Category: What we have been doing in pre-school

This week we continued with our maths theme, looking at shapes and counting. The children made their own shapes on the whiteboard and chalked outside, (this big drawing is so good developing the muscles needed before pencil writing).

We made a counting line using the children and also made a pattern counting grid using paint stampers. The children have also been using their fingers to count up and down to ten.

The children engaged in a variety of craft activities this week, painting with big, medium and little circles, making masks and on Friday we made kites to take outside to blow in the wind.

The Duplo and wild animals were available for the children to develop their imagination as were the diggers in the sand/coloured rice.

We saw evidence of their learning as children independently made comments about shapes in our coffee dough and when they were eating snack, they made faces using the shaped food. During the week the children progressed from random threading to developing repeating patterns.

This week has been maths week in pre-school. The children have engaged in very different counting activities such as dough spots on the ladybirds and using tweezers sort animals.

We have used numicon in various areas end even counted out smarties for our biscuits. The children have explored shape and size, making houses and patterns.

They have explored volume in our outdoor kitchen and the sand.

To decorate pre-school a number and shape line has been created using different painting techniques. We have used stories and rhymes such as 10 little princesses to practice counting. The children took it upon themselves to develop a café inside that would sell cakes and coffee. They took orders and used lots of mathematical language in their play.

Friday was Children in Need day, unfortunately we were unable to make our usual collection but the children had great fun decorating biscuits and making bracelets, making Pudsey faces and completing a Pudsey challenge. Donations can be made via the BBC Children In Need Website.

This week the children have been exploring the sights and sounds of bonfire night.

They made pictures of their faces using natural resources which were also used to make a bonfire scene.  Using their fingers to tear tissue and snap twigs created the sounds of the bonfire; “We need marshmallows” was the cry.

We talked about bonfire safety and all the lovely words you hear around fireworks such as whizz, crackle, whoosh and sizzle.

The children helped to make their own playdough this week and then used it to make lots of models, someone even hid a superhero in theirs.

In our library club the children have been making up their own stories using visual cards and telling them to each other.

On Friday we made poppies using a bottle bottom, did you know that there are also purple poppies to remember all of the animals that have died in service.

We have had a spooky time this week! In the craft area we have made ghosts, bats, spiders and pumpkins using a variety of resources.

For our fine motor skills we have carved real pumpkins and used pegs to make spiders, carefully counting to make sure we have enough legs not one more or one less.

In our messy area we have had spooky purple spaghetti, spidery foam and frozen eyeballs.

To finish the week and the half term we celebrated with a spooky party. The staff and the children all dressed up and danced to our haunted house song. We made some silly soup and colourful experiments. The children went on a pumpkin hunt and for their treat they took home an orange pumpkin and a Halloween challenge for the holiday.

Have a lovely half term and enjoy Halloween everyone.

Last week we used fine motor skills to help develop our finger muscles; we have used spades in the soil to plant bulbs and flowers, used colourful blocks to make buildings and cleaned the dinosaurs with toothbrushes.

In the dough we have been making shapes using cutters and matching them to the shapes on a sheet and counting the number of sides on each shape.

We have been using our new block paints in the craft area as well as practising our cutting. We have also painted our giant pumpkin ready for Halloween week this week.

During music and movement we have enjoyed a clapping and rhyming song called “Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar”. This gave the children a lot of fun as we found who it was!

On Friday we finished the week using our shop vegetables to print colourful pictures.

We have been exploring the structure of stories this week. Props for “The Tiger Who Came To Tea” and “Supertato” have been in our builders tray. Through play the children learn that stories have a beginning, a middle and an end and they also have characters. Rachida followed the play by helping the children to make up their own stories using props, she then wrote down their actual words, giving value to their stories.

Wooden blocks, plastic cubes and natural items such as twigs, conkers and leaves have enhanced our role play. The children have made enclosures, towers and bridges  for our farm animals, cars and dinosaurs. working on size and length.

We have had happy Halloween songs playing outside in our camping area. the children have dressed up and danced rhythmically to the music and been on a spooky spider, skeleton walk finding ingredients to make some silly soup.

The shop has had real food items that the children have counted and weighed. They have used “money” to pay for the food. Our song this week has been “We’re going on a bear hunt”. We have used gross motor skills to act out the story.

Happy birthday to Sylvie and Roman

We have begun our Autumn/Halloween picture display using craft the children have been doing throughout the week.

“We are the dinosaurs”  by The Laurie Berkner Band has been our song of the week to encourage the children to use their large muscles in music and movement. The children kept in time to the drum beat as they have danced and roared with great enjoyment. To compliment the dinosaur theme they made a dinosaur swamp using natural materials, this encourages the children to learn new and exciting words such as Diplodocus and Brontosaurus and feel the different textures of the rough bark or smooth pebbles. we then made our own dinosaurs using scissors and glue.

In our messy area oats were used to recreate stories such as the Three Bears  encouraging the children to say the repeated refrain “who’s been eating my porridge, encouraging language and development. Later in the week we introduced bricks, twigs and straw to recreate The Three Little Pigs.

Outside we have been playing bat and ball games, golf, tennis and cricket to practice our co-ordination and turn taking skills, as well as building walls with large bricks.

An area of the garden needing weeding and sorting to make a digging area, the children helped wearing hard hats.  They then worked together to make compost using dead flowers, roots and seeds and cleared the area so trucks and spades can be used in the soil.

We have been very pleased to see lots of boys in the mark making area, drawing and writing, using large circles and lines.

To finish off the week we had peas in pods, it was very tricky to get a good pop but we enjoyed counting the peas inside and seeing who had the most and the least.

We had another great week in pre-school last week, here are some of the things we have been doing.

The Rainbows have continued to change their library books and we sent a challenge home in their books bags to take a photo of the exciting places where they have read their book and share it with us on Tapestry, thank you to all of the parents who have done this, it is lovely to see.

We have been doing a “Squiggle while you wriggle” programme – we dance to music making shapes with our arms and hands and then repeat the shapes with crayons on paper. We have been practising lots of finger rhymes too to get the fingers moving. Both of these activities help strengthen the fingers and large muscles they will need to start writing.

The children have frozen items in water and then the next day used hammers to get the items out of the frozen blocks. We have also used magnifying glasses to explore acorns and conkers. Both of these activities encourage children to share and talk about their knowledge of the world around them.

We have created a theatre which the children have loved performing their favourite songs and dances in, using microphones and musical instruments to keep time.

Our pirates this week have made maps to help them find pirate treasure and in the dough this week they have been making pretend knickerbocker ice creams, yum yum!

As a fun activity to keep fit the staff and children have been running round the garden with the children counting as we go to help us all meet the challenge of increasing our daily activity, some of the children have been hard task masters!

It’s been a busy week!

We have continued settling the children into our routine, they are all doing really well and are starting to remember if they are an apple or a banana.

The boat has been decorated to look like the Jolly Roger and we have been invaded by pirates. We have been on a magical voyage, walked the plank and been on a treasure hunt in the sand where the children have counted how many items they could find.

Our “rainbows” now have their book bags and are swapping their books once a week in our library.

In the play dough we have been using twigs and leaves to make models. Some children rolled the dough to make the initial of their name and then went on to explore our letter bags.

We have explored many different ways to paint including marble rolling, printing and creating pictures using a salad spinner. These have been used to make a colourful display.

Outside we have been encouraging the children to catch and bounce balls, building up their big muscles in readiness for mark making. The children are also enjoying dancing to “Lets go swimming” by Laurie Berkner.