Bee's and Honey

Hello everyone,

Last week we had great fun finding out all about shapes. We listened to some shape stories and found the different shapes in the picture. We went on a shape walk around the school grounds and spotted lots of different shapes in our environment. We used the camera to take a picture of the shape we found. We will be using our photos to make a shape book this week. We did some shape printing on different shapes. These will be up on display this week. We played the game Guess the shape. We are getting really good at naming different shapes so much so we are learning some 3D shape names like cone, cylinder. At snack time we have had different shaped snack and made our snack into different shapes. We have been to soft play this week and found different shapes to build with.
On Friday we cut our gardening pictures out and have started our Nature Diary.

This week we will be continuing our shape work but also talking about bees and honey. One of children noticed that the honeycomb is Hexagon shapes and Amelia was talking about her Grandad who is a bee keeper. We all decided we would like to find out more about bees and hexagons.
We will be reading some bee stories, making hexagon shaped biscuits, playing with BEEBOT and lots more.

Home Learning

So why not look at pictures in magazines, papers etc and bring in a picture of some thing that your child has recognised the shape of, for example, car tyres-circle, houses- square, boxes-rectangles, sliced bread-square. Or take a photo of something your child has seen and bring that in.

OR

Maybe you could bring something in about Hexagons or Bees. 

Letters and Sounds

This week we are going to play: 

Teddy is lost in the jungle 
One child (the rescuer) is taken aside while a teddy bear is hidden somewhere in the room. Tell the other children they are going to guide the rescuer to the teddy by singing louder as the rescuer gets closer to, or quietly as the rescuer moves further away from the teddy. Alternatively lead the children in singing a familiar song, rhyme or jingle, speeding up and slowing down to guide the rescuer. 

Mrs Browning has a box

Turn a box on its side with the opening facing away from the children. One by one place between four and six familiar noisy items (e.g. a set of keys, crisp packet, squeaky toy) into the box, pausing to name them and demonstrate the sound each one makes.

Sing to the tune of ‘Old MacDonald’ but using your own name or one of the children’s:

Mrs...has a box ee i ee i o
And in that box she has a...
Stop. Gesture and ask the children to listen.

Handle one of the objects in the box, out of sight, to make a noise. The children take it in turns to guess what is making the sound. Continue the song but imitating the sound using your voice.

With a zzz zzz here and a zzz zzz there...

Allow the children to take a turn at making a noise from inside the box and use their names as you sing.

Notices 

Don't forget to bring in your child's WOW moments. We love to share and celebrate these with everyone. There are spare WOW's by the WOW board in the corridor. 

Thank you to everyone who came and helped at the community gardening afternoon on Saturday. 

It was lovely to see some of you at Stay and Play on Friday. This week Stay and Play will be on Wednesday 18th October from 8.30-9.00am. Everyone is very welcome including younger and older siblings. Hope to see lots of you there.

On Tuesday morning it is the open morning at the school. It starts at 9.00am. 

On Tuesday 17th October (5pm till 8pm) and Thursday 19th October (4pm-6pm) it is parents evening.  There is a signing up sheet in the corridor with time slots. If these times are not convenient please come and see me to arrange a date and time that is convenient. If there are no spaces please do come and see me and we will sort out a convenient time. 

On Friday 20th October we break up for half term. We return back to pre-school on Tuesday 31st October.

We hope you all have a wonderful half term. 

Thanks

Julia and Pre-school Team

Shape

Hello Everyone,

Lat week we started our week of doing reception on Monday morning for an autumn themed activity morning. The children adapted well to the change to our normal routines. During the morning, the children took part in sponge printing around an Autumn poem, going on scavenge hunt around the school grounds, conker marbling and making stickman out of sticks. Also the children got to explore inside and outside of Reception during free play. Pictures will be up this week.

During the week we learnt some Autumn songs and listened to some Autumn stories and poems. On Friday the children used the Autumn picture book to talk about what happens during the Autumn. Lots of children talked about what they could see happening in the pictures. 

We went on a leaf hunt look for different coloured leaves and sorting them into the correct coloured basket. We were rally good at our sorting skills. 

We found the sycamore seeds and really enjoyed playing helicopters with the seeds. The children loved throwing them in the air and watching them twirl and float down to the ground. We even caught some of them before they touched the ground. 

We talked in a group about all the changes at this time of year and then made our own Autumn picture using paint and different tools and techniques. We worked as a team. This picture is up in the messy area. 

We went and collected some flat leaves and did some leaf printing with paint outside. The children really enjoyed painting the leaves and then pressing them onto paper. 

We have made our own number line for the classroom using conkers. We printed onto the numbers and then threaded conkers onto string. 

On Friday we helped to get ready for Autumn Fest. We took the logs in the trolley to the Roundhouse and helped Mr Bascombe unload the trolley of logs ready for our campfire. We enjoyed pretending to sit round the campfire on the logs. 

Shapes

This week we are going to be looking at shapes in our environment and having a week all about shapes. We have got lots exciting activities all about shapes names and creating with shapes along with going on a shape walk. 

We are going to make a poster of all the different shapes we can find in our environment. 

Home Learning

So why not look at pictures in magazines, papers etc and bring in a picture of some thing that your child has recognised the shape of, for example, car tyres-circle, houses- square, boxes-rectangles, sliced bread-square. Or take a photo of something your child has seen and bring that in.

Letters and Sounds

This week we are going to play: 

Teddy is lost in the jungle
One child (the rescuer) is taken aside while a teddy bear is hidden somewhere in the room. Tell the other children they are going to guide the rescuer to the teddy by singing louder as the rescuer gets closer to, or quietly as the rescuer moves further away from the teddy. Alternatively lead the children in singing a familiar song, rhyme or jingle, speeding up and slowing down to guide the rescuer. 

Describe and nd it
Set up a model farmyard. Describe one of the animals but do not tell the children its name. Say, for example: This animal has horns, four legs and a tail. Ask them to say which animal it is. Ask them to make the noise the animal might make. When they are familiar with the game let individual children take the part of the adult and describe the animal for the others to name. 

Notices 

Don't forget to bring in your child's WOW moments. We love to share and celebrate these with everyone. There are spare WOW's by the WOW board in the corridor. 

It was lovely to see some of you at Stay and Play on Thursday. This week Stay and Play will be on Friday 13th October from 8.30-9.00am. Everyone is very welcome including younger and older siblings. Hope to see lots of you there.

 The next community gardening day is on Saturday 14th October from1pm-4pm meeting in the school orchard. 

Thank you to everyone that came and supported Autumn Fest on Friday evening. It was a lovely evening and great to see so many of our families. We raised £409.00. Thank you to all the parents that were able to help during the evening. 

There will be a letter going home this week about parents evening which is happening on Tuesday 17th October (5pm till 8pm) and Thursday 19th October (4pm-6pm).  There will be a signing up sheet in the corridor with time slots. If these times are not convenient please come and see me to arrange a date and time that is convenient. 

Julia and Pre-school team 

Autumn

Hello everyone,

Last week we had a fantastic time celebrating Harvest. Throughout the week we were cooking in the kitchen with the pears we collected from the school orchard. Our pear cupcakes were very yummy. We also made some pear cakes for the Harvest cafe on Friday.  On Tuesday Supertato arrived in our classroom. We read the story and we played with Supertato, his friends and the evil peas in the small world area. We even found some evil peas in the freeze in the school kitchen.  We made a scarecrow for the preschool garden. We thought about what we would need to make a scarecrow. After this we collected stars in our wheelbarrow and made a scarecrow.  We also made our own scarecrows using different shapes of paper. We named the shapes we were using. Our amazing scarecrows were displayed in the school wall as a Harvest display. These will be back up in the classroom this week. 

At snack time we had lots of different foods e.g. cereal, bread and we talked about where these food come from. On Friday we went to Harvest assembly and joined the school in celebrating harvest. Pre-school and Reception shared their Harvest poem to the rest of the school and parents. Pre-school were amazing at remembering the harvest poem. Well done Pre-school.

Last week Jennie Jigsaw asked us how we can be kind at pre-school. The children came up with some lovely ideas which are making into a poster with our handprints. 

This week we will be talking about Autumn and the changes that are happening outside. Some of the children have noticed some of the changes happening already.  We will be sharing some lovely Autumn stories, poems and songs along with lots of exploring our school grounds to find out about Autumn. We will be making a conker number line and making some Autumn crafts along with lots more. 

On Monday we will be starting the week of by joining Reception for a joint Autumn morning. We will be all going to Reception for the morning and taking part in lots of lovely Autumn activities inside and outside. 

Jennie Jigsaw

We will be finishing of our kind hands poster and talking about some good Golden Rules to have at pre-school.

Letters and sounds

We will continue on from last week with our we will be giving others a set of clues to guess an animal along with using our voice to make slow/fast quiet/loud and long/short sounds.

Home learning:- Can you bring in something that reminds you of Autumn? It can be an object, craft, book etc. 

Notices:-

Don't forget to bring in your child's WOW moments. We love to share and celebrate these with everyone. There are spare WOW's by the WOW board in the corridor. 

It was lovely to see some of you at Stay and Play on Wednesday. This week Stay and Play will be on Thursday 5th October from 8.30-9.00am. Everyone is very welcome including younger and older siblings. Hope to see lots of you there.

Thank you to every that came to the Community gardening day at the roundhouse on Saturday. We all did an amazing job and the roundhouse area is looking so much better. The next community gardening day is on Saturday 14th October from1pm-4pm. 

Thank you for the harvest donations. These have all gone to Dorset Food bank. We raised an amazing amount of over £200. 

On Friday 6th October it is Autumn Fest  starting from 5.00pm till 7.30pm. There are lot's of Autumn activities going on including conker championships, autumn crafts, apple bobbing, camp fire and lots more. Tickets can be purchased from the Main school office. £5.00 for a family of 4 and £1.00 for additional children. There will be hot dogs and refreshments on sale as well. See poster on school website or Facebook. 

Also on Friday 6th October it is Wacky Hair day in Aid of Weldmar Hospice care. Recommended donation is £1.00. Look forward to seeing some Wacky hair styles. 

Any questions please do come and see me or any of the pre-school staff.

Julia and Pre-school team

Harvest week

Hello everyone,

Once again thank you to all the parents that attend the information morning on Tuesday. If you were unable to attend please read the previous blog. 

Last week we enjoyed visiting the school orchard with our buckets and collecting pears. We talked about what else we could see at the orchard. The children found some lovely pears along with some bad pears. We talked about the differences. We bought our pears back to preschool in preparation for cooking this week. Some of us wanted to draw pictures of our trip to the orchard. These are up on the wall in classroom We also did some pear threading using a needle and wool. The children were brilliant at threading on the cut out pears. We have also been playing a sounds lotto game called crash bang wallop and the children really enjoyed recognising the different sounds in our environment and wanted to play more games of this. On Tuesday afternoon we went out on a drumstick sounds walk. We used plastic piping as drum sticks and went outside to find the different sounds we could make with our sticks on different objects around the school grounds. We have gone to soft play this week when the weather has not been so good. On Thursday afternoon we made an obstacle course in the school hall. We enjoyed moving in different ways including jumping, sliding etc.  We have been learning a harvest poem to say at the Harvest festival this week with the Reception class. 

This week we are going to be cooking with our pear harvest from the school orchard. We will continue with our harvest poem along with the story of Farmer Duck, Oliver's Vegetables and Superpotato. For snack time we will be having lots of different snacks which we harvest e.g. cereal, popcorn, apples, pears, carrots, bread and will be talking about where they come from. 
We will be making a Scarecrow and thinking about what we will need to make one. This will be on display at the harvest celebrations. We will be creating our own harvest artwork for the display at school. Here is just some of the things we will be doing plus lots more using the children's interest. 

Letters and Sounds

This week we will be giving others a set of clues to guess an animal along with using our voice to make slow/fast quiet/loud and long/short sounds.

Jennie Jigsaw

This week we will be talking about kind hands and kind words. Remembering how important these things are when playing with friends. We will be making our own poster using our handprint for this.

Home learning 

Can you find or make a picture, object or something which reminds you of Harvest?

Notices

On Wednesday will be our first stay and play session. This is an opportunity to come to preschool early and have a play, looking at the display and talk to the preschool team. The door opens at 8.30am and finishes about 9.00am. Younger and older siblings very welcome to come to. Look forward to seeing lots of you there. 

On Friday 29th September we will be going the school with their harvest assembly. Pre-school and Reception  will be sharing our harvest poem with all the parents. You are very welcome to come. This is at 9.15am in the main school hall.

On Saturday 30th September from 1.00-4.00pm there is a community make over day at the Roundhouse. If you would like to volunteer with helping to clear or tidy the roundhouse area. Please come and ask for more information. 

On Tuesday 17th October is an The Prince of Wales School open day for children starting school in September 18. There will be a tour of the school and a Parent question and answer session. To book a place please ring the school or email office@princeofwales.dorset.sch.uk 

If anyone has some empty spare jam jars please bring them in. We will be most grateful. This is for our Autumn Fest. Please see poster on the Prince of Wales school Facebook page. 

Any questions please do come and speak to the preschool team. 

Julia and Preschool team 

Coffee and information morning

It was lovely to see some many parents this morning for the information session, I hope you found it useful. If you are unsure of anything from the talk this morning, please do come and see me.
Here is a brief outline of what we talked about this morning if you were unable to attend.

Library Bag
The children will have the opportunity to choose a library book from the library at pre-school to take home to share. On the library bags is a key ring with the child's name along with the 7 DASP citizenship caterpillars. We talked about these and to become familiar with them in preparation for going to school. Also there is one of Jennie Jigsaw which is our Personal, Social and Emotional development  programme we do. There will be a deposit of £2.00 to get a library bag. This will be refunded when you return the library bag at the end of the year. We will be starting this on Monday. 

Changing Bags
In the next couple of days the children will come home with a changing bag which will need filling with a whole set of spare clothes. These bags will only come home if child has needed to be changed. 

Blog
The blog is one of our main ways of keeping you informed about what we are learning about a school. It is really important you check the blog to see what's happening at pre-school on a weekly basis. If you are unsure about how to access it, please do come and see me. I generally update the blog on a Sunday in preparation for the week ahead. I talk about what we have done last week, what we are going to do this week, notices, Sounds and letters and Jennie Jigsaw,  along with some home learning.


Keyworkers
Over the last 2 weeks we have been getting to know the children and also them getting to know us. From this we have now given each child a keyworker. A letter about keyworkers  will come home in the next week along with who your child's key worker is. 


Stay and Play
Once a week on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday will be a stay and play session. This is an opportunity to come an play with your child in pre-school along with the opportunity to have chat with me. We open the door at 8.30 and siblings are very welcome to come to. 


Labelling of clothes and shoes
Please could all your child's clothes and shoes be labelled.

Shared Books
Over the year we will send a group of books out which we have shared at pre-school and think you might like to share at home. We have started this already with Shark in the park. When you have read the story at home, it would be lovely to have a comment by your child's name of what they thought of the book and please return it to preschool so the next child can share it at home.


Parent meetings
In October there will be an opportunity to come and talk to me about your child's learning and settling in year 2. Dates of this is to follow. Please feel free always to come and catch me at anytime if you have a question or would like discuss something. 

WOW'S

We talked about the all important WOW moments. Wow moment slips can be found the year 2 hallway. If you are unsure where to find them please ask a member of staff. We value these wow moment and celebrate with the children their achievements and news. Please keep them coming in. It is opportunity for you as parents to tell us your child's news and achievements which will contribute towards their learning journeys. 

Saturday stay and play mornings

Every half term there will be one Saturday morning for about 2 hours whereby pre-school will be open for you to come and have a play, look at your child learning journey and chat to the pre-school team. These will be advertised on the preschool blog. 

POWSA

WHAT IS POWSA? 

For those who have never attended a POWSA meeting before the thought can be intimidating but we are all friendly parents who want to help the school offer the best of opportunities to all the pupils who pass through it's doors, whilst having a little fun along the way. We give up a little bit of time every now and then to help provide some of those extras that help make our school such a fantastic place and if you would like to learn more we would love to see you. The next POWSA meeting is on 7th November 2017 which is the POWSA AGM. Any questions about POWSA please do come and ask myself.