This week our story of Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson has led the children to discover the many wonderous sea life that have shells as their homes, and what they do when they outgrow their home. The book has also been a great story to talk about friendship and sharing.  

We have watched clips of real-life sea creatures that live on the seabed or against the rocks who use their shells for protection and to help them move around. We are lucky to have a lovely collection of seashells in Pre-School and the children have enjoyed discussing their shape, size, colour and even what sea creature may have once lived inside! 

Taking inspiration from the vibrant illustrations in the book we have recreated our own sparkly hermit crabs, sequined scallop shells and also some salt dough handprints decorated with shells. A lovely variety of artwork the children have all enjoyed.  

This week the children have also discovered environmental sounds we may hear at the seaside, using their listening skills to correctly match the sounds with their corresponding image.  

We have also used shells in our number work to recognise numbers and then count the correct number of shells.  

Plenty of sunshine has allowed outside play and discovery to be enjoyed, with more planting, car washing, mud kitchen baking and watering of all our wonderful plants. 

Next week we will enjoy the story of ‘What the ladybird heard at the seaside?’  

Lastly, a polite reminder to please send your child in with suncream, a hat, and a refillable water bottle when the weather is warm. 

We hope everyone has a lovely weekend. 

The Pre-School Team.  

Ahoy, Me Hearties! 

What a jolly good pirate week of fun we have had here in Pre-School. 

This week’s book has been the funny story of ‘Pirates Love Underpants’, with plenty of giggles from the children.    

Our pirate ship and beach role play areas have been hugely popular with the children – using the dressing up props, gold coins and maps to sail stormy seas and seek pirate adventures.  

This week we learned the names of famous pirates before finding out our own pirate names using the pirate's name generator.  The children found it hugely entertaining to hear their own and their friends' pirate names, such as – Seadog Stinkalot, One Eyed Squid Legs, Swashbuckler Custard Pie!  

We then perfected our pirate skills by learning to say some pirate phrases such as ‘shiver me timbers, ‘yo ho ho’ and ‘walk the plank!’ 

Also, this week the children enjoyed making some treasure maps to help find the golden coins, they used tea bags to make the maps look old.  

We will continue our pirate themed fun into next week with our book ‘Ten Pirates’ so plenty more adventures aboard ‘The Jolly Rodger’ buckos!  

A reminder that it is our whole school sports day on Friday 21st June starting at 9.30am.  Please check your emails for the letter from school.  All children are welcome to attend but please note that if it is not your child’s normal session day, they are welcome to join in with the races but will return to their adult when the Pre-School races have finished.  

If you have any questions, then please come and speak to us.  

We hope you all have a lovely weekend,  

The Pre-School Team. 

This week the children enjoyed the story of ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ with its many concepts of learning such as counting, food, days of the week and the life cycle of a caterpillar. We have also delved deeper into the wonderful world of ‘minibeasts' and discovered some weird and wonderful creatures.   

The children have enjoyed lots of time outdoors discovering where some minibeasts may be living. We have been careful to explore but not to disturb their homes. The children have been thoroughly fascinated with what may be living under a log, or in our growing areas, and obviously inside our very own bug hotel. This independent exploring has led to some wonderful conversations and use of vocabulary between the children, and it has been lovely for us adults to observe. Outdoor learning and discovery are the best forms of development for young children, and they have totally embraced that this week. 

Alongside our outside learning, we have created some amazing caterpillar and butterfly artwork. We used balloons dipped in paint to create our caterpillar, and for our butterflies we created a pattern on one half, then folded the paper in half to mirror our designs. They all turned out so uniquely different but beautiful.  
To develop our fine motor skills we have threaded cotton wheels on to pipe cleaners to make caterpillars.

Our runner bean plants have now been planted out into our big tyre planter in the playground. Also, the children's sunflower plants have started to be sent home. Please do send us pictures and how tall they are when they are in flower!  

We hope that everyone has a lovely half term week, we return to Pre-School on Monday 3rd June.
Also, a reminder that Friday 7th June is an Inset day for the whole school.

The Pre-School Team

What a gloriously sunny week in Pre-School, we have all thoroughly enjoyed the sunshine and plenty of time being outside to play.  

This week we have been reading the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, a timeless tale that inspires young children to be brave and have courage even when faced with obstacles! 

Several of the children were inspired to make their own castles using our wooden blocks, even turning them into castles for the animals to live in.  

We have decorated our own magic beans with paint and glitter for our art wall, and placed bean seeds and cotton wool in sandwich bags to see if they grow. We have stuck them to the window to allow as much sunlight as possible and will be watching them grow over the next few weeks to see whose gets the tallest! 

Some of our older children have done some excellent practice of writing their names, numbers and letters, we will be getting in as much practice as possible before their transition to reception in September. 

Wednesday afternoon you are invited to a 'Stay and Play' session at pre-school, please note the time is 2-3pm and is open to all current Pre-School families. You are welcome along if this is your child's normal session or not. It is an informal session for you as parents to engage in play with your child and their friends, and to see how they explore the pre-school environment. Any questions, please do come and speak to a member of the team. 

Please could we also ask for any outstanding ‘Big Brush Club’ consent forms to be handed in this week - Thank you.  

Finally, we hope that everyone enjoys the lovely warm weather over the weekend.  

The Pre-School Team  

A wonderful week of special celebrations! 

With Monday (April 22nd) being the annual date that we celebrate our remarkable planet with Earth Day, we decided to continue this theme throughout the week so that all the children could access some learning and activities that help them to understand how important it is to protect and care for our planet and the different ways we can do that working together.  

The children were already aware of some the things that we do to help protect planet Earth and all it's living things. They told us it is really important to not drop litter, especially into the ocean as the fish sometimes mistake it for food and will eat it, making them poorly! They were also able to tell us some of the things that we can recycle to be used again, and how we must not waste water.

One of our hands on activities this week has been to make wildflower seed bombs. We learned that not only do wild flowers look pretty, but they are very important for the wildlife, including our special bumblebees. They have been planted into our garden areas and hopefully we may see some beautiful flowers popping up where there wasn't any before! 
We have also celebrated our cress heads growing. The children could not believe how quickly their ‘green hair’ has sprouted! We may need some patience for our other planted seeds.

This week we have also celebrate ‘St George’s Day’. The children were shown a picture of Saint George and asked who he may be, and what was he wearing?  The children said he could be a knight as he had a sword and shield.  We listened to a story explaining that Saint George was a soldier who lived hundreds of years ago, who liked to help and protect people. Saint George rescued a royal princess from a fierce dragon and England adopted him as a patron saint. We then discussed what the words ‘protect’ and ‘fierce’ mean. We talked about St George’s flag and painted our own using our fingers to paint the red cross. 

In other news a letter will be sent home to give information about the ‘Big Brush Club’ we will be taking part in here at Pre-School. It’s an NHS funded scheme to improve oral wellbeing in children. You can visit www.bigbrushclub.co.uk for more information. If you have any questions, then please do come and speak to us at Pre-School.   

Lastly, with weather still being very unsettled, even on those sunny days it is very chilly. Please could we ask that your child still comes in with suitable clothing (layers are good) even if it looks sunny and warm. Also, that they wear shoes with their toes covered. We thank you for your understanding on this.  

Next week we look forward to our book ‘Sam Plants a Sunflower’ and will be planting our own sunflower seeds too! 

Have a lovely weekend, 

The Pre-School Team.