Summer Term 2

Summer Term 2 - Week 5

We have had a wonderful week in Pre-School. 
Indoors we have continued to explore our theme of pirates, this week we have been junk modelling our own pirate ships, drawing our own treasure maps, as well as imaginative play with our own pirates, ship and treasure in the small world area.  We have also enjoyed joining in our virtual gymnastics with Mrs Winward, our French session with Madame Wardle and yoga activities. 

Outside we have been enjoying exploring the paddock, practising our kicking with the balls; shelter and den building and creating shade from the sun; and supporting our physical development. 

Wild One Adventure - Wednesday 7th July

We have also participated in a wonderful Wild One Adventure this week, based around the wonderful story of The Smed's and The Smoo's!  We jumped and bounced on the Humplety Hill and adventured down to Lobular Lake to play in the water. We explored the Wurpular Wood with all our senses and decided that the Smeds and Smoos should all play together because it is much more fun!  After our big adventure we sat to explore colour mixing in the tough tray, to find that red and blue do make purple like the Smed’s and Smoo’s purple baby in the story! We then sat down to enjoy a drink and roasted marshmallows over the fire.

To finish our adventure we used ribbon sticks to dance and move to music in the outdoors, this was lots of fun.

What a wonderful time we had in the Wurpular Woods! 

Sports Day! - Friday 9th July

The children enjoyed taking part in sports day on Friday afternoon, we had a sack race, balancing bean bags on our heads race, running races and throwing bean bags into a hoop.  We showed excellent sportsmanship, great listening and good turn taking skills.  

We enjoyed cheering for our peers and had lots of fun!

Summer Term 2 - Week 4

This week the children have returned to explore their environment with curiosity and resilience.  
Indoors we have been exploring our theme of pirates, looking at our Fictional pirate books in our reading corner, as well as using these books to draw treasure maps and pirate ships in the mark marking area, as well as imaginative play with our own pirates, ship and treasure in the small world area.  We have also enjoyed joining in our virtual gymnastics with Mrs Winward, our French session with Madame Wardle and yoga activities. 

Outside we have been; using the available outdoor resources such as crates, cushions and blocks to engage in lots of role play such as the three little pigs and bedtime routines, we have been searching for mini-beasts in our mini-beast garden; den building and creating shade from the sun; and supporting our physical development with the hoops, large balls, balance beams and riding on the trikes. We have been eating our lunches outside and are super helpers at tidying up and sweeping up any mess after our lunch or mess around the outdoor area.

Summer Term 2 - Week 3

This week we have been having lots of fun remote learning due to our Pre-School bubble closing.  We have been engaging in fun zoon meetings with our teachers where we have stared stories, news and showed our peers special items from home. We have also been doing activities at home such as creating pictures with loose parts we can find at home, joining in with yoga and getting messy at the dough disco!

Summer Term 2 - Week 2

In Pre-School we have had another exciting week - continuing our under the sea theme.  This week we have particularly been interested in PIRATES! The children have been developing their fine motor skills by testing keys to open the pirates treasure chest; cutting and sticking to create their own pirate hats and flags; as well as role playing being pirate outdoors using the crates.  The children have also been in the mark making area drawing shells, they have been washing sandy shells outdoors and have used the nets in the water area to catch sea creatures.  This week it was also time to harvest the potatoes we have been growing and next week we are going to be making our own potato salad! 

We can't wait to continue our exploration of under the sea and our other interests next week! 

Summer Term 2  - Week 1

Pre-School have had a super busy first week of Summer Term 2!  We have explored our enhanced provision that encompasses children’s interests picked up in Summer Term 1 - under the sea, sea life and pirates! 

We have especially enjoyed exploring our 'beach' sensory tray that includes water beads, sand, shells and small world sea animals. We have also been reading sea themed books and have particularly enjoyed The Rainbow Fish this week.

Here are some photos from our first week...

Amazing Asia!

Summer Term 1 - Week 7

We have had an amazing last week of Summer Term 1 in Pre-School!  
We have been out to our school trim trail to support our physical development - climbing, clambering and balancing brilliantly along the apparatus!  We have enjoyed lots of exploring indoors and outdoors; including mark making with paints and chalks, mixing potions; engaging in role play with the fabrics and resources in the dressing up area; building castles in the construction area; and exploring water outdoors.

It has been a wonderful term and Miss Clayton, Miss Kearney, Miss Peake and Mrs Walsh are so proud of you all.  We hope you all have a safe and restful half term holiday and we will see you when we return on Tuesday 8th June. ☺️
 

Here is a video with some highlights of our fabulous term together in Pre-School... 

Summer Term 1 - Week 6

We have had another great week in Pre-School. 

On Monday we arrived to find our two beautiful butterflies, that had hatched from their chrysalis over the weekend! We have spent the week observing, admiring and caring for the butterflies before letting them go to spread their wings on Friday. Before saying goodbye to the butterflies some of us chose to hold hold them and observe them a little closer. 🦋

We have enjoyed exploring our indoor and outdoor provision, and have also been to our schools trim trail to support our physical development this week, which was very exciting! 

Summer Term 1 - Week 5

This week we have loved spending time outdoors, exploring nature and experiencing the weather around us! On Monday we absolutely loved hiding under our tipi listening to the rumbling thunder and spotting the lightening flashes in the sky! 

We have been engaging in the indoors and outdoors provision. Indoors we have been especially enjoying the loose parts, construction area, mark making and reading areas. Outdoors we have continued to build our confidence on different obstacles using logs, planks and crates. We have also been exploring the sand pit, water area and texture kitchen making special potions! 

Summer Term 1 - Week 4

This week the children have continued exploring their environment with curiosity and resilience.  
Indoors we have been exploring our theme of mini-beasts, looking at our Non-Fiction Mini-beast books in our reading corner, as well as using these books to draw Mini-beasts in the mark marking area, junk modelling and painting our own mini-beasts in the creative area.  We have also enjoyed joining in with our dough disco and yoga activities. 

Outside we have been; searching for mini-beasts in our mini-beast garden; planting seeds; den building; and supporting our physical development with the hula hoops, large balls, creating obstacle courses and riding on the trikes. We have also been planting new seeds around our outdoor area and taking caring for our potato plants.  We have been eating our lunches outside and are become amazing helpers at tidying up and sweeping up any mess after our lunch. 👏😊

Summer Term 1 - Week 3

Pre-School have had a very busy week! 
 

Outdoors we have done lots of exploring; imaginative play with the dinosaurs in the water area; storytelling in the reading garden; role play cooking and cleaning in the mud kitchen; searching and caring for mini-beasts in our new bug corner; and planting seeds.  We have loved spending time on the school paddock; running, jumping, collecting natural resources and playing with and alongside our friends and key workers. 

Indoors we have been role playing in the Chinese restaurant; engaging with the sand and African animals in the small world area; creating pictures with loose parts and threading pipe cleaners through containers; exploring building with blocks in the construction area; creating our own pieces of art using natural resources in the creative area; and continuing to design our own bugs on the interactive whiteboard for us to junk model next week. 

This week, continuing to focus on ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’ story we have been counting fruit, discussing our favourite fruits, mark making fruit and junk modelling caterpillars. 
We have continued to observe and care for our caterpillars that are “big and spiky!” now and we can’t wait to see them form into chrysalis over the next week!
 

Our Experiences this week...
 

French

This week Mrs Wardle has continued to support us with our French language and communication skills. This week we were learning to greet one another and ask ‘how are you?’ in french by singing a wonderful ‘bonjour’ song. 

Sculpture 
The children enjoyed making some hungry caterpillars in our clay session with Mrs Dixon.  I All of the children showed fantastic listening and attention and created some amazing caterpillars.  We started by rolling the clay in to balls to make the caterpillars head and body, then the children added some features using straws and pencils. Well done everyone! 

Gym and Tumble 

Mrs Winward has provided us with another fantastic gymnastics session, the children were able to independently choose and take turns on each of the apparatus. They showed fantastic listening and attention skills doing lots of running, jumping and stretching while imitating animals.
 

Summer Term 1 - Week 2

Our wonderful week…

Outdoors in the lovely weather this week we have loved; reading and storytelling; mark making; exploring pouring and emptying with water and containers; imaginative play with the treehouse and dolls; clambering and climbingthe tyres; and developing our trike riding.

Indoors we have been engaging with the African animals in the small world area; exploring 2D shapes using loose parts and mark making; exploring dinosaurs and blocks in the construction area; creating our own pieces of art in the creative area; and designing our own bugs on the interactive whiteboard.

We have also had some new arrivals in our Pre-School this week, baby CATERPILLARS! We have been observing them grow and talking about butterfly lifecycles through the book ‘The Hungry Caterpillar’.  Children have created their own butterfly lifecycle book, others have drawn observational pictures of our baby caterpillars and some children have created their own hungry caterpillars using playdough and printing using paints. We can’t wait to continue watching our butterflies change and develop over the next week.

To link with the whole school theme of ‘Amazing Asia!’, we have continued to focus on Chinese cherry blossom trees - our Expressive Arts and Design adult led focus this term.  After looking at the photos of the artwork and real cherry blossom trees, we have printed using paint and collaged cherry blossom trees.

Our Experiences this week...

Forest School

On Monday we all had such an amazing time at our forest school sessions with Wild One Adventures! First we watched the Superworm story being acted out - the raven crow was very naughty when she got Superworm in her beak!  We then went off to explore in groups - some children bug hunting and others creating their own worms using salt dough and natural resources.  After our busy activities we sat to drink a nice hot chocolate and roasted marshmallows over the fire pit!  To finish the wonderful session we had a wiggle and dance using shakers to music, we especially enjoyed the bee’s in the hive song.

Sculpture

Mrs Dixon has joined us for a wonderful session to develop our Expressive Arts and Design, using clay to print, model and mark make, this week we have created clay blossoms to link with our Expressive arts and Design focus of Chinese Cherry Blossom trees. The children listened well to instructions, creating and moulding their clay to create beautiful flowers.

French

Mrs Wardle has joined us for a session of french to develop our Communication and Language. This week we have been learning to respond with our name to the question ‘what is your name?’ in french.  We also met Mrs Wardles French puppet - Hugo the snail! 

Gymnastics

Mrs Winward has continued to support us with our Physical Development in our fantastic gymnastics sessions – this week supporting our core strength and rolling techniques. 

Summer Term 1 - Week 1

Pre-School have had a super busy first week of the Summer Term!  We have explored our enhanced provision that encompasses the whole school theme of Amazing Asia alongside children’s interests such as Minibeasts, safari animals and dinosaurs! 

We have particularly enjoyed exploring outside, making the most of the nice weather. Engaging in sand and water play; mark making; painting using large brushes; riding the trikes; exploring clay; role playing in the texture kitchen; and constructing using blocks and building materials.  Indoors we have been exploring playdough, engaging in block play, creating pictures using loose parts; role playing in the Chinese restaurant and storytelling in the reading area. This week some of us have been practicing to write our name using a variety of resources too! 

To link with the whole school theme of ‘Amazing Asia!’, we have begun to focus on the Chinese cherry blossom trees - our Expressive Arts and Design adult led focus this term.  We have been inspired by Damien Hirst - The virtues, blossom tree artworks.  After looking at the photos of the artwork and real cherry blossom trees, we have painted, using the available resources, an observational picture of a cherry blossom tree. 

To celebrate the life of Prince Philip, we have been talking about his life in Pre-School. We spoke about the Royal family and the Royal Navy, from this the children used large brushes outdoors to paint the sea, making large muscle movements, to create brush strokes like waves.  Indoors the children worked together to create a collage of the Royal Navy Flag. 
 

Our Experiences this week...

This week our wonderful curriculum specialists have been into Pre-School to support our areas of development. Mrs Dixon has joined us for a wonderful session to develop our Expressive Arts and Design, using clay to print, model and mark make. Mrs Wardle has joined us for a session of french to develop our Communication and Language and Mrs Winward has returned to support us with our Physical Development in our fantastic gymnastics sessions. 

Spring Term 2 - Week 5 - Last week of term 

This week we have had a lovely time at Pre-School we have engaged in play and explored our provision - especially enjoying being outdoors in the lovely spring weather this week.  We have been immersed in Easter and spring time crafts; mark making; water play; role playing using available resources such as cardboard boxes; and exploring natural materials using all of their senses. 

The Pre-School team are so proud of you all for a wonderful term and we hope you have a lovely Easter break. 

Spring Term 2 - Week 4

Our week in Pre-School has been filled with exciting events this week, such as World Book Day dress up, comic relief talent competition and comic relief dress up!  Alongside these events we have continued to access and engage in our indoor and outdoor provision, this week some of us have been role playing pirates in our ‘boats’ outdoors, others have been using the Dinosaur small world area to develop our imaginative play and we have been junk modelling and mark making with paints that turned cardboard boxes into race cars, ladybird houses and rainbow dinosaurs!

This week we have also planted our potatoes that we will be taking care of and will be ready to harvest in summer! 

Wednesday 17th March - Comic Relief talent competition

This week children have been sending in videos via Tapestry of their talents, we had amazing entries that included fantastic talents such as singing, dancing, role playing superheroes, drawing and magic tricks! As well as watching the videos sent in from home, some children chose to share their talents in front of the class. ☺️

Thursday 18th March - World Book Day - Dress Up!

The children all look wonderful today in their world book day outfits! They are all so proud of their characters and costumes, as are we! ☺️

For world book day the Pre-School adults dressed up as bears and we had a teddy bears picnic! We listened to and joined in with the story ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ and enjoyed sitting under the tipi for our lunch and treats! 

Spring Term 2 - Week 3

Exploring our provision, indoors and outdoors, this week has been wonderful.  As always we have loved being outdoors, in all weathers, with our peers. In our outdoor provision we have loved playing with the water and rain this week, discovering different ways to pour and create flowing water as well as water painting and spraying water.  We have also been using some new resources for den building in our outdoor area, where we have engaged in talk and play with our peers - our dens became Batman caves and hideouts from The Big Bad Mouse! 

Spring Term 2 - Week 2 

Pre-School have had another busy week playing and exploring our provision, this week has also included World Book Day on Thursday 4th March! For World book day we have explored many of our favourite books in Pre-School through reading and role playing in the provision, such as The Tiger Who Came to Tea!  The children have also been sharing their favourite books at home with us too - via Tapestry. 
 

Spring is definitely here as the weather has been wonderful this week, we have throughly taken advantage of this and have been out exploring the outdoors provision and the paddock every chance we had, as well as eating our lunch outdoors. 
 

Take a look at some photos from our wonderful week. ☺️
 

Friday 5th March - Gym and Tumble Session

This week we have had another fantastic gymnastics session with Mrs Winward. We did good listening and followed lots of different instructions and activities set up by Mrs Winward to support our physical development, such as; pulling ourselves over benches and under mats; gripping and holding our weight on the ropes; balancing on benches; and copying gymnastics poses such as pike and straddle. We always finish with a little dance and this week we enjoyed playing musical bumps, we showed such good listening to sit down when the music stopped. 

Spring Term 2 - Week 1

This week have welcomed back all our wonderful Pre-School children.  The children have returned so confidently and ready to explore their newly enhanced provision after a lovely half term! Thank you to all parents who have shared their photos and videos with us on tapestry from the half term, it has been wonderful to see all the fun you have been having at home and the children have loved sharing their news with their key workers. 

This term we are focusing on the topic houses and homes, alongside following the children’s interests and spring time! This week some of our experiences have included drawing our houses with charcoal sticks in the mark making area, building houses for the three little pigs in the construction area, exploring the sea life small world area and painting daffodils outdoors. 

Well done Pre-School children for a fantastic week in our provision. 

Spring Term 1 - Week 6

This has been the final week of our first spring half term, Miss Clayton, Miss Kearney, Mrs Walsh and Miss Peake are so proud of all you have achieved this term at home and in Pre-School.  We have had an amazing term of exploring our interests in our learning environment and developing in all areas of learning with our key workers and peers at St.Paul’s Pre-School. 

We can’t wait to see you again from Monday 22nd February, to continue our learning journey together. Have a wonderful week of rest with your families and keep us updated on Tapestry. 😀

Here are some photographs of what we have been up to in Pre-School this week...

Friday 12th February- Yew Tree Farm Virtual tour. 
 

To treat all the Pre-School children at home and in school, for being so wonderful this half term we have had a virtual farm visit this morning.  We all showed amazing listening and sitting as Yew tree farm took us around their farm to see all the animals through zoom!  We especially loved the sounds the chickens made, the sheep and the goats! 

Friday 12th February- Gym and Tumble

We had a wonderful time exploring movement and following instructions in gymnastics this afternoon, we played lots of fun games whilst developing our gross motor skills such as running, jumping, catching, rolling and throwing.  The children had a lovely time and were very excited to end the session with dancing and musical bumps. Fantastic, well done everyone.⭐️

Expressive Arts and Design  - Wednesday 10th February

Mrs Clitheroe modelled some examples of transient art that used lots of different resources, like shells, off cuts of wood and stones. The children then created some amazing work and needed some careful arrangement. There were lots of different ideas and the children all created something wonderful- what a super job!  We continued this activity through the week in our creative area using the natural loose parts. 

Spring Term 1 - Week 5

This week in Pre-School we have been very busy playing and exploring in our indoors and outdoors provision, following our interests.  Children at home have been joining us for daily zoom meetings and activities, as well as having lots of fun playing and exploring at home! 

Daily Doodle 
Our numbers of the week are 4 and 5. Together we watch the Number Blocks videos on the board then we had a go at drawing the correct number of objects and practising number formation. We have also been practising our sounds c and n. We sing the sound songs and have been drawing objects with these initial sounds in our daily doodle - some of us have even been practising our letter formation! 

Friday 5th February - Gym and Tumble

In our Gym and Tumble session this morning the children practiced throwing and catching with Mrs Winward. Mrs Winward showed the children how to hold their hands out to catch the ball and how to throw the ball to each other without throwing it too far.  We used different sized balls, a large ball, a medium ball and a small ball. Catching the small ball was a bit tricky but we had a really good try. 

Spring Term 1 - Week 4

Take a look at our wonderful week in Pre-School. ☺️

Outdoor Explorers

As always we have loved being outdoors, in all weathers, exploring with our peers.  This week we have had a variety of weather which has allowed lots of activities such as a hill mud sliding and building snowmen!  We have been cooking up some delicious food in our texture kitchen as well as enjoying story time under the tipi. 🪵🌨❄️

Daily Doodle

This week we have been drawing objects and animals that have the initial sounds s, a & t.  After singing the sound songs the children, independently draw alongside their peers, talking about their drawings and sounds. We had lots of great ideas such as Spider-Man, Ants and T-Rex. ✏️

Friday 22nd January - Gym and Tumble
 

We have done fantastically in gymnastics today. We did good listening, followed instructions and waited patiently for our turns. 😊 We practiced tuck, pike and straddle. Completed lots of different stretching, balancing, jumping, walking, dancing and even tried to climb the rope. 🤸‍♀️😃 Superstars! 

Tuesday 22nd January - Expressive arts and Design 

We had lots of fun (and got a little messy) dancing and freezing whilst painting with our feet! We listened to music with different tempos, listened for instruments we could hear and looked at the different prints we could make when dancing and moving our bodies. 

Spring Term 1  - Week 2

This week we are settling back into our routines, showing good listening and great interest in our environment.  We have been learning to play and explore in our new environment effectively and with full engagement.  We have loved playing in the superhero area, this interest has lead to dressing up, prop making such as shields and whiskers, superhero drawing, batmobile construction and imaginative role play.  We have done lots of mark marking, being waiters taking orders, drawing monsters, creating our own stories and painting rainbows and dinosaurs!  Outdoors this week we have been really interested in the ice and frost, it was so exciting to find ice in different places around our outdoor area, we have been trying to melt and break the ice by sprinkling on salt, pouring on water and smashing with tools. 

Friday 15th January - Gym and Tumble 
 

We had a great time in our gym and tumble session this morning, we all showed good listening and had lots of fun with Mrs Winward.  In the session we have done lots of moving, stretching and balancing- then to finish the session Mrs Winward got the ropes out for us to practice reaching, grasping and strengthening of our arms.  

Spring Term 1  - Week 1

This week has been a little different due to unforeseen circumstances, however during our time in Pre-school this week, the children have showed curiosity, awe and wonder whilst exploring their newly enhanced environment which has encompassed many of our children’s love for superhero’s and frozen!  The children have arrived this week with more resilience than ever and we, the Pre-School staff couldn’t be more amazed and proud of them. 

Wednesday 6th January - Exploring the snow on the paddock! 
 

We all had so much fun exploring the paddock alongside each other.   We made snow angels, snow walls, foot prints in the snow and explored mark making with sticks.  As we don’t have a sledge in school Miss Clayton got us some black bin bags to slide down the big hill in which was lots of fun! 
 

We are so lucky to have such wonderful outdoor areas to explore! 

Friday 8th January - SNOW DAY - Home learning activities

The children have had a wonderful time at home for our snow day. Take a look at some of the wonderful activities you have uploaded onto tapestry! 

Autumn Term 2 - Week 7 - Last week of term 

This week we have had a lovely festive time at school, before our Christmas holiday. We have engaged in and explored a wide range of activities and fun celebrations.  For a fantastic half term showing good listening and wonderful behaviour we watched a virtual Pantomime - Covidella. We watched the pantomime all together in our Pre-School with drinks and treats to enjoy in between! We also had a very exciting message from Father Christmas. Unfortunately, this year, he was unable to visit us, although he sent us a virtual message to wish the children a very happy Christmas and to remind them to stay safe over the Christmas break. We also received an early Christmas present from Father Christmas for being so wonderful which he delivered in a magic sack to our Pre-School! 
 

Miss Clayton, Miss Kearney and Mrs Walsh are so proud of you all for a wonderful term and we wish you the most magical Christmas with your families. Please take care, keep safe and we will see you all in the new year for lots more exploring and fun! X 

We have been busy little elves, working together to create our Elf Enterprise wrapping paper to sell on our online Pre-School stall. We have loved exploring print using skills and techniques developed in our Expressive Arts and Design sessions this term. 

Friday 11th December - Christmas Jumper Day

We ended our lovely week with Christmas Jumper Day where we all dressed fabulously festive and had our Christmas Dinner! 
 

In the morning we decorated plates for our Christmas lunch and when lunch arrived we sat together to enjoy the delicious food provided for us - we especially enjoyed the Christmas tree shaped biscuits! Lunch was followed by cracker pulling and singing Christmas songs! 

This week has been filled with excitement for Christmas! We have been practising our nativity ‘The Sleepy Shepherd’ and Miss Clayton is so proud of us all for our amazing singing and performing - we can’t wait to show our families next week! 
 

In our provision we have been exploring Christmas. We have been using scissors by cutting and sticking our own Christmas dinner and creating Christmas collages. We have also been practising to recognise our name by searching through Christmas paper to find our names.  In the playdough area we have been creating reindeers using the resources provided and we have also been creating Christmas biscuits and cakes.

Monday 7th December - Expressive Arts and Design Session 

This afternoon, using our EAD skills in printing, we have continued with our Elf Enterprise project to create unique and original wrapping paper. Today, we looked at printing parcel images using an impressed style of print and we are sure that you are going to love what we have done!

Autumn Term 2 - Week 5
 

This week has been filled with playing and exploring our Christmassy provision.  We have been creating our own Christmas collages and decorating headbands for our nativity in our creative area. In our mark making area we have been drawing Christmas themes pictures and creating our own cards to send in envelopes to Father Christmas. 🎅🏻 Alongside practising our Pre-School Christmas Nativity we have been learning about the nativity story and exploring our Nativity small world area.  It has been a very magical week in Pre-School. 

Friday 4th December - SNOW! 
 

Today we were all so excited at Pre-School for fun in the snow.  We have really enjoyed playing and exploring the snow all together! ❄️

Thursday 3rd December - Writing and Recognising our names 

We are currently learning that print has meaning and today we have be practising recognising our names in order to be able to write some or all of our name. Some children traced or copied their names and others decorated our names to support recognition. We decorate our names Christmassy by finger painting snow and adding glitter by pinching and sprinkling. 
 

We are also practising the initial sounds in our names.  Miss Clayton is so proud of us all for trying really hard today and our wonderfully decorated names are going up on display! 👏

Monday 30th November - Elf Enterprise

In Pre-school, we have started our Elf Enterprise project to create Christmas wrapping paper that will be sold in our school community. The children have applied their skills of printing to their wonderful work, this afternoon. The wrapping paper is going to be amazing and very sparkly - perfect for Christmas! 

Autumn Term 2 - Week 4

Gym and Tumble - Friday 27th November

Today we all showed good understanding and listening skills in gymnastics, we tried really hard with all of the activities Miss Crewe had planned for us! 

We practiced balancing on one foot and hopping along our mat. We also tried moving along the mat in a range of ways including on our top toes! 

We then had a range of activities to move around, in our little groups. We really enjoyed pulling ourselves up one bench, climbing onto the gymnastics table, then shuffling down the bench using just our legs - with our hands on our heads, we showed super balancing and co-ordination today. 👏👏👏

Nature Explorers- Thursday 26th November 

Today we went back to the paddock to see if any of the birds had eaten from our new bird feeders. We took our binoculars to look around the paddock - on the floor and up in the trees! 
We have also talked about other things birds eat - worms!  We discussed how birds watch the ground with keen eyes to see the worms poking out. We decided to have our own search for worms, some of us used small trowels to dig into the wet mud to see if we could find any worms, and WE DID!  We made sure we were really careful handling the worms and then placed them back into the soil. 

BilinguaSing Experience - Thursday 26th November 

Today in our BilinguaSing session with our French teacher Jude.  We sang the hello song where we say bonjour and ask ‘how are you?’ Como ca va? to each other.  The session followed with lots of fun french songs including counting to ten, our family and heads shoulders knees and toes. We also began to learn a new french Christmas song ‘Ten little sleigh bells’ where we get to dance in the instrumental! We did such good listening and showed lots of energy and fascination in the french songs.  Jude was so impressed with our singing that she gave us a special BilingaSing sticker which we are very proud of! 

Nature Explorers - Wednesday 25th November

Today we went to our school paddock, we are very interested in birds in at the moment, so we decided to make some more bird feeders using a different fine motor technique - threading. We had to thread the multigrain hoops onto a pipe cleaner and then tie the pipe cleaner onto a tree for the birds to enjoy!  
We are going back to the paddock tomorrow morning to investigate if the birds have eaten some of the food we have left them, we are very excited to find out if they have! 
 

As well as creating bird feeders we explored the paddock using our senses and role-play with our peers!  We were watching for birds and some of us spotted two blackbirds chasing one another around the trees - this was so much fun. We played hide and seek and some of us decided to be a pack of wolves howling and running around the paddock! 

Expressive Arts and Design Experience - Monday 23rd November 

This afternoon, in our EAD learning, the children have been introduced to the work of an artist called Kandinsky. We all discussed the shapes and colours we could see in the artwork and that there were lots of different sized circles used. At the creative table, we looked at a range of everyday objects and containers and discussed which ones were larger and which were smaller and how they could fit inside each other. Using the edges of these objects and a range of colours, the children then made their own prints. On an other activity, the children created collage work in the style of Kandinsky and were able to discuss the different circles that they selected.

Autumn Term 2 - Week 3

This week has been World Nursery Rhyme week, at home we have shared our favourite Nursery Rhymes via tapestry and in Pre-school we have been doing the ‘Rhyme a day’ challenge which included the wheels on the bus and five little speckled frogs! As well as our daily rhyme time we have been enjoying activities all about the wonderful story book ‘The Go-Away Bird’. We have had the characters from the book on our story shelf and have loved retelling the story using the props, we have been using watercolours to paint the characters and have had lots of fun exploring birds in our nature explorers sessions!  As well as our adult initiated activities there has been lots of playing and exploring our own interests in the provision indoors and outdoors - we have really loved making dinosaur castles in our construction area Dino Den! 

Gym and Tumble - Friday 20th November

Our gym and tumble session this week was lots of fun, we explored moving and stretching in different ways before our circuit activities where we moved over and along gymnastic equipment and began practicing handstands! 
 

Nature Explorers  - Thursday 19th November

This morning we have been out to the paddock to continue activities about birds, following our last session where we listened to the Go-Away Bird and made our own bird feeders.  
Today we talked about the story the go away bird and that we were going to use clay to create our own birds! Together we talked about the colours of the birds in the story and how they all have one beak, two eyes and two legs.  We then searched around the paddock for natural objects we could use to create our clay birds such as sticks for their legs. 

To create our birds we used natural resources we had found and that were provided. We all independently created our own birds from the selected resources, first moulding the clay to create the birds body, then carefully pushing the two legs into the clay, adding feathers and pressing in stones for the eyes and beak.

We should all be SO proud of our clay bird creations, they are fantastic! 

Outdoor Learning - Tuesday 17th November 

This morning we have been nature explorers on the paddock! 

We sat for snack time and listened to our book of the week “The Go-Away Bird”, we love this story because we can join in with the go away bird, shouting “Go away, go away, go away!”.  
After we listened to the story we talked about birds we have in our environment. We explored the paddock for signs of birds using our good looking and listening, we heard some birds singing and spotted three nests in the trees!  We then talked about the cold weather and how the birds may soon find it difficult to find food, therefore we decided to make bird feeders using pine cones and wild bird seed. After a little help to tie string around the pine cone we searched for the perfect branch around the paddock to hang our bird feeders. We were so proud of our bird feeders and really hope the birds enjoy their new food! 

Expressive Arts and Design Experience - Monday 16th November
 

It's been a great afternoon of EAD with Mrs Clitheroe and in pre-school, the children explored the texture of clay and investigated ways they could make changes to it. Using water, pasta, tools and a variety of natural resources, the children manipulated the clay in many different ways. What began as Rangoli inspiration, soon became cakes, desks and other creative pieces, where the children each had their own unique design. The children tried the clay tools and were able to smooth and slice the clay and some children were able to roll the clay-changing its shape and talk about the changes they had made-great work by all!

Autumn Term 2 - Week 2

We have had a wonderful week which included Remembrance Day and Children in Need.  Alongside these special events we have continued playing and exploring our indoor and outdoor provision. We have shown so much fascination and curiosity within our newly resourced outdoor area - thank you so much to all parents who have donated items.  We have loved exploring printing, colour mixing and have been creating our own music using our nature drumsticks.

This week we have created our own listening ears for our listening walks! We all put on our wellies, waterproofs and listening ears to see what sounds we could hear around school and on the paddock.  We heard the big children playing, we heard the metal gate opening and shutting, leaves crunching under our feet and the wind blowing the trees. We also heard cars and listened to the squelching sound the mud made under our feet. Some children decided to snap twigs to listen what sound this would make and also used sticks to tap different objects on the paddock to see what sounds they could make!  

Gym and Tumble - Friday 11th November 

We all worked really hard in our gymnastics session this morning and Miss Crewe was so impressed with our listening today! We did an obstacle course around the hall, using all of the different apparatus then finished off with some games and dancing. Well done everybody!

Remembrance Day - Wednesday 11th November

Today we have been talking about Remembrance Day within our Pre-School provision, we had a two minute silence and watched a short BBC Children's remembrance film, a beautiful and evocative animation that sees war as experienced by animals in a WWI battlefield. We talked about the film and how the animals would have felt during WW1. We have also been exploring Remembrance Day poppies around our provision; poppy meadow printing, creating poppies with loose parts and creating poppies using playdough. 

Forest School Experience with Wild One Adventures  - Wednesday 11th November

The children have had a very exciting forest school session today, we have been on a journey to explore the story of Stickman!  We explored the forest with our Rainbow Elf, starting off at Stickman’s family tree where we saw Stickman, his stick lady love and his stick children!  Then we went for a jog to the park where there was a dog trying to play with the stick man and stick man ended up being thrown into the river.  Next we made nests for the swans to make sure they stayed nice and warm, then we visited the stream and played pooh sticks. We explored a little area of the stream and listened to the water flowing down. 
Finally, we enjoyed marshmallows and hot chocolate by the fire and then even did an exciting stick dance. 
We were amazing nature explorers and all joined in with the activities using our good listening to the instructions from Louise the rainbow elf! 

Expressive Arts and Design Experience - Monday 9th November

This week, with Mrs Clitheroe for our EAD learning, we looked at printing with different tools. As we were adding spikes to hedgehogs, we used forks to create a print of spikes on to our hedgehog outline. It was messy fun and Mrs Clitheroe was really impressed with how well we all handled the forks to make our prints, pressing down firmly on to the paper. Some of us also experimented with some hedgehog craft using tissue paper. We tore and scrunched the tissue paper and arranged it on to the hedgehog outline.

Autumn Term 2 - Week 1 

This week we have been settling back in to Pre-School after our week off.  We have become more familiar with our provision and gained confidence to continue being curious when playing and exploring with our peers and key workers.  This week our adult initiated activities have been all about bonfire night, we set up and explored our own small world bonfire, discussing bonfire night and how to keep safe around fire.  We also used our listening ears to hear the sounds fireworks make and tried making similar sounds with our voices!  In the malleable area we created fireworks using the play dough and also created fireworks and bonfires in the creative area using different techniques and resources.  What a wonderful first week back! 

Gym and Tumble - Friday 6th November 

We all really enjoyed our gymnastics session this morning with Miss Crewe. She was super impressed with how much we remembered from before half term. 😁  In today’s session we practiced our forward rolls and we had to use different ways of moving to get around the hall. We walked with our arms out, jogged, skipped, jumped and walked like spiders! We played lots of games where we practiced good listening skills and lots of gross motor skills. 

BilinguaSing Experience - Thursday 5th November 

Today we continued our BilinguaSing sessions with our French teacher Jude.  We sang the hello song where we say bonjour and ask ‘how are you?’ Como ca va? to each other.  The session followed with lots of fun french songs including counting to ten, our family and heads shoulders knees and toes. We did good listening and showed lots of energy and fascination in the french songs.  Jude was so impressed with our singing that she gave us a special BilingaSing sticker which we are very proud of! 

Forest School Experience with Wild One Adventures  - Wednesday 4th November 

As part of our outdoor learning curriculum, we are very lucky to have Wild One Adventures leading a series of Forest School sessions!  Today was our first session and our theme was the wonderful Julia Donaldson story ‘Room on the Broom’.

In forest school today we met Louise the woodland witch who lead us into the magical woodland.  First we began with woodland story time and showed good listening to the story being acted out by the woodland witch and her elf!   Next we made a magic broomstick by finding the perfect stick and attaching leaves to it, we then took our new broomsticks and went flying around the forest to see if we could find any of the witches belongings she had dropped from the sky!  We were a little tired from flying around the forest so we decided to rest around the fire pit where we toasted marshmallows and warmed ourselves up with a hot chocolate.  After the fire pit we made our own nature shakers by filling recycled Milk bottles with natural objects we found around the woodland floor.  To end the session we had ‘wild wiggles’ time where we shook our shakers and danced to some fun woodland music!  We had such a wonderful time and all enjoyed getting involved with the forest school activities this morning, Miss Clayton is so proud of you all for being such fantastic nature explorers! 

Expressive Arts and Design Experience - Monday 2nd November

During our Expressive arts and design session with our Art specialist Mrs Clitheroe, we looked at some photographs of fireworks and used these to help us create our own firework paintings using some different tools. We got to use paper straws and sticks to paint with and they were quite different to a paintbrush to control. It was fun when we got to add some glitter to our paintings to add some texture and Mrs Clitheroe was really impressed with the different fireworks we created.

Autumn Term 1 - Week 8

This has been the final week of our first Autumn half term together and what an amazing first half term it has been!  We have had an amazing term of exploring our learning new learning environment and developing our relationships with our key workers and peers at St.Paul’s Pre-School. 

Miss Clayton, Miss Kearney and Mrs Walsh are so proud of all you have achieved this term and we can’t wait to see you again from Monday 2nd November, to continue our learning journey together. Have a wonderful week of rest with your families and keep us updated on Tapestry. 😀

Autumn Term 1 - Week 7

This week has been filled with building, creating, mark making, moving and lots of play!  We have had a fabulous time in our BilinguaSing virtual experience where we talked and sang about people who help us as well as singing the colours of the rainbow in French! 

We have enjoyed exploring Minibeasts in our small world woodland.  We used binoculars, magnifying glasses, a net and the bug catcher, we took turns with the different equipment and we enjoyed looking and talking about the mini-beasts.  Some children decided to build woodland houses for the mini-beasts and woodland creatures, making sure they were very comfortable and happy in their homes, using the wooden blocks and natural loose parts. 
 

In our outdoor area we have been doing some gardening, we cleared the weeds and planted fresh bulbs for our spring flowers! We talked about how we need to take good care of the bulbs, what they need to grow and we will be waiting and watching closely to see when the bulbs begin to sprout and bloom!  We have also been mini-beast hunting in our outdoor area garden, we found a large beetle, lots of woodlice, worms and spiders!  Our outdoor play also included our house turning into an ice cream shop with lots of hungry customers ready and waiting for yummy ice-cream!  

On our story shelf this week we have explored the wonderful book ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’, the children listened to the story, acted out the story using the small world characters and enjoyed the book independently and with their peers. 

Gym and Tumble - Friday 16th October 

Our Gym and Tumble experience was very exciting - beginning to learn how to do forward rolls and climb a rope! We listened, followed instructions and tried really hard. Miss Crewe was very impressed. 

Autumn Term 1 - Week 6

This week we have been exploring autumn, we have been out on a nature hunt and used what we found to create our own small world British Woodland, we had some left over leaves from our nature hunt and used these to explore leaf printing. In our outdoor area we created a pumpkin patch and have been exploring different sizes, shapes and colours of pumpkins - we have also taken these into our texture kitchen to do some cooking!  Our construction area has been filled with wonderful buildings, including bat-mobiles, castles and Boats! We have also been doing lots of fantastic mark making using the different resources available in our mark making area. We made our own pumpkin playdough and have had fun with messy play in our malleable area.

Autumn Term 1 - Week 5

This week we have had a brilliant time exploring our new outdoor area, we have been listening to the different sounds around the area, digging in the sandpit, mark making with chalk and water, cooking in the kitchen and performing songs underneath the tipi.

Miss Crewe and our teachers were so impressed at how well we listened and moved in our Gym and Tumble session this week. We really enjoyed running, jumping, hopping and crawling on the mats.  We were very excited to try balancing and moving across the benches and gymnastic tables for the first time today. 

Autumn Term 1 - Week 4

Our fourth week in Pre-School has been very exciting, we ventured out to the school paddock and had a wonderful time exploring the outdoors. We especially loved running and rolling down the hill and searching for mini-beasts - we found worms, a beetle and a frog! Indoors at Pre-School we have continued to enjoy playing with the small world farm and have done lots of exploration with mark marking using playdough, paint, chalks and pens.

Our Experiences

On Thursday we explored a French garden in our virtual Bilinguasing lesson. We began by saying bonjour to everyone and our teacher Kirsty. We sang lots of fun songs about bee’s, frogs and the incy wincy spider. We counted to ten in french and finished with saying bye bye bubbles - au revoir. 👋

Friday morning in Gym and tumble with Miss Crewe, we all listened and followed instructions really well. We practiced what we learnt last week to sit in tuck, pick and straddle position and we ran, jumped and marched on the spot. We could squat down to the floor and reach our bodies tall.  We used the benches to practice our balancing, we walked, slid and crawled across the bench until we reached the end and jumped off making sure that we landed safely on two feet. It was lots of fun! 

Autumn Term 1 - Week 3

This week we are much more settled and confident in our new environment.  We have continued to explore and play in our classroom and the EYFS outdoor area.  We have been seeking out others to share experiences and developing some special friendships.  
 

This week has been filled with lots of excitement and child initiated play. Indoors there have been many child-led activities such as role-playing doctors and Iron man, building spooky castles and towers in the construction area and creating a playdough Spider-Man in the malleable kitchen.  Outdoors in the EYFS area we have been cooking fish and chips in the mud kitchen and role playing builders and firemen.  
 

Our wonderful experiences have continued this week including our Bilinguasing where we learnt to say Bonjour to each other and had fun singing along to heads, shoulders, knees and toes - and doing the actions.  We have also had a fantastic time at Gym & Tumble where we practiced our good listening skills with Miss Crewe. We walked, ran and jumped across the mats, we practiced sitting in positions such as tuck, pike and straddle and then finished with some fun games. 
 

We cannot wait to explore our amazing new Pre-School outdoor area which will be ready for us by the end of next week. 😁 
 

Autumn Term 1 - Week 2 

This week we have continued to explore our environment and develop our relationships with the children and teachers in our class.  We are settling in well to our new routines and becoming more involved in our classroom.  We have especially liked playing with the dolls and puppets, exploring the sea creatures in the small world area and  playing in the malleable kitchen area - making playdough cookies and cakes! 
 

This week has also been the start of our very exciting experiences!  On Thursday we met our new Bilinguasing teacher who is helping us to learn french and develop our communication and language skills.  Then on Friday we had a wonderful time in our Gym and Tumble session where we all got involved in moving and stretching in different ways to support the development of our gross motor skills. 

Our First Week in Pre-School - Autumn Term 1

We have spent this short week settling into our new environment and exploring alongside our new teachers and peers.  We have been getting used to new experiences and routines.  This week we have spent time having tea parties, playing with the dinosaurs and getting messy making playdough!