played the cat and mouse game as well as keeping the “fairies” up in the air as long as we can! It was so much fun!

Literacy:

In literacy this week, our story has been Jack and the Beanstalk. We have listened to the story and some of us could join in the refrain “Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!” We have also enjoyed creating our own little Jack character from the story, even climbing their beanstalk, as well as making puppets which I hope your children enjoyed sharing with you and even retelling the story!

In dance this week, Miss Georgia continued to teach us the next movements to a dance from the film Zootopia! Very exciting indeed! We also enjoyed playing with streamers, learning positional language such as up and down, next to and behind!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have been extending our counting from 5-10 in our child-initiated play, especially in the soft play area, where we counted one stepping stone for each number, or by counting the number of plates needed for a picnic in the role play area.

We also enjoyed completing a fun game on the interactive whiteboard, feeding a shape monster and also completing a simple shape pattern. It was lovely to see the children then complete these games independently using the Ipads!

Our newest members of pre-school have also enjoyed spending some shorter time with us and are beginning to settle here beautifully. It has been lovely to see the children welcoming them and encouraging them into their play.

Well done Pre-Schoolers!

Friday 5^th January 2024:

Welcome to the first blog of 2024! We would also like to extend a very warm welcome to the families of the new children who will be joining pre-school this term!

It was lovely to welcome you all back to pre-school this week after the Christmas holidays! This term our theme will be Traditional Tales, which I am sure your children will love! We have lots of fun learning activities planned, including listening to many different stories, such as Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs and Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, along with making houses using junk modelling, growing beanstalks as well as lots of exciting cooking activities!

Turning to this week, we have enjoyed listening to what your children have been doing over the festive break. We have had many excited conversations about favourite presents and where you have been in the holidays!

In our Literacy, we have listened to our favourite stories such as Kipper, Stick Man and The Very Hungry Caterpillar! On Thursday we were very lucky to have Reception teacher, Mr James read a story to some of our children! He shared his favourite book, Green Eggs and Ham by Dr Seuss. He read it very, very quickly in parts and the children all enjoyed laughing at the pattern and rhyme of the story! Thank you, Mr James! We have also enjoyed mark making this week and been very proud of our wonderful creations!

Our Maths learning this week included learning about positional language. We did this through playing with our giant parachute, listening, and following instructions to turn left and right and using our positional language skills, such as going under and on top by playing the cat and mouse game. Using our counting skills, we counted 123 lifting he parachute up really high and then back down again. It was so much fun! Additionally, we have enjoyed building and counting as we play.

In our Dance lesson this week, Miss Georgia taught us a funny dance being a chicken! We also enjoyed exploring lots of different musical instruments, listening carefully to Miss Georgia as she asked us to play them loudly and quietly and fast and slow!  We also enjoyed playing circle games this week, especially Duck Duck Goose!

On Thursday afternoon, we noticed that a lovely rainbow had appeared in the sky! We loved talking about the different colours that we could see in the rainbow and how it could have got there! We could even see another rainbow appearing next to it! We all agreed it was very beautiful!

So as you can see, we have had a super start to our Term 3 – enjoy looking at the photos of our fantastic learning!

Friday 15th December 2023

Welcome to this week’s blog! The last of 2023!

And so we come to what has been a fantastic Term 2! We have been super busy and enjoyed lots of fun and learning through play!

This week has been no exception and the excitement of our upcoming Christmas festivities has meant lots of excited children here in Pre-School!

We wanted to share with you therefore, our photo highlights of the week showing you all the fun and laughter we have had. We have been so proud of your amazing children, who have now taken home their fantastic Christmas boxes full of all the craft they have made this term – we hope you enjoy keeping them as a memento!

We have enjoyed making fantastic pinecone Christmas trees, with lots of paint and glitter. We have also decorated ice cream cornets with icing and sprinkles to make our very own edible Christmas trees! We even had our very own life size Christmas sleigh in the Pre-School, which the children loved using to deliver presents in!

On Wednesday, some of our children performed our Christmas Singing to the children who were here in Pre-School last year! It was wonderful to see how our previous pupils have grown up and what a support they were to our pre-schoolers – clapping them on and joining in the actions to the songs! Thankyou Reception!

And of course, Thursday was our Christmas Party Day! So much fun was had playing party games – especially pass the parcel! We then welcomed all of you as parents into Pre-School to listen to your amazing children sing our five Christmas songs – complete with a very special visitor – Father Christmas himself, who took time out of his busy schedule to give every one their very own special gift! I think you can agree that the singing of the children was very special indeed and we hope it gave you a warm, fuzzy feeling!

However, without fail, the most exciting thing this week has been our snow machine! The look of sheer excitement when snow fell as the last song finished was something I don’t think any of us will forget!

And so all that remains, is to wish each and every one of you a very happy and peaceful Christmas. We hope you have a very special time with those you love and we look forward to seeing you all again in 2024!

Friday 8th December 2023

Welcome to this week’s blog! The term seems to be quickly coming to a close!

This week we have been very busy getting excited for Christmas by creating lots of decorations, listening to Christmas stories, and singing Christmas songs, having lots of fun in the process!

On Monday we all joined in the very special task of putting up the Pre-School Christmas tree! The children eagerly joined in and worked as a team to get the tree out of the box and carefully assemble it with Mrs Miham’s help! It is a very special time of year and we love to see how careful the children are when looking after the decorations, placing them on the tree and having lots of excited chatter about their own Christmas trees at home!

On Monday, our morning attendees were also very lucky to be invited to watch the first dress rehearsal of the Reception children’s Nativity performance! We were so proud of our pre-schoolers, not only as it was something new going to big hall to watch a performance, but also because it was packed full with all the children from Years 2, 3 and 4 as well! Our children sat beautifully and loved watching the performance and Mrs Frith, our Assistant Head Teacher, told them how well behaved they were too!

Unfortunately, there was no Dance lesson this week; nevertheless, that didn’t stop our pre-schoolers having fun! We learned to play Duck Duck Goose! and played lots of other circle games too!  Also, our festive dressing up box came out and so we have had lots fun watching the children be Father Christmas, Rudolph or a Christmas tree! I think as you can see in the photos, they look amazing!

In Literacy, perhaps unsurprisingly, we have enjoyed lots and lots of singing! We have been developing our mark making skills by tracing over the letters in our name when making our letters to Father Christmas and listened to lots of festive stories! We have also enjoyed lots of sensory, messy play with our festive coloured, glittery rice!

In Maths we been counting using our fingers and ensuring we count one number for one finger, which can be tricky! We have also enjoyed counting the raisins we have had at snack time as well as looking closely at the numbers on a clock face! Numbers are everywhere!  

On Thursday we had our visit to the Post Office to post our wonderful letters to Father Christmas! We have to say how well-behaved all the children were, they listened carefully to the grown ups to ensure they were kept safe whilst out on the busy road and their singing of Jingle Bells and We Wish You A Merry Christmas must have been heard by all the neighbours!

So as you can see, it has been a fun and busy week once again here in pre-school.  Enjoy looking at what we have been doing!

Friday 1^st December 2023

Welcome to this week’s blog! Can you believe we are now in the month of December already?!

This week we have been very busy welcoming lots of parents in for our Stay and Play sessions! The children have loved showing their pre-school environment, their favourite toys and how beautifully they sit on the carpet for Hello Time! We have also been very proud to show you the fantastic work the children have created, as well as talk about how your children have settled since starting or returning to pre-school! A huge thankyou for some of the lovely written comments we have received:

“We really appreciate your hard work with our son and your efforts to support him in every state in his daily routine. We are very pleased! Thankyou!”

“We are thoroughly happy with our son’s progress and how happy and settled he is. He loves showing the songs he learns.”

“Olivia loves pre-school, the staff, and her classmates; it’s wonderful watching her bloom thanks to play, learning and support.”

“Very happy in all areas, Alice loves to be here. Thank you to all staff for making Alice’s time amazing.”

“Very happy that she is doing well. She is loving pre-school and the staff and activities are wonderful. Thankyou.”

“Everything is lovely. Teachers are so lovely and supportive. Thank you so much for your care.”

The children have really enjoyed getting stuck into some super Christmas craft this week – especially creating their very own Olafs! They have been thinking which parts of snowman body goes at the top, middle and bottom and added on some super expressions – complete with carrot nose! They also have enjoyed creating their very own Christmas trees, deciding which colours to use and of course the glitter came out!!

This week we had another fun dance lesson with Miss Karen! We enjoyed dancing to Baby Shark, Frozen and Count to 10, whilst doing some amazing jumping and skipping on the spot! We even learned some singing exercises! We then had so much fun pointing our toes correctly whilst being little seeds that grow into flowers! What is lovely to see is the children’s confidence growing too, through the power of music and dance! Lots are happy to come up to the front of the class and share good news, as well as dance with partners, and so a huge thank you must go to Miss Karen and Miss Georgia!

In Literacy, we have enjoyed singing, sharing stories, drawing and writing to help to develop the children’s literacy. Nursery rhymes and playing' I spy', have also been popular and everyone has loved listening to the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar!

In maths, we have been super busy thinking about the different 2D shapes that we can make in the sand with our containers. We have also enjoyed lots of sorting activities and of course building, which all help develop our mathematical language, along with playing animal dominoes where we have had to count the number of spots on each domino we match!  

Our Forest School session on Thursday was lots of fun and we all talked about how cold the weather was! We noticed that the leaves felt “crunchy” and there was frost on the ground! The children also noticed that there were not many leaves on the trees now as it has been so windy! Once again, the children showed lovely team work and encouragement, helping each other as they balanced across the tree stumps or sitting on the log swing. Well done Pre-Schoolers!

And despite the colder temperatures, the children have had lots of fun in the garden, they have enjoyed playing with the fallen leaves and this week we have noticed some excellent basketball skills emerging!

So as you can see, it has been a fun and busy week once again here in Pre-School.  Enjoy looking at what we have been doing!

Friday 24th November 2023

Welcome to this week’s blog! We have had a super busy week with lots of fantastic learning!

This week we have been very busy making some wonderful Christmas props for our role play area, which is gradually taking shape into a Winter Wonderland! The children have enjoyed pretending to be Santa, or being fast asleep children but of course, our dollies still need taking for their walks in their pushchairs and so they have also been taking very good care of them!

The children have also been developing their listening and attention skills this week by making some beautiful Christmas lights, along with some festive holly wreaths in their craft.. they really are looking beautiful and we are certainly beginning to feel very Christmassy!

We also had a fantastic dance lesson this week with Miss Karen! We were so impressed with how fast=paced and exciting the lesson was, with the children learning some ballet and tap steps!

In Literacy, we have been super busy learning the songs for our Christmas Singing! Not just new words to learn but actions too! Maybe your child can show you the action they use for “Jingle Bells!”

In Maths we have enjoyed lots of counting this week - from our Christmas Song, 5 Little Snowman – to the number of farm animals on the table, to the number of children sitting on the carpet at the end of session! Counting games and activities can happen anytime and anywhere in pre-school!

And of course, we had a fantastic visit to the Forest School this week. It was lovey to see the children more confident to go off and explore independently – particularly when they found the Mud Kitchen, where they made some “delicious salad!” We also looked for minibeasts and found some worms under a tree stump. Next to them, buried in the soil was an acorn! So we talked about who might have buried an acorn there and lots of children knew it was “a squirrel!” As well as challenging themselves across the rope walk, and enjoying playing on the rope swing, we also had fun collecting different size sticks to create our very own Stick Men! Yes, Stick Man is still our favourite story in pre-school!  

We also celebrated some wonderful achievements this week: Bonnie won a special prize for guessing the closest number of Pudsey Spots there were in the jar on Children In Need Day and Taki won not one but 2 prizes for creating the best T-Shirt for Children in Need as well as winning the Pre-School Reading Challenge! A huge congratulations to them and everyone who took part – well done!

It has been a fun and busy week once again here in pre-school.  Enjoy looking at what we have been doing!

Friday 17th November 2023

Welcome to this week’s blog! We have had a super busy week with lots of celebrations!

On Monday, the children learned about Remembrance Day and in particular the symbol of the poppy. Lots of the children had noticed people in shops and grown ups in Pre-School wearing them. They created their own beautiful collage poppies and together we watched a beautiful Cbeebies video called Poppies - a lovely animation following a young rabbit through the poppy fields.

On Tuesday we celebrated Diwali – which is a festival of light and colour. The children explored colours and colour mixing whilst colouring their beautiful Rangoli patterns. We were very impressed with the care and time they spent on their pictures and think you’ll agree that they are beautiful!

We also had our first visit to Forest School and we were so happy to see that the children remembered the rules that we talked about last week in order to keep them safe. Not only that but we were so impressed with their “have-a-go” attitude! Everyone was happy to have a go on the rope swing and even brave the high rope walk! We had a super time!

In literacy, the children continue to love stories being read to them by the adults, as well as sharing books with each other. We have also seen the children enjoy mark making, developing their gross and fine motor skills by creating pictures on a large strip of wallpaper on the table and using crayons. They also had lots of fun using the Aquadoodle mats and pens.

In maths the children have been busy completing jigsaw puzzles. They also had fun playing some exciting games on our interactive whiteboard to develop their 2D shape knowledge and came up with some brilliant creations! Another popular activity has seen the children develop their fine motor skills by using tweezers to pick up different pom poms and sort them into different categories! It was a bit tricky at times!

In our Dance this week we had a little change due to the school Open Day taking place and so Miss Georgia came into the Pre-School for our lesson! We started off with our Hello song where the children clapped 3 beats in time! We had lots of fun singing our Stand Up Sit Down song, playing our musical instruments up high, down low and to the left and to the right! We then learned some fabulous actions to our new song from the Trolls film – Love Train – it was so much fun! Finally, we absolutely loved playing the Sleeping Bunnies game with lots of hopping and jumping at the end! We were also so impressed with the children’s listening and attention skills, particularly as we had lots of visitors passing through the pre-school as part of Open Day! Our children were very polite and friendly, saying Hello! Well done!

And of course, we couldn’t not mention that it has been Children In Need Day today! We have loved seeing the children dressed up, making Pudsey masks, and decorating a very yellow and very spotty biscuit to take home! We finished our week with a lovely Cbeebies Bedtime story of Pudsey’s Lost Bandana!

As you can see, we have had a super busy week here at Pre-School, celebrating and learning together! Enjoy looking at what we have been doing!

Friday 10th November 2023

Welcome to this week’s blog! We have had a super week full of lots of play and learning, as well as celebrating Bonfire Night too!

The children have enjoyed telling us all about the firework displays they have been to or heard and so they were super excited to make their very own sparkly rockets! I think you can agree they look spectacular, and the children listened well to follow the instructions to make them!

We also had our first visit to Forest School this week and not surprisingly the children have loved listening to the story of Stick Man by Julia Donaldson! As part of our first visit to Forest School, this week was spent learning the special rules that we have to remember in Forest School – not to go past the blue rope, not to run as there are lots of things we can trip over, to remember that, if we find a minibeast that we only look at it as the Forest School is their home, and lastly not to put anything in our mouths! Again, the children listened so well – we were very proud of them - and even though it was raining quite hard, we all enjoyed listening to our Stick Man story and talked about what we could see and hear in the forest. Well done everyone!

In Literacy, we have loved to see the children really taking an interest in looking at books and sharing stories with each other. We have also seen the children enjoy mark making, developing their fine motor skills and creating some wonderful pictures to take home to you!

In Maths the children have developed their focus and attention by completing jigsaw puzzles and using their imaginations through building with creative gears. They came up with some brilliant creations! They have also enjoyed sequencing lots of different things – from our large shapes to turtles!

Our home corner has also been very popular this week – the children have loved looking after the “babies” by clothing them and feeding them, as well creating wonderful picnics and food to eat in the kitchen!

Finally we rounded off our Firework week by watching some amazing displays at Disneyland – it was wonderful to hear lots of vocabulary used - whizz, pop, bang, whee and lots of “ooooh’s!”

So as you can see, we have had another wonderful week of learning and we hope you love looking at the pictures!

Friday 3rd November 2023

A warm welcome back to the start of Term 2 here at Pre-School! The children have all arrived back happily and we have had a super busy week and a little bit of a spooky week at that!

The children have enjoyed telling us all about they way they have celebrated Halloween, and we have loved hearing about their fancy dress costumes, their trick-or-treating and parties they have been to with their families! Following their interest, here at Pre-School, the children made some fantastic “mummies” made from their handprints, as well as using different media to colour their own pumpkins! And of course, it wouldn’t be pre-school without some spooky slime, which contained lots of wiggly worms, slithering snakes, and scary spiders for them to find!

Our story this week was, perhaps unsurprisingly, Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson, where the witch and her cat are travelling on their broomstick and pick up some hitch-hikers – a friendly dog, a beautiful green bird and a frantic frog. But the broomstick is not meant for five and – CRACK – it snaps in two… just as the hungry dragon appears! Will there ever be room on the broom for everyone? The children thoroughly enjoyed listening to this story being read to them by the adults and the wonderful vocabulary it contains – Iggety, Ziggety, Zaggety, ZOOM! Some of the children then went on to stick on the characters in the story onto their broomstick and were able to make sure they were put on in the correct order! Well done!

We also had so much fun listening and following instructions to Cosmic Yoga, which we are finding the children really enjoy and of course is really positive for their wellbeing. This week’s had a creepy Halloween theme and the children loved showing us their posture and balancing skills!

The other exciting event this week has been Storm Ciaran and we have heard some wonderful vocabulary as the children watched the frequent rain and noticed what was happening in their environment. Maybe your child could sing our “What’s the Weather?” song!

In our Dance lesson this week with Miss Georgia, we sang our Hello song and then chose a musical instrument each. We used these to play as we sang our song “I know a Chicken” which we began learning least term! We played our instruments fast and slow as well as learning to shake them up and down and around and around! Finally, we also had lots of fun with our beanbags which we carefully had to balance on our heads!

The musical instruments have been very popular as we have sung our songs and nursery rhymes this week and it is fantastic to see the children’s listening skills develop!

In our Maths learning this week, we have been super impressed with the children’s counting skills - we had lots of fun playing with our counting cakes and some of us could arrange them correctly in numerical order too! Also, we have enjoyed developing our mathematical language as we have created some of the tallest towers ever as well as creating the biggest pizza!

So as you can see, we have had a wonderful week of learning and we hope you love looking at the pictures!

Friday 20th October 2023

Well, can you believe that we have reached the end of Term 1 already? We have been so proud of your amazing children, and it is lovely seeing them settled, happy to begin their play as soon as they arrive and enjoying all the activities that are on offer to them!  

So, what have the children been up to this week?

This week, we have enjoyed lots of activities that build fine motor skills. Fine motor skills are the everyday movements (like holding a pencil or tying a shoelace) that require the strength, coordination, and dexterity of the small muscles of the body like those in the hands, fingers, and wrists. When combined with increasing hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills open new doors to exploration, learning, and creative expression. So the children have had lots of fun this week joining in activities such as:

• Threading large beads onto a string
• Cutting along lines with safety scissors
• Building a tower of 10 blocks
• Pasting things onto paper
• Completing jigsaw puzzles with five or more pieces
• Manipulating pencils to complete simple tracing sheets
• Playing with plasticine

We have been really impressed with the children’s active learning with these tasks – they were involved, they kept on trying – even when it was a bit tricky to hold scissors correctly – and were very proud of their achievements!

In our Dance lesson this week Miss Georgia taught us a new Chicken Song and we had lots of fun playing our musical instruments – playing them fast and slow when we pretended to crack the egg!

The children have learned this term to sit beautifully on the carpet and follow our visual timetable. They all answer the register with a “Good Morning!” and have also learned our Maths Medley songs about the Days of the Week and the Weather! What a super start to the academic year it has been! We are now ready to see what Term 2 will bring!

Friday 6^th October 2023

We have had lots of fun this week settling into pre-school and trying out lots of different activities!

First of all, we have been so impressed with how well the children are leaving parents and carers to walk into pre-school! They are enjoying finding their name with the help of an adult to self-register and settling so quickly at an activity of their choice, which is lovely to see!

At carpet time, we are quickly learning our carpet rules of “good sitting, good looking and good listening” as well as answering the register.

Our nursery rhyme this week has been “Hickory Dickory Dock” and the children have loved making their very own mouse to run up the clock! Nursery rhymes and books have been very popular and it has been lovely to see the children choosing a book for Mrs Tuffs to read – this week “What the Ladybird Heard” was very popular!

In our Dance this week we have continued getting to know each other by joining in our Hello Song, clapping our hands and stamping our feet. We are growing in confidence by shouting out our names loudly and saying hello to one another! This week we also learned a fantastic crocodile dance, pointing our toes and pretending to splash them in the cold water the crocodile is in! Finally, we had lots of fun dancing with our coloured ribbons, waving them in the air!

In Maths, this week we have enjoyed lots of counting songs and nursery rhymes and we also learned the first part of our Maths Medley – our days of the week song! Maybe your child could sing it to you!

We have been so lucky with the warm weather continuing this week, so we have been making the most of all the lovely things in outside. We have been digging in our sandpit, doing lots of cooking in our mud kitchen and demonstrating our skills on the balance beams! We have enjoyed mark making in the sand too as well as experiencing some messy play with paint and foam! Above all it has been lovely to see friendships developing!

We hope you enjoy some photos of the exciting learning that has been taking place and we are proud to share some of the fun that we have had this week.

Friday 29th September 2023

Well, we have had a super busy week here at Pre-School, with most children now full-time and settling in well to pre-school life! We have had lots of fun and it has been lovely to watch the children growing in confidence and making friendships.

So, what have the children been up to this week?

On Monday morning, we were very lucky to have the opportunity to join our Year R friends, who had a visit from 2 real life Police Officers, along with their police car! The children had the opportunity of trying on real police officer uniform, as well as sitting in the police car but of course the most exciting thing was seeing the police car’s flashing lights and the noisy siren!

Our Nursery Rhyme this week was 5 Currant Buns – the children created their very own bakery shop with the 5 buns on the shelf! Maybe you can count along or sing the song with your child!

We have been really impressed with how much our group this year love books! We have been reading lots of different stories from PJ Masks to The Very Hungry Caterpillar! We will be introducing our book library shortly which will run every Friday at the end of session for you and your child to choose a book to share for a week before bringing it back to change for a new one!

Of course, the garden has been hugely popular whilst we have had warmer temperatures and our pre-schoolers have loved developing their physical skills using space hoppers and balance bikes, as well as playing in the sand, at the mud kitchen and on the pirate ship!

We also went to the school hall for our Dance lesson this week with Miss Georgia. The children behaved beautifully, listening to instructions to walk carefully around past the Year R classrooms, being nice and quiet. Once in the hall we had a fantastic time learning our new Hello song and developing listening skills by playing musical instruments at different tempos as well as loudly and quietly! The children thoroughly enjoyed their time dancing together, especially at the end when they could all dance underneath the huge parachute the teachers were holding!

The pre-school routines of sitting on the carpet for Hello time have been extended so that now the children all answer the register with a “hello” or “good morning/afternoon!” Today we also introduced a fun counting activity using the interactive whiteboard and it was lovely to see most of the children feeling confident to come up to the front to count the sea creatures. Well done!

Finally, we were so proud of our morning pre-schoolers, who learned what to do when we have a fire drill practice! All the children listened so well to the grownups, walking carefully to the fire safety point at the bottom of the pre-school garden, and saying “here” when the register was called! Even our school caretaker and site manager said how well they had listened!

So as you can see, we have been super busy and we are looking forward to another fantastic week of learning ahead!

Friday 22^nd September 2023

Well, this week seems to have flown by and with our new children attending every day for a shortened period of time, the Pre-School has certainly seemed much noisier! Transitioning to an unfamiliar environment and learning a new routine is challenging for all young children and it has not been surprising that we have supported a few children when they have had little “wobbles”. Nevertheless, we have been so impressed with how the children are settling and are looking forward to most being full-time from next week!

So, what have the children been up to this week?

First of all, we have been encouraging all the children to try and recognise the first letter, or all of their name to self-register when they arrive. We are already establishing some of the pre-school routines, such as carpet time and looking at our visual timetable to prepare the children for what will be happening next.

Your child has learned to find their own water bottle and we have been encouraging them in their independence when using the toilet.  

We have also loved singing nursery rhymes! So far, we have enjoyed singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – did you love their star wands they brought home last week? This week we have had lots of fun singing Incy Wincy Spider, making some fantastic spiders of our own, carefully counting their 8 legs!

Of course, in these early days, an important aspect of your child's time at Pre-School will be their personal, social, and emotional development. We have been encouraging all of the children to develop positive relationships, playing with a variety of friends and understanding the feelings of others. We have loved watching them begin to grow friendships, sharing toys and being kind to each other. Being outside in the pre-school garden has also been a very popular way to encourage and develop friendships and it has been wonderful to see the children already repeating our garden rules of “kind hands, kind feet and kind words” when playing outside.

So, as you can see, although there have been many seemingly little things, your child has been extremely busy and learning a great deal! We hope you enjoy some photos of the exciting learning that has been taking place and above all see that your children have been having lots of fun!

Friday 15^th September 2023

A warm welcome to Pre-School!

It has been lovely seeing our children from last year return and we are so pleased to welcome lots of new children to Cliftonville Pre-School! The taster sessions are continuing to be very successful, and we are loving seeing the enthusiasm and excitement your children have! Thankyou so much for all your support so far in ensuring your little ones have a successful transition into Pre-School!

Here at Cliftonville Pre-School, we understand that leaving your child at Pre-School for the first time can be a daunting prospect and for some; this may be the first time you have been apart from your child. We recognise that this initial separation can be very hard on both of you.

So here are some tips on starting Pre-School which will help both you and your child adjust to what is a new and exciting stage in your child’s life.

Be positive and smile when talking about Pre-School to your child!

Be positive and cheerful when you talk to your child about Pre-School as he or she will quickly pick up on any feelings of anxiety. When your child is very young, you are the main influence in their life and their mood will often be affected by yours. If you make pre-school sound like an exciting place, they will hopefully see it as that.

Our Pre-School practitioners have lots of experience in dealing with the transition to Pre-School so please do talk to us about any concerns you have, no matter how small you may feel they are. We are here to help!

Be prepared for your child to cry!

Many children cry when you first leave them at Pre-School (or even on day 2 or 3!) and this can be extremely hard.

You need to have trust in the Pre-School staff as we are very used to this and try to stay emotionally strong, so that your child doesn’t pick up on your emotions. We will do all we can to ensure that your child is soothed, giving them lot of cuddles and trying to distract them with different activities and resources. It usually works!

Let the settling in process go at the speed of your child

Some children will struggle to settle in a Pre-School environment. Settling in is a process that takes time, care and commitment to ensure a smooth and successful transition from home to Pre-School. It is important to let the settling in process go at the speed of your child and recognise that being in unfamiliar surroundings with unfamiliar people can be overwhelming.

Our home visits have been fantastic for us so to get to know your child in a familiar environment and find out their likes and dislikes. Following on now with your shortened visits to Pre-School, we are ensuring that your child feels comfortable and secure. 

Our experience has shown that this is the best way to slowly ease a child and parent/family into the setting.

Will my child take longer to settle if they have English as an Additional Language (EAL)?

Children adapt so quickly and can learn new words very quickly, but they will need support to do this. For children where English is their second language, it is a good idea for parents and carers to give a list of keywords to help the staff communicate with the child in their first language. This helps the child feel included and will help them settle more quickly.

Keywords could include mummy and daddy, toilet and soon as well as the names of certain food items and drinks.

Go to events run by the Pre-School!

Whether it’s Stay and Play Sessions, Christmas Singing, Sports Day or our Pirate Day please try and attend! We want to have a great relationship with you as parents and carers too! Plus, this is also a great opportunity to mix with other parents and carers and see your child socialise and play with other children!

So we hope that these tips may be useful for you as your child begins their learning journey with us at Pre-School! We have been super impressed with your children so far and are looking forward to a wonderful year ahead!

Friday 8^th September 2023

A warm welcome to Pre-School!

It has been lovely seeing our children from last year return and we are so pleased to welcome lots of new children to Cliftonville Pre-School! The taster sessions have been very successful so far and we loved meeting your families during the recent home visits! Thankyou so much for all your support so far in ensuring your little ones have a successful transition into Pre-School!

So for this week’s Blog entry, we thought you might like to learn a little bit about us, the staff, here in the Pre-School!

Mrs Tuffs – Pre-School Leader:

Hello everyone! My name is Mrs Tuffs and I am so excited that you are joining us here at Pre-School! I have one daughter, who is now 24 years old and we also have one cat, called Mitzey who loves laying in the garden and being given lots of cuddles! We also have two ponies, called Marty and Winnie! Can you guess what their favourite food to eat is?

I thought that I would share with you my favourite book: The Dinosaur that Pooped a Planet

Danny and Dinosaur are going to space! But when Danny realises that he’s forgotten Dino’s lunch box, the very hungry dinosaur eats everything in sight, including their only way home: the rocket! I love reading this book as it always makes me laugh when the Dinosaur has to poop out everything he has eaten! It’s a super, funny book by Tom Fletcher.

Hello everyone, my name is Miss Brown and I cannot wait to see you all at Pre-School! I have 2 sons, who are now both at secondary school and I also have a little dog called Poppy. In my spare time, I love to read!

My favourite book is Room on the Broom

A kind witch invites a surprising collection of animals to join her on her broom, much to the frustration of her cat! The gang ultimately saves the witch from a fearsome dragon, and in gratitude she rewards them with a magnificent new broom which has room for everyone! This is my favourite story by Julia Donaldson.

Hello everyone! I cannot wait to have so much fun here at Pre-School with you all! I have 6 children and can you believe it – 9 cats! My favourite things to do are swimming, walking and spending time at the beach.

My favourite book is Stick Man! Stick Man is another Julia Donaldson book which is my favourite story. It is the story of a stick man who is separated from his family, when he goes for a jog and is picked up by a dog. He then ends up on all sorts of adventures! Will he ever get home?

Every week we will update the blog with all the fun learning and playing that has taken place here at Cliftonville Pre-School! During the early stages, we will be encouraging the children to experiment within their new learning environment and to become comfortable within their surroundings through play.

We will also encourage interactions with the adults and other children in the Pre-School, building up trust through child-initiated and teacher directed play.

We will also be establishing the routines of the Pre-School such as carpet time, self-registration, indoor and outdoor play and tidy up time. We are looking forward to a super exciting and fun-filled year ahead!

Friday 14^th July

Another week at pre-school has flown by and it doesn’t seem possible that we are almost at the end of our academic year!

Literacy:

This week we have been thinking how Teachers help us. The children know that teachers “help us if we are sad” and that “we listen to stories.” The children have really enjoyed meeting their new teachers this week while they have been at pre-school, and we are hearing lots of excited chatter about “my new teacher” and “going to big school!” Our story this week has been “Topsy & Tim Start School.”

The children have also really enjoyed being creative with their mark making using a variety of different media this week; from using different paint sticks, to mark making in the sand we have seen beautiful rainbows created along with letters and numbers written! Well done pre-schoolers!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia continued teaching us our special dance to Hakuna Matata from The Lion King this week which the children are really enjoying learning. We have been so lucky and really appreciate Miss Georgia’s hard work with us this year!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have been taking advantage of opportunities to use numbers where they naturally arise. Numbers can, of course, be found in most situations: indoors, outdoors and in the community, like on bus stops or house numbers – maybe you can ask your child what numbers they see on their journey to and from pre-school?

We had so much fun using numbers in our play with the parachute this week – counting up and down from 1-10, looking at how many different coloured sections there are in it, and how many children will fit underneath the parachute! As you can see from the photographs, the children clearly enjoyed this activity!

We have also enjoyed exploring maths using magnetic numbers and shapes, matching patterns and noticing numbers that are also in the environment! Fantastic number work!

This week we have enjoyed welcoming lots of parents into Pre-School for our last Stay & Play week of the year! We have been proud to share your child’s progress with you and from the feedback we have received so far, you are rightfully proud of your amazing children too!

You will have all received a questionnaire about your experiences at Pre-School this week; please can you take a few moments to complete and return this, as we really do appreciate all your comments and suggestions as we continue to strive towards making our Pre-School the best it can be!

Friday 7^th July

Welcome to the wonderful world of learning all about our teeth! This week has been shorter than usual; however, the children have loved learning all about our teeth, healthy foods and how we look after them!

Literacy:

This week we have been thinking how Dentists help us. The children have thought hard about how we can look after our teeth and what happens when we go to the Dentist. They have also been creating collage mouths with teeth in, telling us all they know!

Our story this week has been Topsy & Tim Visit the Dentist. Maybe you could watch the story here and see what your child can tell you! https://youtu.be/Pj8n5CA6wJs

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have revisited making sure we count one object with one finger (known as 1:1 correspondence) to make sure we count the correct number! It can be tricky to rush when we count and so we have been trying to remember to slow down as we count too!

We have also been estimating how many teeth we have in our mouths! Some children thought we have 5, some 10 and some “twenty hundred!”

On Tuesday we were super lucky to have a visit from Charlotte the Dentist! The children sat beautifully to listen to her talk about how important it is to look after our teeth. They also were keen to share their understanding, such as,

“I can’t reach my back ones!”

“If you eat lots of candy you get cavities!”

“You brush your teeth twice a day!”

Charlotte taught us how important it is to brush our teeth twice a day for 2 minutes – in the morning and before we go to bed! She also showed us how to brush our teeth in gentle circles, not backwards and forwards, and to use a pea-sized amount of toothpaste on our brush! The children had the chance to practice this using a giant-sized brush on a huge set of teeth!

We then played a super fun game where we had to place lots of different foods on a good or bad tooth! Healthy foods the children knew were “vegetables and fruit” “Water and milk” and “fish and cheese!” The children also knew that “Chocolate, sweets, apple juice and gummy bears” all have sugar in, which isn’t good for our teeth!

We had lots of fun wearing the special tooth-shaped glasses Charlotte brought in, to help us know what to expect when we lie in the dentist chair - they protect our eyes from the bright light. And finally, we all listened to a brilliant story – Peppa Pig at the Dentist! We hope your child has also enjoyed sharing with you the special pack they received too – and are using the sand timer, along with their new toothbrush, to remember to brush for 2 minutes! Well done Pre-Schoolers you listened and learned so much!

This week was also Transition Day, and a huge thankyou to the parents who have supported their pre-schoolers by taking them to the second of their Rising 5 sessions! This special time really is invaluable for helping your child feel safe and settled on the journey to Reception and it has been lovely hearing the conversations the children have been having, talking about their new teachers, what they have played with in the new classrooms and how excited they are for “big school!”

Of course, we have still enjoyed learning through play outside in the garden this week, where we have had so much fun. The term is racing by!

Friday 30^th June

What a super busy week we have had here at pre-school! The children have been very busy with visitors and practicing for our Sports Day!

Literacy:

This week we have been thinking how Firefighters help us. We have had some super discussion about what the children know about firefighters starting with “They put out fires!” If there was not a fire, then what else could they be doing? Someone suggested that. 'There could be someone stuck in the building, or a cat could be stuck up a tree!' Of course, we have seen the children enjoy dressing up as firefighters and lots of “nee-naw” sound effects too!

The children created some bright red fire engines and really enjoyed singing as they coloured! Our story this week has been Topsy & Time Meet the Firefighters – you can watch it here with your child! https://youtu.be/0FqhRKxBCnA

Due to the Rising 5’s session this week, there was no dance lesson. For those of you with children moving up to Reception, we hope you enjoyed meeting your child’s teacher and seeing what wonderful things they will be doing next year! Don’t forget the next session on Thursday 6^th July!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have enjoyed lots of lovely counting songs! We made our amazing fire engines, complete with 5 Little Firefighters and we all enjoyed singing along as we coloured them in!

We were all very excited to have our visit from Zoolab this week! It was a brilliant learning experience for the children and we all enjoyed meeting lots of different animals – African Land Snail, Millipede, Stick Insect, Scorpion and a very large Corn Snake!

We learned lots of useful facts, for example did you know that a corn snake has over 10,000 muscles in its body?  The children asked lots of interesting questions, such as “Does he like sleeping?” “How can a stick insect stick?” and “How does a snake eat a mouse?” They were also super gentle when holding the animals and listened very carefully to what the leader told us. We are very proud of you!

And finally, we have celebrated a wonderful Sports Day here in Pre-school today! The children have worked so hard learning to balance, to bounce, to hop, to jump and run super-fast in our races! A huge thankyou to all of you who came to watch, cheer and clap! It was a fabulous morning, and we hope that the children are rightfully proud of their winning medals and certificates!

This term is flying by in a flash and as you can see it has been a lovely and very active week of learning!

Friday 23rd June

What lovely sunshine we have enjoyed this week! The children have continued to enjoy being outside in the fresh air and developing their skills!

Literacy:

This week we have been thinking how Vets help us. The children pretended to look after the soft toys in the role play area and also we have had lots of discussions about our own pets - what happens if they are poorly, and how important it is to always be kind and gentle with them! Our story this week has been Topsy & Tim -Sore Paw and you can watch it here! https://youtu.be/wEtPhKMeZ3c

Once again, the children have been very busy with their mark making – some of the children have enjoyed being outside and using the clipboards and paper to take “the register!” saying Good Morning to each other! They have also learned how to sign in Makaton “Good Morning!” – maybe they can show you?

We have been really impressed with how the children’s fine motor skills are developing – we enjoyed lots of cutting out of shapes this week and the children have really worked hard to hold their scissors correctly and complete some accurate cutting! Well done!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia continued teaching us our special dance to Hakuna Matata from The Lion King this week which the children are really enjoying learning! Not only that, but we also learned a new goodbye song – See you later Alligator!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have really enjoyed learning about the properties of 2D shapes - as we practiced cutting out our triangles, we talked about mathematical language such as “sides” and “corners” and we have also been comparing sizes as we play!

What to you think of the amazing constructions the children have made this week? It has been lovely to see collaborative working together too! Well done everyone!

Some of the afternoon children had the opportunity to visit their Reception classes to see the amazing models that the Year R children have made – we absolutely loved looking at the pirate ships and treasure chests that had been created using junk modelling and other resources, along with many different habitats – the penguin and spider ones were especially popular! Our pre-schoolers are now very excited to see what wonderful things they will be doing when they go to big school!

Of course, our outside play has been popular in the sunshine this week. Some of the children are already understanding about their transition to Year R and are playing “schools!” Whilst others have preferred to be super active playing football and riding the bikes and trikes around the garden! It has also been wonderful to watch the children still closely interested in minibeasts. Some found lots of snails in our watering can and so they were very careful to place them in our minibeast area and think about what food they may like to eat – as you can see, slices of orange and leaves were very popular!

And finally, speaking of snails we have exciting news, one of our African Land Snails has had a baby! We have called her “Lucky” and hope you love the pictures! You have to look very closely – can your child find them?!

As you can see, once again we have had a super week of fun and learning here in the Pre-School!

Friday 16th June

What a beautiful week of weather we have enjoyed this week! The children have loved being outside in the sunshine, playing on bikes, scooters and space hoppers as well as enjoying play in our sandpit!

Literacy:

This week we have been thinking how Police help us. The children have looked closely and described what a police officer wears as well as what they do. They have also been decorating their very own police badges which they took home with them! Our story this week has been Topsy & Tim Meet the Police.

The children are really working hard to develop their pencil control and have enjoyed tracing sheets this week along with creating their own wonderful pictures.

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia continued teaching us our special dance to Hakuna Matata from The Lion King this week which the children are really enjoying learning. It is lovely to see some of the older children helping their younger friends too!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have been making sure we count one object with one finger (known as 1:1 correspondence) to make sure we count the correct number! It can be tricky to rush when we count and so we have been trying to remember to slow down as we count too!

Building in the construction area has continued to be very popular this week, with the children creating some amazing constructions using the sticklebricks, lego as well as fabulous patterns using the creative gears!  We have also been super proud of the children’s identification of 2D shapes this week, playing a fun game with flash cards! Well done everyone!

Above all the children have thrived being outside in the garden this week; whether they are creating sand pies for the teachers, using their skills to measure and pour, to enjoy constructing and transporting, or develop their understanding of nature by filling up our minibeast pond and looking closely at the minibeasts they find, all have been learning through their play.

What a super, sunny week!

Friday 9^th June

Welcome back to Pre-School for the Summer Term! We have just over 6 weeks of this academic year left and are looking forward to lots of sunny weather and fun activities!

Literacy:

Our new theme for this term is “People Who Help Us” and so this week we have been thinking about what Doctors and Nurses do and where they might work. In our literacy, we have been working hard on recognising our name when we arrive at pre-school. The children have also had lots of fun exploring musical instruments, learning their unusual names and playing them loudly and quietly! Our story this week has been Topsy & Tim at the Hospital.

We are all very proud of the children’s pencil control this week! They are really enjoying their mark making and have created some amazing self-portraits for their creative work folders!

Additionally they created their very own Doctor’s bag, cutting and sticking all the instruments that they need to make people better!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia was back this week and so in the new hall, we had lots of fun! We learned a new Hello Song and once we had shaken our sillies out, we began learning a brand-new dance to Hakuna Matata from The Lion King! It was so much fun – maybe your child can show you the actions! Then we had a game of “sleeping bunnies” before learning a new Goodbye song! What a busy lesson!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have had so much fun counting objects that are all around us! We enjoyed counting the segments of our oranges at snack time and some of managed to count up to 20 raisins before eating them!

Building in the construction area has been very popular this week, with the children creating some amazing constructions using the polydron, lego and magnetic blocks!

As the weather has been getting warmer this week, we have enjoyed being outside in the fresh air and developing our fine motor skills using our bikes, trikes and space hoppers! Singing and dancing to “ring-a-ring o’roses” has also been popular with lots of giggles as the children fell to the ground!

Football has also been popular with the children enjoying using Mrs Milham and Mrs Tuffs as target practice! And our afternoon children were very lucky to have a quick peek at the new Early Years Play area – even sneaking a go at sliding down the super high pole!

So as you can see we have got off to a flying start in Term 6 and we hope you  enjoy looking at the pictures!

Friday 12^th May 2023

Literacy:

In a shortened week this week due to the Coronation Bank Holiday, we have had lots of fun learning and especially now the warmer weather is here, the children have loved continuing this outside in the garden!

In literacy this week, our story has been What the Ladybird Heard, by Julia Donaldson. The children have developed their listening skills by remembering what sound each animal made and also their reading skills by looking super closely at the book to find the tiny ladybird in the pictures! Some of the children also enjoyed creating their very own ladybirds – aren’t they amazing?!

We have enjoyed creating our very own ladybirds using shapes too, which have made part of our amazing display, along with all the other minibeasts we have learned about this term. Can your child name all of them to you?!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week, which the children all enjoyed! Learning to listen carefully and follow instructions is an important skill, which means the children are now really building the foundations for literacy and learning. We all had lots of fun taking turns to say hello to each other, using big voices as well as “shaking our sillies out” and learning the next steps in our Encanto dance!

Well done everyone!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, our story of What The Ladybird Heard has provided us with lots of fun. While we created our ladybirds, we carefully counted the number of spots, using one finger for one spot.

We have also been super busy in the construction area this week. The children have enjoyed creating with the polydron and describing what they have made to us. We also played a super game on the interactive whiteboard thinking hard about shapes and the patterns that can be made with them.

When we arrived at Pre-School after the Bank Holiday, we were all so excited to see that our caterpillar cocoons had hatched! We now had 10 beautiful butterflies in the nets and we had lots of discussion surrounding the foods that we thought they may eat – from mud to sweets! The children have all been very careful not to hurt the butterflies in any way and enjoyed feeding them pieces of raspberry and grape until the day came yesterday to let them go free. Some of the children were a little sad about them leaving us, however we had lots of conversations about why the butterflies should be allowed to fly high up in the sky and find their own food.

And so we set our little butterflies free and one actually decided to stay in the pre-school garden! It found a lovely plant and it was amazing to see that it started to feed itself the pollen on the tiny flowers using its tongue which has a special name – a proboscis! If you look closely in the picture you can see it feeding! Not only that, at lunch time, Miss Brown found that she had a visitor on her fleece – an inquisitive caterpillar who looked very happy to meet us! This one however, was immediately placed back in the pre-school garden!

As you can see it has been a very busy and fun-packed week of learning here in Pre-School!

Friday 6^th May 2023

Literacy:

In literacy this week, we have had lots of fun revisiting all the stories we have listened to this term and being able to retell parts of them. This week we have learned all about frogs and tadpoles and the children made some amazing frogs for their craft activity!

In Letters and Sounds we are working hard to sign the cued articulation actions to the letter sounds we have learned so far and can recognise some of these letters being at the start of our friends’ names!

Some of the children are really enjoying beginning to write their names, which is lovely to see! They are holding their pens correctly and are very proud of their achievements! Their mark making even continues into the garden, where some have drawn beautiful pictures with chalk!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week, which involved lots of movement and action! We had fun singing our Hello Song, shouting out our names loudly, and “shaking our sillies out!” The children listened beautifully and really enjoyed playing with their scarves and streamers. Of course, a favourite song to end with is “Sleeping Bunnies!” Maybe your child could show you how they hopped up and down!

Our word of the week has been “cocoon” as our caterpillars have now formed theirs! The children looked very closely at the changes that have made and asked some super questions, such as “Why were the cocoons on the lid?”  and “Why do they need to be in a net?” Well done everyone!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have enjoyed completing lots of jigsaw puzzles and had lots of fun looking for numbers in the sand, being able to say what number they have found!

We have played lots of games on our Interactive Whiteboard including a ladybird counting game, where some children could also match the number correctly too! Well done!

Of course, with the Coronation happening this weekend, we have been very busy creating our spectacular crowns (more about this later!) as well as listening to the King’s Coronation music. We have looked at pictures of our new King, we well as the flag of the United Kingdom and of course, took the opportunity to make a biscuity treat, using the colours of our flag!

We wish all of you and your families a wonderful Bank Holiday weekend!

Friday 28th April 2023:

Literacy:

In literacy this week, our story has been Ahhh Spider! By Lydia Monks. This is a wonderful story about a spider who attempts to become a family pet! The children have really enjoyed this week’s story and were very keen to create their own spiders, using their handprints! They look amazing, don’t they!

Some of the children have also been practicing using scissors this week, to cut out a selection of shapes to build a drainpipe for Incy Wincy Spider and sticking them on the page to complete their picture.

Lots of the children have been drawing their own minibeasts, using our small world toys as inspiration. I think you can agree we have some super artists in the making!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week, and the children are really getting stuck into our new Encanto Dance, as well as having so much fun waving their scarves in the air as they move!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have really enjoyed using lots of props to help our counting as we sing! The song 5 Little Ducks was especially popular, and the children are also learning not to rush as they count objects, which is lovely to see! Their learning even continued into lunch time, when the children enjoyed looking closely to count the number of wings and legs some minibeasts have! Some of our children are also now beginning to draw their own shapes and be able to describe their properties – well done!

It has been a very exciting week here in Pre-School as you can see! The children have enjoyed looking closely and feeding our pre-school pet African snails, Sid and Shelly. They have learned so much – how to be gentle and care for living things, to think about what they eat, and to describe how they feel to hold (although some children weren’t too keen to hold them as you can see from the photos!)

Additionally, they have shown super interest in our caterpillars who are growing extremely quickly! Maybe your child can tell you the special name for the covering or case made by the caterpillars to protect themselves as they develop into butterflies?

Well done, Pre-Schoolers!

Friday 21^st April 2023

Forest School:

Our morning at Forest school gave us the opportunity to become “Minibeast Explorers” and so we set off with our magnifying glasses to see what we could uncover!

The children demonstrated super listening, by making sure that when the big logs were moved, they were carefully placed back as it is the minibeasts home and to not touch any minibeasts as we are in their environment!

Immediately we were able to find lots of snails that were on the leaves of trees and the wooden pallets. We even saw a hornet that was resting on a leaf in the sun! The children enjoyed looking very carefully around the forest school and it was incredible to see so many minibeasts – spiders, centipedes, worms and even a large caterpillar!

The children did very well today listening to instructions and looking after the equipment – well done!

Literacy:

In literacy this week, our story has been Superworm! The children have really enjoyed joining in the refrain “Superworm is super long! Superworm is super strong!” – complete with actions! We have even made our own Superworms in craft to go on our minibeast display!

The children are continuing to show a real love of looking at books, which is wonderful to see; often they will find a favourite book and retell the story in their own words.

Similarly, some of the children are enjoying their mark making and are so proud of their amazing creations that they bring home to you! They have also spent a great deal of their time carefully using different tools to model their plasticine – both activities demonstrating their developing fine motor skills!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week. It is lovely to see more children feeling confident to join in and have a go!  We all had lots of fun taking turns to say hello to each other and are now learning a fun new dance to “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” from the film Encanto!

Well done everyone!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have been talking about size – long and short when making our own Superworms! We have also had lots of fun building with shapes. Our older children are enjoying counting to 10, ensuring that they use 1:1 correspondence for each object they count, whilst our younger members have enjoyed counting the spots on ladybirds and singing many counting action songs such as 5 Little Ducks.

So, as you can see, we have returned to pre-school full of energy to carry on our amazing learning! It is sure to be a fabulous term!

Friday 24th March 2023

Forest School

We spent a lovely morning in the Forest School and thankfully the rain stopped this week for us!

The children had lots of fun exploring in the new playhouse that is there, acting out the story of Goldilocks and the 3 Bears! Some also used the little trollies to collect sticks to make little houses for the worms and bugs to live in!

It was wonderful to see more children challenging themselves to have a walk across the balance beam, which I’m sure to a 4-year-old seems very high up!

Some of the children enjoyed being on the swing and it was here that we noticed the beautiful white blossom that is beginning to appear on some of the trees! A sure sign that spring and warmer weather is coming – we hope!

Letters and Sounds:

In our letters and sounds this week our new letter sound is the letter A. The children have learned or song associated with this letter as well as the cued articulation action – maybe they can show this to you and tell you the sound the letter A makes! Some of the children thought very hard and were able to associate the letter A starting the words “apple” “ant” and “Arif!”

The children have all worked super hard this week developing their fine motor skills and learning to hold their pencils correctly. They have enjoyed using tracing sheets to complete patterns or the letters of their names and we are really thrilled that some children are now writing their names independently!

In Dance this week, Miss Jewell came into the pre-school and the children learned a fantastic dance to the song Footloose! It was very fast, but the children showed super listening skills and tried their best. Afterwards, they sat in a circle and took it in turns to “freestyle” – showing each other their best dance moves, which for some children took a lot of courage, so well done to you all again!

Of course, today was the School Fun Run and all the children were absolutely amazing! They joined in the fun run warmup with enthusiasm and managed to complete their laps of the school field, which was no easy task for them (or Mrs Tuffs!) Each child received a certificate as we were so very proud of them! They certainly put the “fun” into Fun Run!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, our younger members have been singing 5 Little Ducks, 5 fat Sausages and 5 Little Snowmen using our fingers to help us. We have also looked carefully at dice and carefully counted the dots on each side.

The older children have enjoyed counting and matching activities; using our bug trays to carefully count out the correct number of bugs as well as sequencing the correct pattern on the pictures! We have also played a fun game on the whiteboard matching the correct shape to go on the shape monster’s mouth, whilst learning about the number of sides a triangle, square and rectangle have.

It has been Stay & Play this week and we have loved welcoming so many of you into pre-school to have a chat with your child’s key person! The feedback we have received has been very positive and we hope you have enjoyed seeing what your child has been doing!

For those of you that have not been able to attend, a copy of your child’s Unique Story will be given to you and we would be grateful if you could sign and return it, along with any comments or suggestions you have! Our last stay and play session of the academic year will take place in July.

So as you can see, it has been a super busy, fun and energetic week here in pre-school! We hope your child enjoys telling you all about it!

Letters and Sounds:

In our letters and sounds this week our new letter sound is the letter A. The children have learned or song associated with this letter as well as the cued articulation action – maybe they can show this to you and tell you the sound the letter A makes! Some of the children thought very hard and were able to associate the letter A starting the words “apple” “ant” and “Arif!”

The children have all worked super hard this week developing their fine motor skills and learning to hold their pencils correctly. They have enjoyed using tracing sheets to complete patterns or the letters of their names and we are really thrilled that some children are now writing their names independently!

In Dance this week, Miss Jewell came into the pre-school and the children learned a fantastic dance to the song Footloose! It was very fast, but the children showed super listening skills and tried their best. Afterwards, they sat in a circle and took it in turns to “freestyle” – showing each other their best dance moves, which for some children took a lot of courage, so well done to you all again!

Friday 17^th March 2023

In literacy this week, our story has been 'Up Up Up, Up in A Balloon'. We have enjoyed singing the song to the story and also had lots of lovely conversations about what else flies in the sky!

We also continued learning our letter sound for 'S' this week and the children were able to think of lots of words that begin with this letter sound, as well as making the cued articulation action associated with it. Other members of pre-school enjoyed playing a listening game, where they had to try and identify the different sounds that animals make! It was lots of fun and we had some quite varied answers!

We also used our fine motor skills to create our beautiful cards for Mother’s Day – some of us could write our own names in them too! What do you think?

In our maths learning this week, we have enjoyed lots of different counting activities! For our younger children, we have sung our favourite counting songs using our fingers to help us. Outside in the garden, we have also enjoyed number hunts where we had to carefully find hidden numbers and be able to tell our grown up what the number was!

The soft play area was lots of fun this week too, with children counting the stepping stones they went across, as well as playing a game where they had to show their grown up 1,2 or 3 balls!

Of course, Friday was Red Nose Day and we enjoyed coming to pre-school wearing the colour red. We enjoyed creating our very own Red Nose portraits! Can you tell who is who?!

Friday 10^th March 2023:

Forest School

The cold snowy weather this week meant the children have continued to have been fascinated by our story “We’re Going On a Bear Hunt” and so the Forest School was an ideal place to retell the story, using lots of actions! (Unfortunately Mrs Tuffs forgot to take a camera!) Retelling this amazing story encourages and promotes imaginative play and creativity, as well as letting the children move their bodies through dance and rhythm. And of course, the story helps develop and extend vocabulary. Maybe you could go on a Bear Hunt with your child this weekend!

Literacy:

In literacy this week, our story has been The Magic Train Ride. We have enjoyed joining in the actions of the train as it visits lots of different lands and some of us created our very own tickets at the mark making table and shared them with their friends!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia taught us a new song involving walking and hopping which was lots of fun and we also extended our dance to Aladdin!

Well done everyone!

Some of us also began learning our initial letter sounds this week; the first letter being S. Together we learned the Jolly Phonics song for S. as well as learning the cued articulation action for it. We were also able to think of lots of words that begin with this letter sound – well done! Some children noticed the letter S during child-initiated play, carefully observing that letters are all around us!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have enjoyed singing lots of counting songs using our fingers! During our child-initiated play, we have also begun sequencing numbers in the correct order. We have also begun to count and find the correct number using a number line playing a fun game on the interactive whiteboard.

Our story of The Magic Train Ride provided us with the opportunity to create our very own trains using 2D shapes; some of us could name the shape and describe it! These will proudly go on our display board! The children also enjoyed exploring shapes during child-initiated play, using shapes appropriately to create houses, pizza, flowers and balls! Finally we had lots of fun playing a game where we had to choose the correct shape on the shape train to make a repeating pattern! So as you can see it has been a brilliant week of super learning!

Well done everyone!

Friday 3^rd March 2023

Literacy

We have had a very busy week in our literacy this week! Our story has been We’re Going in a Bear Hunt. Some of the children were able to remember key parts of the story and join in the refrain We can’t go over it, we can’t go under it, we’ll have to go through it!” The children also used their recall skills to complete some brilliant maps, showing the route of the Bear Hunt! Well done!

We had lots of fun with our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia this week, trying to remember all the actions to “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes!” Maybe you could join in with this at home with your children! We also learned another section to our Aladdin dance this week and the children listened very carefully to the instructions for this.

Of course it was World Book Day on Friday and it was lovely to see the children wearing amazing costumes, or with their favourite prop from a book! The children were also very surprised to see not 1, not 2 but 3 Stick Men greeting them at the door! We had lots of fun listening to Mrs Tuffs read the story of Stick Man and also used lots of energy to dance to The World Book Day Rap!

As part of World Book Day celebrations we were very lucky to have 2 visitors to Pre-School to share their favourite books. Mrs Priest, from the Wellbeing hub house shared 3 of her favourite stories: “There’s An Ouch in my Pouch,” Trouble at the Dinosaur Café” and “Rosie’s Hat” which reflected our theme of Journeys beautifully when a gust of wind sweeps Rosie’s hat off her head, it goes off on a journey of its own!

Our parent visitor Mrs Relton also shared the wonderful story of The Gruffalo with our afternoon children. They listened beautifully and were fantastic at joining in some Makaton signing during the story too! Thankyou to all our visitors this week!

Maths

In our maths learning this week, our story of Going on a Bear Hunt also provided us with the opportunity to discuss the route of the story and we shared spatial language such as “over” and “under.”

We also have enjoyed small world play with dinosaurs and some of the children created some amazing enclosures for them, using a range of resources – Luna made a super Dinosaur House!

We have also been learning lots about 2D shapes this week, talking about their properties and even making repeating patterns with them!

So as you can see, it has been a hugely busy week this week with lots of wonderful learning!  

Friday 24^th February 2023

Forest School:

Unfortunately, Forest School is closed for the next 2 weeks, however we have still had lots of fun exploring in the pre-school garden!

The children have enjoyed seeing how the birds have eaten lots of seeds from the bird feeders we have made and have also been noticing some of flowers that are starting to appear – hopefully a welcome sign that Spring is on the way!

Literacy

We have a new theme this term of Journeys and in our literacy this week, our story has been The Journey Home from Grandpas. We have enjoyed joining in the actions to the song and we have had lots of discussions about how we can travel to places – by car, truck, train, bus and even helicopter! When we were outside in the garden, the children also heard some of the sounds of these vehicles in their play! Learning about environmental sounds helps children hone their listening and recognition skills, as they listen for specific sounds around them. These skills will develop in later phases of phonics as they listen to words and pick out the specific sounds within them.

As we celebrated Pancake Day this week, Mrs Tuffs also read the story of Pancakes Pancakes! by Eric Carle, before demonstrating how to flip a pancake (almost) successfully! In the story, the barnyard rooster crows and Jack wakes up hungry, of course! What does he want for breakfast? A big pancake! But first, Jack's mother needs flour from the mill, an egg from the black hen, milk from the spotted cow, butter churned from fresh cream, and firewood for the stove. The children did really well to remember the ingredients needed to make pancakes!

Afterwards, they continued developing their fine motor skills using scissors to cut out the fruit they wanted to make a pancake face!

Additionally, the children enjoyed lots of discussion talking about the toppings they would put on their pancake, making their very own paper pancake using collage chocolate, jam, strawberries and lemon!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week, which our newer members joined in with for the first time! Learning to listen carefully and follow instructions is an important skill, which means the children are building the foundations for literacy and learning. We had lots of fun learning a new dance and following instructions to wave our scarves in the air! The children then transferred these skills to dancing independently during free-play!

Well done everyone!

Maths

In our maths learning this week, we had lots of fun comparing size and quantity when we celebrated pancake day! We used lots of measuring jugs and different sized spoons to explore weight and capacity using flour and using real pancakes and a small frying pan, we counted how many times we could flip our pancakes!

Some of the children also practiced their fine motor skills using tweezers to carefully pick up pom poms and placing the correct number in the egg boxes! It was tricky but they showed great perseverance!

Also showing great perseverance this week was Eva, who spent a great deal of time creating a rocket that was almost as tall as her!

As you can see, it has been another fun week of learning here in Pre-School!

Thursday 9th February 2023

Forest School:

We had a lovely time at the Forest school this week and the children were so happy to spot a little robin feeding from one of the bird feeders we made a couple of weeks ago! Can you spot the robin in the picture?

This week it was really lovely to see the children displaying the Pre-School value of independence – some enjoyed both climbing and walking across the balance beam independently, whilst others experimented in different ways of moving around the tree stumps. Lots of children can now use the swing independently, and will happily negotiate among themselves whose turn is next. Well done everyone!

Storybooks have been very popular this week and the peaceful setting of Forest School appealed to lots of the children to sit and look at the pictures and discuss storylines with their peers. Luna was able to recognise the book “Pinnochio” and enjoyed sharing the story with Sienna. Meyra enjoyed listening to the story of Stick Man and then went off to collect her own sticks, which she then placed in the ”family tree!”

Elsewhere, Artin found a stick that was super for picking up leaves with! And Louie happily explored the forest to find sticks, comparing the size of each one until he found one that was nearly as tall as him!

Of course, lots of our younger children continued to love being in the mud kitchen and making lots of potions, whilst others loved to use the wheelbarrows to transport their pine cones or sticks! It was certainly a busy morning!

Literacy:

In literacy this week, our story has been Hansel and Gretel. We have enjoyed making our very own houses made of sweets using collage!

The children have thoroughly enjoyed this term’s theme of Traditional Tales and they have remembered many of the stories we have read. Together they took it in turns to locate each book and enjoyed looking at the pictures and retelling the stories! Some children even acted out the parts! 

We have also had lots of fun at our mark making table this week developing our fine motor skills whether using felt tip pens or scissors.

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week. We all had lots of fun taking turns to say hello to each other and demonstrated some amazing moves, learning a new dance to Aladdin!

Well done everyone!

Maths:

In our maths learning this week, we have continued to enjoy lots of counting songs and actions at hello time. We have also been very interested in comparing different sizes of things, noticing which is bigger or smaller and also making some fantastic shape patterns! Eva was especially proud of the amazing circle that she cut out herself using scissors! Well done!

Our final week of Term 3 has been super busy as you can see! I wonder what Term 4 has in store for us!  

Friday 3^rd February 2023

Forest School

We were very lucky that it was a beautifully sunny day in the Forest School this week! Not only that, but it was also Dharunnithi’s birthday and so we decided to have a Forest School picnic, enjoying our party biscuits in the sunshine and of course, singing “Happy Birthday” to the birthday boy!

Today we were very lucky to have some beautiful books to look at – including our favourite, “Stick Man!” It was lovely to listen to the story outside in the fresh air, as well as sing lots of nursery rhymes using the story telling stones. Additionally there were some round weaving tree stumps  and it was lovely to see the children using them as birthday cakes to sing Happy Birthday!

Our craft activity was to make some beautiful birds and the children developed their fine motor skills using glue spatulas to carefully place the glue on their paper, before choosing rainbow feathers to stick on.

Meanwhile lots of children had fun developing their motor skills, either by working out how to manoeuvre their wheelbarrows over logs, or by climbing up the log pile to walk across the balance beam, or by using the tree stumps as stepping stones.

Of course the swing was very popular with the children learning to take turns to use it. The children did very well today listening to instructions and looking after the forest school equipment – well done!

In literacy this week, our story has been The 3 Little Pigs. We have enjoyed joining in the refrain “Little Pig, Little Pig Let me come in!” and laughed when the big bad wolf fell into the pan of hot water!

Our craft activity was making some amazing houses for our display, which when you lift the flap, show the 3 pigs inside which the children have cut out! Well done!

Unfortunately there was no Dance this week, however we are looking forward to the last session of the term next week!

In our maths learning this week, our story of The 3 Little Pigs has provided us with lots of fun. We have built lots of different sized houses and compared which materials would be heaviest – sticks, straw or bricks.

We have also enjoyed looking at 2D shapes and had fun fitting shapes into the matching hole in a puzzle cube, as well as playing a fun shape train game on the interactive whiteboard.

And of course, Friday was the NSPCC Number Day, so we had lots of fun matching puzzles and going on a Number 1 hunt before taking them over to the big school! Leona wore a super number decorated t-shirt and Andres created his very own “Mighty Superhero” out of lego for his entry in the school competition!

Several of the children brought in some coins for the “Coin Challenge” and we attempted to build the tallest tower with them! Miss Brown had a very clever plan to place the coins inside a tube to build the tower and the children showed super focus and attention to detail, carefully putting the coins in there. Upon the great reveal, the tower stood firm – but only briefly!

Well done everyone for another fun and fantastic week of learning and most importantly for never giving up!

Friday 27th January

Our morning at Forest School was a very cold and windy one, but that didn’t stop us having lots of fun! We were very excited to learn that there was a Blue Tit nesting in one of our bird boxes!

Today we had the opportunity to decorate some CDs with paint, making beautiful suncatchers! They look amazing spinning in the wind!

Meanwhile lots of the children had so much fun on the swing and showed a great can-do attitude walking along the balance log! Whilst others enjoyed filling the wheelbarrows with twigs and leaves, transporting them to another place and emptying them!, developing their motor skills and pushing and pulling them with increasing control. Well done everyone!

In Literacy this week, our story has been The Gingerbread Man. We have enjoyed joining in the refrain, “Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man!”

The children have also developed their fine motor skills by making amazing collage Gingerbread Men for our display board. It was quite tricky to use a glue stick and place the small pieces of paper on their artwork but again, everyone showed a can-do attitude! It is also lovely to see the developing pen control of some of our youngsters – great job!

We also celebrated the Chinese New Year this week by creating dancing dragon puppets! We hope the children love playing with these at home!

We had another fun dance lesson with Miss Georgia this week and it is lovely to see the children singing and joining in the actions to the Hello Song! Well done!

In our maths learning this week, our story of The Gingerbread Man has provided us with lots of fun. Using the play foam, some of us created our own gingerbread men! This was a super activity which also helped develop their fine motor skills too!

Additionally we have enjoyed exploring number in our child-initiated play – counting and exploring size through small world play.

The new children have begun to settle very well now they are here full time and we are seeing some lovely friendships being formed! Well done Pre-School!

Friday 20th January 2023

Forest School

Our morning at Forest school was a very sunny, cold and frosty one! Our newest members of Pre-School enjoyed coming over to explore and it was lovely to hear our older children telling them what the rules of the Forest School are – no running, no waving sticks and keep inside the blue rope!

Today we had the opportunity to make some amazing bird feeders, using cardboard tubes, lard and birdseed. It was a little bit bit tricky rubbing the lard onto the tubes, however the children loved rolling their feeders into the birdseed to watch it stick to it! This in turn led to some wonderful conversations about why birds are hungry at this time of year and what they eat. We are now very lucky to have some of our bird feeders in the Pre-School gardening area, along with some pinecone feeders that Mrs Tuffs enjoyed making! We hope to see lots of different species of birds feeding off them very soon!

Meanwhile our younger children had so much fun on the swing and some were lucky enough to swing in the hammock -  I think you can see in the photos how much they enjoyed it! Whilst others enjoyed transporting twigs around in the wheelbarrows or making amazing “cupcakes” using the foliage around them, or simply having fun popping the bubbles Miss Brown had.

The children did very well today listening to instructions and looking after the forest school equipment – well done!

Literacy

In literacy this week, our story has been Goldilocks and the 3 Bears. We have enjoyed joining in the actions to the Goldilocks song and some of us were able to retell the story, using puppets and pictures! It was lovely to see some of the expressions as the children acted out being Daddy Bear, Mummy Bear and Baby Bear!

We have loved seeing some of our newer members showing us their amazing mark making – Isabelle drew an amazing rainbow and Imogen was very proud of her “merry-go-round!”

Of course, the colder weather meant the children loved being outside, where we had lots of fun exploring the ice, and experimenting with lots of different tools to smash it up – these will all help the children develop their motor skills!

Our Dance teacher, Miss Georgia provided us with a super lesson this week, which our newer members joined in with for the first time! Learning to listen carefully and follow instructions is an important skill, which means the children are building the foundations for literacy and learning. Plus, they are learning key skills like how to express themselves and make friends. We all had lots of fun taking turns to say hello to each other, “shaking our sillies out” and learning the next steps in our Lion King dance!

Well done everyone!