PRE-SCHOOL BLOG 2022-23
WEEK BEGINNING 18TH SEPTEMBER 2023
We enjoyed carrying on our experiment from last week investigating what had happened to our water filled balloons that were put into the freezer. We carefully cut the balloon off to discover that the water had turned into ice! and the toys the children had put into them were frozen inside. We had to wait for the ice to melt before we could get the toys back out. The children have also enjoyed painting some aliens, stars and astronauts that will go on a new display we are making. We had a lovely surprise this week as we were out playing in our playground , we heard an airplane flying above the school and looked up to see that it had drawn a smiley face in the sky :) the children were very excited.
WEEK BEGINNING 11TH SEPTEMBER 2023
Exploring
We have enjoyed another week of making friends and exploring in Pre-school this week. We used every resource the children could find! We have mixed paint into shaving foam and painted dinosaurs using all sorts of beautiful bright colours we even added a bit of sparkle using glitter, we enjoyed more messy play fun with shaving foam and ice to make a cool tuff spot perfect for penguins and polar bears! We started an experiment using balloons, water and small world people and dinosaurs, the children helped to fill balloons with water adding some small toys of their choice and putting them in the freezer. Next week we will see what happened to them :). We have enjoyed seeing all the children build lovely friendships with their new friends here in caterpillar class.
WEEK BEGINNING 4TH SEPTEMBER 2023
New term!
Welcome back to all of our families, hello and welcome to all of our new families! We have had a lovely (and hot!) start to the new school year. The children have all settled in beautifully! They have really enjoyed exploring the classroom and our outdoor area and have had a lovely time making new friends and getting to know each other. They have had lots of fun with playdough and some arts and crafts. We have also enjoyed lots of stories, nursery rhymes and singing and dancing. Whilst the weather is still a little warm we make sure the children stay in the shade whilst we are using our outdoor area as much as possible and we always have water available for the children to drink throughout the day as well as at snack times. Please can the children be sent in with sun hats and apply sun screen before they arrive.
WEEK BEGINNING 10TH JULY 2023
End of term!
What a lovely end of term we have had in pre-school. The children have all been busy putting more bug hotels into the nature area and checking on our hotels we had put in previously. We had an amazing treat when we had a visit from a lovely lady called Tracy from Toni's Ices who brought her ice cream van with her! The children (and grownups :) ) really enjoyed their Mr Whippy ice cream, or lemonade lolly, so much! it was a lovely treat for the end of the summer term. The children all took it in turns to ask Tracy for their own ice cream treat and we all sat on the school field and enjoyed it in the sunshine. We have had a lovely year in pre-school and we wish all of the children moving up to reception the best of luck and we will miss you lots!
And to the children staying with us we will see you after the summer holidays, pre-school is back open from the 4th of September.
Have a lovely summer!
Week beginning 26th June 2023
Eco week
This week in school was Eco week. In pre-school our project for Eco week was making bug hotels! We had a great time decorating cardboard and collecting all sorts of things, twigs, leaves and bark, to fill our bug hotels. We then visited the nature area to put some in there and next week we are going t explore what bugs have moved into our hotels. Also we had a bug snack themed activity where we used celery, olives, cucumber, chives, tomatoes, cream cheese and crackers to make our very own bugs! they were DELICIOUS!
Week beginning 19th June 2023
International Week
We enjoyed celebrating international week this week. Our chosen Country was Bangladesh! We have enjoyed looking at and making our own flags using pencils, crayons, glitter and even a giant collage flag. We learnt some facts about Bangladesh, where it is on the the map and even learning about the Bengali tiger! Some of our children shared with us some beautiful traditional clothing and one of our children shared some photos with us of Bangladesh from a recent family holiday! It was so lovely to see everything that they were so kind to share with us. We had a real treat at the end of the week and were donated some delicious food to try, there was Samosas, vegetable sprig rolls, Rice and lentils, it was DELICIOUS! The children really enjoyed trying the food. At the the end of the week we shared what we had learnt with the year 1 classes and they showed us what they had learnt about their chosen countries Brazil and France. We had a great time!
Week beginning 12th June 2023
We have had a very busy week this week in Pre-school making lots of things for our grown ups. We have been painting, sticking and even been practicing writing our name. We have also been enjoying the sunshine and exploring our nature area. We found a caterpillar nest in the trees and have been enjoying exploring in around the tees and bushes keeping cool in the shade.
Week beginning 05th June 2023
Welcome back to all our families! We hope you all had a lovely half term. We have enjoyed settling back into Pre-school this week and enjoying the beautiful sunshine. With the weather becoming warmer we want to remind everyone to please send children into school with sun hats and sun screen applied. If your child attends all day and you would like sunscreen reapplied for the afternoon session please supply some for us to use. We are happy to label them and keep them in Pre-school. Water is available all day for the children to keep hydrated and we will continue to go outside and enjoy our outdoor areas as long as it is safe to do so.
Have a lovely weekend and enjoy the sunshine!
Week beginning 22nd May 2023
You might have seen some little creatures coming home with children this week but not to worry they are hedgehogs and they are all friendly! The children have had a great time making these over the past couple of weeks. One of our new TA's in class Miss Smith has been talking to the children about her pet hedgehog she has called Hazard! The children have been so excited learning all about Hazard and Miss Smith shared some pictures of him which the children used to reference when making their very own pet hedgehogs. They used all sorts of resources including card, paper straws, paint, glue and even some glitter glue.
My Smile celebration
We were visited this week by a lady from the My Smile toothbrushing programme this week who came in to take some photos of some of the children who have taken part in the programme. She presented each class with a certificate and took some photos of some of the children.
Week beginning 15th May 2023
We have had such a lovely week this week enjoying the sunshine. It was lovely to see how full and green the trees were looking in our nature area and we think we even spotted some tadpoles in the pond! We're excited to start seeing how they grow and hopefully we will see some caterpillars getting ready to turn into beautiful butterflies soon! We love getting out to our nature area and seeing all the changes of the seasons.
We've also been enjoying getting plenty of exercise in our playground. We definitely have some future gymnasts in Pre-school and its great to see them showing off their skills! We had a great time with chalk outside this week using it to draw around ourselves and seeing how tall everyone is. The children drew their eyes, nose and mouths and big smiling faces on their chalk people!
Week beginning 8th May 2023
The children in Pre-school have really enjoyed finishing planting the rest of their sunflowers this week and have planted our class ones into bigger pots! We've had lots of fun seeing how tall our class sunflowers are growing and can't wait to see them start to flower. The children will be bringing their sunflowers home from next week and we would love to see pictures of how they do at home! If you would like to send in any pictures you can send them to our class email
caterpillars@shirley.cambs.sch.uk
Week beginning 24th April 2023
We started off the week this week enjoying the beautiful sunshine :) we had a great time getting back onto the school field exploring and playing! We have also started planting our sunflower seeds for our school sunflower seed growing competition! The children are really excited to see how much their seeds will grow as they look after them. We talked about what we can do to look after them making sure they are watered and get lots of sunshine :)
Week beginning 17th April 2023
Welcome back to all of our families and welcome to our new families that have joined us this term we hope you all had a lovely Easter break and didn't eat too much chocolate :) We have had a lovely and busy week settling back and getting to know our new friends who have joined Pre-school and of course enjoying the beautiful sunshine we have had this week. We are looking forward to exploring some more and starting our shapes display next week!
Week beginning 27th March 2023
This week has been a very crafty week in Pre-school. We have ben painting, gluing, taping and making all sorts of lovely pictures. We have also been watching our seeds grow that we planted last week! We have looked after it by watering it when the soil feels dry and it has been enjoying the little bit of sunshine in our window that we have had. The children have looked after it so well that we have had 3 buds appear this week. We are excited to see how much it grows over the Easter holidays! If you have any pictures of the plants we sent home with the children we would love to see them! Send them into our class email
caterpillars@shirley.cambs.sch.uk
We hope you all have a lovely Easter break! We look forward to seeing you all back on the 18th April :)
Week beginning 20th March 2023
We have been busy this week making spiders for our new 'Incy Wincy Spider' display. We have used all sorts of resources from pipe cleaners, paper plates, glue, wool and googly eyes. We have also been exploring lots of facts about spiders. How many eyes does a spider have? Have many legs do they have? Hopefully we don't scare too many people away with our spiders display :)
Week beginning 13th March 2023
Science week
This week in school was science week. In Pre-school week used our Dino landscape that we had made last week to erupt volcanoes! We talked about the ingredients we used to do this and that putting them together created a reaction. The ingredients we used were Bicarbonate of soda, washing up liquid, red dye to make it look more like lava and finally vinegar! The children were amazed to see the reaction that it made! Although some of the children weren't too keen on the smell of the vinegar :)
We were also busy with mothers day gifts and the children all planted some seeds this week to take home. We spoke about what the seeds would need to help them grow and how to look after them. We would love to see any pictures of your plants when the seeds have grown! Any pictures you would like to share with us please send to our class email.
Week Beginning 6th March 2023
Last week the children made a thankyou card for Harold the Giraffe who we met on the life education bus. We had a little visit last week from him to pass on his card to him. This week we received some special post in class! Harold wrote to the children to thank them for 'helping me to learn how to wash and brush my hair, wash my face and brush my teeth' . The children really loved receiving their card from Harold and remembering their visit from him.
We have been enjoying lots of arts and crafts this week. We've used paint, glue, toilet rolls, tissue paper, cardboard boxes and shredded paper! We used all of these different resources to make a Dinosaur landscape including volcanoes. We have been preparing for science week next week ready to make the volcanoes erupt! The children really enjoyed getting stuck in mixing together shredded paper, paint and glue to make our volcanoes.
Week beginning 27th February 2023
World book day
This week we enjoyed talking about and reading some of our favourite stories. The children enjoyed dressing up as their favourite characters and sharing with us their favourite stories. As a school we looked at and read the story 'The wizard of Oz' and we enjoyed some craft activities based around the story. We made masks which the children enjoyed taking to the nature area with them pretending to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald city! We also enjoyed colouring in pictures and cutting out characters to make puppets.
Week beginning 20th February 2023
This week we were lucky enough to have a lovely visit from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Life Education Centre. Pre-schools topic was 'Taking care of myself'. We talked lots about how we can keep our bodies healthy. We learnt lots about how to keep our lungs and heart healthy. The children enjoyed sharing with us what exercise they do to keep healthy from running, swimming and even sliding! We also made a new friend on the bus, a friendly Giraffe called Harold! His dad had packed him a wash bag and he wasn't sure what everything in there was used for so the Pre-school children were very helpful and helped Harold have a wash and tell him what everything was used for. They helped him brush his teeth, wash his face and even comb his hair. Thank you to Louise and Harold for inviting us to come and visit you on your Education Bus!
Week beginning 6th February 2023
This week is safety week at school and in Pre-school we have been talking lots about how to be safe in and out of school. As part of our safety week we have spoken about how to be safe when we meet other peoples pets and quite often we see people walking their dogs. We were lucky enough to have a special visitor in class this week! A puppy called Bobby! The children and of course the grown ups were very excited to meet Bobby. We spoke lots about how to approach dogs if we see them out and about and how it was very important to ask their owner if it was ok to say hello to their dog as some can be a bit nervous around new people.
We have been very busy this week talking lots about how we can be safe. The children were very busy doing some activities that made us think about how we can be safe in different rooms in our homes. Also talking about what was safe to eat and NOT safe to eat and what is safe to touch and NOT safe to touch. We also talked lots about safer strangers and who we could ask for help if we needed it.
Week beginning 30th January 2023
We've had a lovely week this week enjoying the slightly warmer weather and the lovely sunshine we had. We did some more exploring in our nature and got to have a good look in the pond to see if we could spot anything in it now that the ice has melted! The sun was shining which meant we could spot our own reflections in the water ! We also had a run around our school field and we decided to practice our kicking with some balls we took with us.
The children enjoyed getting crafty finishing off some their Chinese new year inspired drums which we made out of paper plates they had painted last week.
Week beginning 23rd January 2023
We have had lots of fun crafting this week learning about the celebration of Chinese new year. We have made and decorated lanterns and painted plates and toilet roll tubes ready to make them into drums and dragons. We have also really enjoyed exploring our school nature area which looked beautiful covered in frost at the start of the week.
Week beginning 16th January 2023
It was a frosty week this week. The children have really enjoyed exploring outside this week discovering what happened to water in the playground during the cold weather, we talked about how the water had turned into ice and what happens to it when it is a little warmer in the sun. We enjoyed showing our new children the field. We also used some cheerios cereal and ribbon to make some bird feeders and necklaces.
If your child will be 4 years old by the 31st August 2023 you must apply for their September 2023 Reception school place NOW if you haven't done it already. The closing date for applications is the 15th January 2023.
Here's the link you need:
Week beginning 9th January 2023
Happy new year! We hope you have all had a lovely break. We have had a lovely week welcoming back the children and hearing all about what they got up to in the holidays. Welcome to our new families who have started with us this week. The children have really enjoyed getting to know each other and making new friends.
Week beginning 12th December 2022
What a fun start start to this week with a thick blanket of snow to play in!
We played on the field and in the nature area making some of the first marks in the fresh snow; some foxes got there first though! We made our own footprints and some snow angels - and of course we found time to throw some snow around too ;)
Thank you to all of the family members to came to pre-school this week to help the children with some Christmas crafts and to have Christmas songs sung for them. It felt very special as we haven't been able to welcome families in to school much over the last couple of years. We all enjoyed it very much.
9th December 2022
Thank you to Veolia for our Christmas tree and decorations.
Take a look at the photos below to see the pre-school children decorating it.
Our classroom looked fabulous!
Week beginning 5th December 2022
We've had an exciting week with preparations for Christmas. The children have helped to decorate the pre-school rooms, have decorated three christmas trees (two in pre-school and one at the school's main entrance) and have even made some snow! It all looks wonderful :)
Week beginning 28th November 2022
One of our families donated some books to us recently, including one called Stick Man. We love Stick Man! So, while playing on the field we collected sticks so that we could make our own stick men. Here they are; so cute.
While we were at the field we also collected some leaves. Once they had been sorted into colour groups the children made a leaf rainbow. We think it's beautiful.
Week beginning 21st November 2022
The pre-school children enjoy dressing up and role playing. But did you know, even Spiderman likes to play with cars, princesses like drawing and sticking and witches like sticking and wearing superhero capes!
Week beginning 14th November 2022
This week has been anti-bullying week. As part of this the pre-school children were encouraged to think about some of their emotions and then consider what made them feel that way. They also practiced recognising the feelings of others which included understanding facial expressions. They had great fun making emotional faces to show each other!
Also this week the children have been thinking about our school and class rules and what they do to follow these. They really are doing very well :)
Week beginning 7th November 2022
More exciting news from many of the children this week about fireworks. They've chatted about the colours and sounds they saw while sharing their memories with us. We asked the children to chooses the colours of paint, chalk and glitter they wanted to use to make pictures. Then, they had a great time creating their own fireworks!
Week beginning 31st October 2022
Welcome to the new half term.
With the change in the weather and the clocks it's feeling quite autumnal.
The children have been telling us all about their halloween experiences and about the yummy sweets they've consumed!
We've had fun digging seeds and flesh out of pumpkins this week while exploring the textures and smell of the fruit.
Week beginning 17th October 2022
What a busy half term. Pre-school took part in the daily mile challenge and completed an amamzing 30 laps of the school field by the 30th September. The children have worked so hard and are very proud of themselves for being active and healthy. They really have earned their medals! They've also been enjoying taking part in dancing and singing activities.
Week beginning 10th October 2022
We've been enjoying bear stories over the past few weeks; one of them is called Sneezy Bear. In the story the poor bear doesn't get to eat many of the different foods he finds because he sneezes so hard it blows away! This week the chilsdren have helped to make some pictures of creatures and foods from the story which we will use for a display in school. Then, as a snack they were able to choose a combination of blueberries, cherries and honey, like the bear had wanted, to taste with a pancke.
Friday 23rd September
This week the children have been busy experimenting in the water tray with coloured water and different sized containers. They also enjoyed blowing bubbles on the field and chasing them as well as a teddy bears picnic.
Thursday 15th September
This week the children visited the nature area and the field for the first time. They enjoyed running and rolling down the grassy hill and exploring the the natural environment in the nature area. Leaves, sticks, grass, wild flowers and twigs were some of the things that they found while they were there and then used tape to stick them onto a big piece of paper. They had such a lot of fun discovering and using their gross motor skills.
Monday 12th September
Friday 9th September 2022
Welcome to all our Pre-school families who are new or returning and we hope you had a lovely summer. We have had a lovely start to the term and the children have been settling in, making friends, and learning each other's names. We have been doing many different activities, including playdough, sand, water, mark making, and exploring the outdoor area. We look forward to having lots more fun over the next few weeks and showing you what we have been doing on this blog page.
PRE-SCHOOL BLOG 2021-2022
Friday 1st July 2022.
This week in school has been Eco week and our project was to make some bug hotels for minibeasts. We went to the nature area and collected lots of natural objects like pieces of bark, leaves, sticks, pine cones and grass. Then we used cardboard from old cereal boxes that the children had collected during the week and decorated the inside of them with bright colours to attract the minibeasts, then we put all the natural objects inside and rolled the cardboard into a cylinder shape, tying it with string to keep everything inside and placed them in parts of the nature area where we though the bugs might find them. Have a look at our fantastic photos of what the children have been doing
Friday 17th June 2022
The children have enjoyed doing a minibeast hunt in the nature area. They had a minibeast tick sheet on a clipboard, and using magnifying glasses to help them explore the environment for minibeasts. They looked under logs, in trees and in the mud. When they had found some, they then used a pencil to make a mark in the box next to that particular minibeast to show they had found it!
Friday 10th June 2022 - Jubilee Week
All this week the children have been enjoying activities to celebrate the Queens Platinum Jubilee. They decorated biscuits using icing sugar with red, white, blue and silver sprinkles, and then sat and ate what they had made. They also coloured in union jack flags with the right colours, and made crowns from paper plates, decorating them with gems, sequins, and glitter. The children learned the song 'Street Party' and sang it in the hall in front of the invited guests. Here are some photos of the children enjoying all the activities.
Friday 27th May 2022
During this week the children have been making the most of the nice weather and the outdoor space. They thought about how they would approach an activity, and what way they might need to do something to achieve a goal. They made use of the climbing frame, slide, balance boards, and the space around them to practice their physical skills which included balance, coordination, agility and spatial awareness. Have a look at the photos to see what they were doing!
Friday 20th May 2022
The Pre-school children enjoyed doing some foraging in the nature area. They found grass, flowers, sticks, mud and lots of other natural things. Then using pots, pans, spoons scoops and other tools they made their own concoctions, including mud pies, soup, magic potions and pirate pie to name a few! This was an exciting activity that encouraged them to use their imaginations and experiment with what they had found.
Friday 13th May 2022
The children had a great experience doing some colour mixing this week. They used powder paint and water, and then used small brooms to mix the colours together on the ground. They had lots of fun watching what happened as they swept with the brooms and seeing the bright colours on the ground. This activity really helps them to strengthen their shoulder and arm muscles as they sweep, and is good preparation for early writing skills. It also helps with their language and communication by talking about what they can see and the colours they have made.
Friday 6th May 2022
The children are having another go at planting some sunflower seeds. This activity helps them to understand about growing and how to take care of seeds and plants, what they need, and finding out what different parts of a plant are called. They will also enjoy watching their seed grow, seeing how tall it gets and learning new vocabulary to describe the way it looks like and what is happening.
Friday 29th April 2022
Every week in Pre-School we practice maths skills like counting, measuring volume and capacity, size comparison and lots of other concepts. The children enjoy lots of different activities to help with their understanding of maths and these can include using coloured water in jugs and containers, playing games to help with counting and even making pictures with small parts.
Friday 22nd April 2022
The children have settled back into Pre-school after the Easter break and have been spending time using their imaginations to create models using construction. Here they have used all of the wooden bricks to construct a house with a path leading up to it, and they even managed to find a space to park the cars at the top of the building!
Friday 1st April 2022
This week the children enjoyed investigating natural materials like pine cones. They used their sense of touch to see what they felt like and thought about words they could use to describe them, like rough, and bumpy. Then had fun spreading glue onto the pine cones and rolling them in glitter to decorate them.
Friday 25th March 2022
This week the children listened to the story of The Gruffalo in the nature area. After listening to the story and looking at the illustrations in the book they did some drawing on pieces of paper of an animal that they might meet in a wood. Here are some of their interpretations of the animals they drew.
Friday 18th March 2022
This week in Pre-School the children have been getting very messy. They had fun playing with purple slime, stretching, poking and kneading it with their hands. They also thought of words to describe it like 'sticky, 'slimy', and 'squishy.' Then on another day they made Geli Baff, mixing the ingredient with some water and watching it change from a liquid to solid, then feeling the texture of it on their hands.
Friday 11th March - Science Week
This week in school was Science Week and the children have been planting some sunflower seeds. They put some soil into a pot using a scoop and then pushed the seed down into it, then with a little watering can they gave it some water. Afterward, they drew a picture of a sunflower on a small piece of paper which was stuck to a stick and put inside the soil so they would know which one was theirs. Over the next few weeks the children will be able to look after them and see how much they grow.
Friday 11th March 2022
This week the children went on a number hunt. Shiny plastic numbers were hidden in different places and the children went off around the the nature area to see if they could find them, and identify which number it was using a number line if they needed help. Then on a plastic sheet they laid out the numbers and counted them up to ten. The children had lots of fun looking for the numbers and tried really hard to put them in the right order.
Friday 4th March 2022
The children had an amazing time on Thursday for World Book Day. They dressed up as characters from their favourite books and enjoyed having their photos taken. We listened to stories on the whiteboard and read books that their characters were from, and they had fun doing lots of role play too.
Friday 25th February 2022
The children have been spending time doing lots of maths activities. They used 3D shapes to make different objects, like a rocket or a house, and used vocabulary like curved, straight, and pointy. They also found out about quantity and capacity by filling different sized containers with water and seeing what happened when pouring from one to another. The cubes were very useful to make number patterns and build up towers as high as they could!
Thursday 10th February 2022
Wow what a busy week it has been! Continuing on with safety week, the children had a visit from Jon the Police officer and Jo the Firefighter. They talked to the children about their jobs and how to stay safe on the roads, the children were able to answer questions remembering what they had learnt about road safety, and then the visitors demonstrated what could happen if you don't were a helmet using Egbert the egg and a bowl!! Afterwards the children got to ask some questions of their own. We also looked at safety in the home and had a go at spotting the hazards in different rooms like the kitchen and bathroom.
Monday 7th February 2022
This week in school is safety week. The children have been learning how to keep safe on the roads and have been very lucky to use some equipment to help them learn. They had a suitcase full of different types of things that you would see on the roads when out and about. We talked about what things were called and how to use them, and we also shared a book about about road safety. Afterwards the children had the opportunity to do some dressing up and practice how to cross roads safely.
Friday 4th February 2022
The children have enjoyed making some playdough this week. They took it in turns to mix the ingredients together in a bowl and watched what happened as they stirred. When it had become a lump of playdough they used rolling pins to make it flat, cutters to make shapes and tools to create patterns with. Here are some photos of what they did.
Friday 28th January 2022
At the field this week the children practiced throwing and catching skills. We took a large bag of balls, and in pairs, they took it in turns to throw the ball to each other to see if they could catch it. They had a real go at it and really enjoyed themselves, have a look at our photos to see how they got on.
Friday 21st January 2022
The children have been noticing lots of changes around them. Last week it was water turning to ice and this week they have been looking after bulbs. Ms morel bought some in for the children to look after, and they have been watering them and watching what happens over time, have a look at the photos to see the changes that happened and how they took care of them!
Friday 14th January 2022
It has been very cold this week, and the children have been observing what happens to water when it is left outside during the night. We put some toy fish in a container full of water, and then the next day the children noticed that it wasn't water anymore and it felt hard and very cold to touch. We talked about why this had happened and that the reason for it happening was because it had frozen while being outside and had turned into ice.
