A roaring week at preschool

We have all settled back into preschool life beautifully and have been very excited to find out that our new learning will be based around dinosaurs! We have used this week to get back into our rhythms and routines and have enjoyed lots of time exploring our environment. That doesn't mean that we haven't been doing lots of learning along the way too!

Within our personal, social and emotional development we have welcomed new friends to preschool and have been very kind in helping to show then our rhythms and routines and support them to access resources in our environment. It is lovely to observe the children helping each other and being aware of each others individual needs. We have also reinforced our preschool rules and boundaries to ensure we are all happy at preschool and we have found a solution to support the sharing of resources through using an egg timer as needed.

To enhance our communication and language skills we have enjoyed listening carefully to dinosaur stories asking and answering questions and we have been introduced to many new words including the different names of dinosaurs, fossil, extinct, excavate and pre historic. Next week these words will come alive as we hunt and dig for bones and fossils! We have also been using language to ask and answer questions as we have hunted for dinosaurs in our preschool garden.

To develop our physical development we have reinforced the importance of good hygiene through hand washing and when we should be washing our hands; after using the toilet, before eating food, after blowing our nose and after sneezing and coughing – here is to a healthier term ahead. We have also been developing our cutting skills and have been threading dinosaurs to further enhance our fine motor skills. To develop our gross motor skills we have been stomping, stamping, chomping and munching like a dinosaur and have enjoyed T-Rex yoga! We have also had the opportunity to climb, balance, and swing on the adventure playground.

To develop our literacy skills we have listened to the story 'Dinosaur Roar'. We learnt that many of the words in the story rhyme. We listened for the rhyming pairs and some of us even carried on a rhyming string – wow! In phonics we recapped all our pictures and helped Fred to say the word, remember he can only talk in sounds. Next week we will split into two groups for our phonics . Check tapestry for more information.

Within mathematics we have revisited our learning from last term and have used language to describe the position of our dinosaur and describe the dinosaurs size. We have also used dinosaurs to print feet in play dough and carefully use our finger to count how many feet they have.

We have developed our understanding of the world and have observed changes in our outdoor environment "there are no leaves on the trees" "it's cold". This has enabled us to think about the season winter, we will continue to explore this season next week and think about how we can help feed and water the birds. We have also been talking about the features of different dinosaurs we have played with, next week will learn about herbivores and carnivores.

To support our expressive arts and design development we have been introduced to a new material , water colour paints. We used a black pen to draw our favourite dinosaur and then used the water colours to paint our picture. We experimented with how much water we needed and how to make the paint appear lighter or darker. It was lovely to see how the children developed their own ways to investigate and they created such wonderful creations. Look out for these pictures on our display. We have also begun creating salt dough fossils!

Thank you to one of our school families for your wonderful donations of dolls, a crib, a cot, highchair and a changing stand. I have observed the children engage in lots of imaginative play, sharing resources, collaborating ideas and thoughts and there has been many opportunities to extend vocabulary – thank you!

Have a lovely weekend preschool,
Tara