This week’s activities

This is the final round up of activities this academic year.  There have been more challenges this week due to COVID-19, alongside the unpredictability of the English weather, but the team have ensured that your children have had fun and been engaged throughout.  Here are just some of the activities they have engaged in this week, the majority of which have happened outside, as we are mindful of the escalating cases of COVID-19 in the school environment:

In their maths development they have been drawing shapes and then gaining inspiration from these shapes to turn them into other objects, such as a circle became a flower, a square became a house and a rectangle became a door.  By using shapes in purposeful ways, they have more meaning and the children can relate them to their own lives and environment.

In their creative exploration, they used various objects to mix paint and make marks on large paper in Wren Garden.  The objects they used included paint brushes, cars, dinosaurs, Duplo; learning that each object created a different pattern, texture or effect.

In their sensory play, they have enjoyed exploring texture through filling pots with soil, water, bark, leaves, etc., discovering what happens when different substances mix together.

Weather has featured a lot again this week – from extreme heat, to torrential rain, thunder and lightning and even hail. We have linked this to how the world’s weather is changing to become more extreme and how we can help the planet in a variety of ways from composting to not wasting water and electricity, by walking or cycling instead of driving and by reducing our consumption of pre-packed foods.

They have used our recyclable resources to create wonderful props for their role play, from magnifying glasses, to cat carriers, to a table lamp. What brilliant children they are!

We are still lucky enough to be able to see the frogs that have taken up residence at the bottom of the garden. They certainly have grown over the last few weeks and the children are developing those all important empathy skills by thinking about what the frogs need to live and how we can protect them and keep them safe.

For those children who are making the transition to “big school”, we have continued with our focus on role play scenarios around school, eg answering to a register, taking on the role of “teacher”, being able to listen for longer periods to a story, etc..

Finally, some of the children helped harvest our fruit, vegetables and herbs ready for our shop, being careful not to stand on the plants that are still growing, thinking about what makes a plant “ready” to be harvested and what will happen to the waste that is not suitable for eating – we compost it.

Thank you to everyone and we hope you all have a lovely and safe summer.

The Pre-school Team