This week’s activities

This week, the children have played quite a few small group games.  These have included the ‘Shopping List’ game, where they match items on their shopping list to the pictures.  The children noticed that some of the items were missing (it’s hard not to lose parts to games!).  Having thought about solutions to this, the children decided that the missing items were ‘out of stock’ and couldn’t buy that this week due to transport/supply issues – very topical! This led to discussion around what is healthy, such as fruit and vegetables, which provide our bodies with vitamins and minerals; vital for our body’s health.

They have also engaged in a ‘bingo’ game, another matching game and a dominoes game – using real dominoes.  Small group games are great for encouraging turn-taking, following simple rules, patience and listening and attention, but, most importantly, they need to be fun and engaging to maintain a child’s interest.  If they become bored with a game, don’t insist that they finish it, find something more fun to do instead.

In their literacy exploration, they have explored the ‘Stick Man’ book.  To compliment the story telling, they re-created their own props, making stick men using sticks found in the garden, sticky tape to keep them together and added googly eyes to bring him to life. Using props with stories adds a further dimension to your story telling and helps the children become immersed in the adventure.

We promote diversity and inclusion and we help the children through age appropriate resources to recognise similarities and differences.  We always have inclusion and diversity resources within our environment for the children to explore independently but we also use them in adult-directed activities. This week, the children have been thinking about families and how they come in all shapes and sizes; listening to the story of a family with two daddies and learning that the most important thing is that there is love and kindness towards everyone.

Maths development has been based around what we can do with one shape to create another shape; so two semi-circles when placed together become a circle, two triangles placed together become a square.  The children then used these new shapes in different ways to create various pictures, such as a sailing boat using triangles, squares and circles; a lorry using rectangles, squares and circles; a house using rectangles, squares and triangles and a kite, using different sized triangles.  Noticing shapes in the environment is also a great way to help children understand what shapes are called and how they are used all around us.  A door is usually a rectangle, a snail’s shell is a spiral, a porthole on a boat is round, the list is endless.

We are also working on a Christmas surprise.  This will be revealed over the coming weeks, so please keep an eye out at home.  We are slowly introducing Christmas concepts and crafts but, as always, this is done through the child’s own interests and we never ask a child to make something because it is what we want them to do.  You won’t find perfect Christmas decorations or pre-cut shapes stuck onto Christmas cards.  True creativity comes from within. A child will tell you what they have created if you leave them to do it themselves. In this way they will feel a sense of pride in their own abilities and will not be sad if their card doesn’t look the same as someone else’s.

Finally, we have been practicing our Christmas songs.  The children are slowly learning some of the less familiar ones but please remember to practice at home.

Don’t forget tomorrow is an INSET day so we are not open to children.

Have a lovely weekend.

The Pre-school Team