This week’s activities

In their creative play this week, the children have been making props to support their role play, including ‘binoculars’ to go on adventures on the high seas and ‘shakers’ to create their own music. Lots of lovely self-directed creative ideas, linking items from their lives and using them to extend their play in other ways.

They have also used various building materials, including stickle bricks, waffle bricks, Lego and the large wooden blocks to create towers, buildings, car parks, farms, wands, swords – the list is endless. Learning about shape, space and measure, symmetry, trial and error, perseverance to name but a few.

Outside, they have used the larger open-ended resources to create props for their role play.  What we may think of as a ‘milk crate’, when positioned in a long line becomes ‘Santa’s sleigh’ – children don’t care what season it is! and a train trip to the seaside.  Role play helps children make sense of their world, re-enact important times in their lives, extend friendships, negotiate roles and make links; all helping to fire off those important connections in their developing brains.

Paint is always available and the children have great fun creating their own colours by mixing them together and expressing themselves in whatever way they choose when they put paintbrush to paper.  Some children just love to cover the whole page with paint, whilst others are beginning to form more recognisable images; all part of their creative and physical development.

In their sensory play, they had lots of lovely hands-on experience with the pink crazy foam.  Not only did they get lots of sensory stimulation, but the crazy foam became ‘Peppa Pig World’! Again, showing how vivid and wonderful children’s imaginations are.

They have also had lots of water play, filling and emptying containers (great for maths development), watering plants, making mud pies and potions or simply watching water running through their fingers and enjoying the feeling of the cold water on their skin.

Foam became many different things, including icecreams and volcanoes, as they moulded the squishy foam into shapes, helping with manipulation skills and understanding of the world. Lots of use of vocabulary in terms of describing words, as well as introducing words they may not have heard before.

Cornflour has some amazing properties – when it is wet it is slimy and gloopy, but as you scoop a handful and lift it out of the water, it becomes a dry paste – how does that happen? Amazing for an adult but very special for a child to see how what we think we know about a property can be changed by adding or taking something away from it.

Finally in their sensory play, they have explored shredded paper.  We try to waste as little as possible at the Pre-school, so old shredded documents become a great big pile of scrunchy, malleable, sprinkly fun.

To help with their maths development, the children worked together to complete a really large floor puzzle. This involved noticing patterns, fitting pieces together through observation and trial and error, as well as teamwork and patience. They have also played ‘number dominoes’.  Matching and recognising numbers, following patterns, using shapes and turn-taking are all needed to play this simple game.

To help with the children’s understanding of the world beyond their home and Pre-school, they have been playing with the emergency vehicles and thinking about people in jobs that help us.  They then went on to play ‘occupation lotto’ learning about the jobs that people do,.  They even learnt that the teachers at Pre-school don’t live here, have their own homes and families and that this is their ‘job’ – who’d have thought!

Outside they have been thinking about the weather, how it can change from rain to sun and back again. What this means for the natural world, why the seasons are so important for life, the food that we eat and how things change over time.  They have been watching the numerous birds we are lucky enough to have visit our lovely wildlife-friendly gardens, discovering what they are called, listening to their song and thinking about the homes that they make, whether it’s a nest in a tree or a nest on the ground hidden in the undergrowth.

The trikes have remained very popular and are fantastic for developing co-ordination, as well as being great for using large muscles groups and learning to avoid obstacles. As there are only three, the children have to wait for a turn, something that is challenging for young children. To support them with this, not only do we have a sandtimer to act as a visual cue, we use a chart that they complete themselves. If they want to have a turn, they make a mark on the chart. When they have had their turn they cross off their mark and pass the trike to the next child on the list.  This helps them understand that mark-making carries meaning, that lists can help us measure time and that it is important to be patient and wait for something that you really want.

Tomorrow is our last day this term.  We hope you all have a lovely break with your children and families and we look forward to seeing you all again on Tuesday 8th June.

The Pre-school Team