🌟 Our Week: All About the Life Cycle of a Frog 🐸
Hello everyone,
We hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend.
We’ve had a very busy and exciting week in preschool as we began exploring the life cycle of a frog. The children loved sharing their half-term adventures with their friends, and it was wonderful to see their confidence as they spoke about their experiences.
As part of our topic, we shared the story The Tiny Tadpole and introduced key vocabulary such as frog, frogspawn, tadpole, and froglet. These words have been used throughout the week during play, discussions, and creative activities.
Here’s a look at what we’ve been up to…
🥋 Tuesday
On Tuesday, one group of children took part in kickboxing, practising their bear walks along with stance and guard. It’s been fantastic to see the progress they are making in their strength, balance, and confidence.
The other group enjoyed a creative activity, printing with bubble wrap and black paint to create pictures that looked just like frogspawn.
In the afternoon, the children explored our new role-play area, which has been set up as a vets. This sparked lots of imaginative play and conversation. We also enjoyed bouncy tight painting, which was great fun and encouraged the children to experiment with textures and movement.
🎵 Wednesday
On Wednesday morning, a group of children visited the care home for a lovely sing-song, story time, and cake. The children enjoyed chatting with the residents and proudly telling them all about their adventures. It was a very special experience for everyone involved.
Meanwhile, the other group made origami frogs, showing great concentration and developing their fine motor skills.
In the afternoon, we took part in our Relax Kids session. The children enjoyed recalling activities from the previous half term, including playing Fizzy Lemonade. We were all very pleased to see Sian again.
🤸 Thursday
Thursday morning was spent at the YMCA Gym, where the children had a fantastic time. After our warm-up routine, we played a listening and movement game where the children had to jump into a hoop when the music stopped.
The children then explored the gym equipment, including swinging bars and practising forward rolls. We completed an obstacle course involving climbing at different heights, balancing, jumping, forward rolls, and log rolls.
The children also enjoyed bouncing on the trampoline, jumping onto certain colours, and practising jumping and sitting down on the count of three. We finished our session with the Hokey Cokey, which everyone loved.
In the afternoon, we enjoyed soft play and made our own tadpoles using bouncy tight painting. The children cut out a circle for the body and created a tail by folding black paper.
🍪 Friday
On Friday morning, the children painted or collaged their own A3-sized frogs. They showed great care and control, working hard to stay within the lines.
In the afternoon, we carried out a science experiment using Gelli Baff, watching it change from a solid into a liquid. The children were fascinated by the transformation. We also enjoyed spending time playing outside and making the most of the fresh air.
🌈 Learning Through Play
Throughout the week, the children have been learning through a wide range of play-based activities, including:
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Constructing with K’Nex, Toolo, and transparent wooden shapes
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Playing number games, counting in larger groups, and recognising numerals 1–6
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Singing Five Speckled Frogs in the number area
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Exploring kinetic sand with a variety of moulds and tools
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Taking part in forest friends small-world play
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Developing fine motor skills using tiddly-wink frogs
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Sensory play with Gelli Baff, lily pads, frogs, tadpoles, and frogspawn
📚 Read Write Inc – Picture Cards
This week, we continued learning Read Write Inc. picture names during group time:
m, a, s, d, t, i, n, p, g, o, c, k, u, b
We also met Fred Frog, who can’t say words but can only say sounds. He played a game with the children using Fred Talk, and the children had to listen carefully and work out what the sounds were saying. We’ve also enjoyed lots of rhyming games and stories throughout the week.
📸 Some Pictures from Our Week…
We hope you enjoy seeing what we’ve been up to and sharing in the children’s learning, creativity, and fun.
🔍 Looking Ahead to Next Week
Next week, we will be sharing our love of books and celebrating World Book Day on Thursday 📚✨
We have lots of fun and engaging activities planned to support the children’s learning through play, helping to build confidence, independence, and enjoyment across all areas of learning.
🏠 Home Learning
You can support your child’s learning at home by trying some of the following activities together:
Can you tell your family the Read Write Inc. picture names we have learned so far?
Can you practise following instructions using positional language, such as:
in front, behind, to the side, forward, backwards, on top, and belowCan you play the Fred Frog game – “Fred Says…” together?
🐸 Fred Says…
Fred says put your hands on your h-e-d.
(Ask your child to repeat.)
Your child says:
h-e-d, h-e-d, head — and touches their head.
Repeat with:
b-a-k (back)
t-u-m (tum)
l-e-g (leg)
h-a-n-d (hand)
f-u-t (foot)
n-ee (knee)
h-i-p (hip)
Then have a go at movement words:
r-u-n (run)
h-o-p (hop)
s-k-i-p (skip)
j-u-m-p (jump)
s-t-o-p (stop)
These games are a fun way to support listening, blending sounds, and following instructions 🌟
📌 Notices
🥜 Nut-Free School
Please remember that we are a nut-free school. We kindly ask that no products containing nuts are included in children’s lunchboxes. Thank you for your support.
👕 Uniform
To order pre-school uniform, please see the link below. We also have some second-hand uniform available — please ask a member of staff if you are interested.
DEP Schoolwear Shop (Dorset Embroidery and Printwear Ltd)
🌐 Website: https://www.dorsetprintwear.com/the-prince-of-wales-school
📞 Telephone: 01305 750292
✉️ Email: sales@dorsetprintwear.co.uk
📖 Dates for Your Diary
We have got Mystery reader session w/o 2/3. If you would like to come in and read a stroy to children on one of these days please let me know. The time for this will be 3.10pm.
📚 Story Time
Wednesday afternoon at 3.10pm
📖 World Book Day – Thursday
On Thursday, children are invited to come dressed as their favourite book character 📚✨
Please see the previous letter for full information.
No superheroes, please.
Please speak to myself or a member of the team if you have any questions — we’re always happy to help.
Here’s to another exciting week full of fun and adventures 🌈✨
Julia, Colleen, Lauren and Lauren 💛
