🌞 Our Week: Jack and the Beanstalk 🌱🏰
Hello everyone,
We hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend with your families and have been enjoying the beautiful sunshine.
We’ve had a very busy and exciting week at preschool. The children have loved listening to the story of Jack and the Beanstalk and have taken part in lots of wonderful activities linked to the story.
Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to…
Tuesday 🥋🌱
On Tuesday morning, a group of children attended kickboxing, where they practised jumping with two feet together between cones. They also enjoyed stretching and worked on their foot skills, moving their front foot first and then their back foot.
Outside, we drew a giant beanstalk using chalk and played a throwing game where the children tossed beanbags and identified the numbers they landed on. This was a fantastic way to practise both throwing skills and number recognition.
The children planted their own magic beans in pots filled with soil and drew castles for their beanstalks to grow towards. We talked about what seeds need in order to grow, including water, sunlight, and soil.
📸 Please do send us photos when your magic bean starts to grow!
In the afternoon, we enjoyed a lovely play session outside in the sunshine.
Wednesday 🏰🎵
On Wednesday, one group of children visited the care home, where they sang songs, shared a story, and enjoyed some cake together. It was a very special experience for everyone involved.
Another group planted their magic beans and created castles using junk modelling materials. The children practised using a variety of tools and techniques to build their imaginative creations.
In the afternoon, we took part in our Relax Kids session, enjoying calming activities and a peaceful imaginative journey together.
Thursday 🏃♂️🤸♀️
Thursday brought our weekly visit to the YMCA gym — always a highlight of the week!
We started with a warm-up game where the children moved in different ways and found coloured cones when the music stopped, balancing them on their heads like hats.
The children then rotated around a variety of exciting activities, including:
- An obstacle course with rope swings, balancing, roly-polies, backward rolls, stepping stones, and bunny hops
- Bouncing on the trampoline and practising falling safely onto their knees and standing back up
- Walking on stilts and throwing beanbags into basketball hoops
- Balancing along beams using bunny hops
- Climbing on the wall bars
We finished with ribbon games and a fun round of the Hokey Cokey.
In the afternoon, we enjoyed outdoor play in the preschool garden and visited Reception to listen to a story with Mrs Rogers.
Friday 🐞🎨
On Friday, we spent lots of time enjoying the sunshine and playing together in the preschool garden.
We also celebrated David Attenborough’s 100th birthday by exploring the garden to look for bugs and painting different insects we discovered.
🌈 Learning Through Play
Throughout the week, the children explored a wide range of play-based activities, including:
- Constructing with Stickle Bricks, wooden gem blocks, animal blocks, and balancing tree bricks
- Creating beanstalks with playdough, leaves, coloured stones, and pipe cleaners
- Making bracelets and necklaces
- Dressing small wooden dolls in the Finger Frenzy area
- Small world play with our Jack and the Beanstalk puppet theatre
- Water play, using blocks to build castles
- Investigating sound pots
📚 Read Write Inc.
We have continued learning our phonics sounds and focused on:
m, a, s, d, t, i, n
Here are the sounds you can practise at home:
The children were introduced to Fred Frog, who can only say sounds rather than whole words. They loved playing “Fred Talk,” listening carefully to sounds and blending them together to make words.
We have also been enjoying lots of rhyming games and stories throughout the week.
📸 Some Pictures from Our Week
We hope you enjoy looking through the photos and seeing some of the wonderful experiences the children have been part of this week! 😊
