Our week at Preschool

Our first full week together has flown by and what a wonderful week we have had. We have been on a journey together and discovered about 'Wonderful Me'. We read the story 'All About Me'. We discussed similarities and differences between the children in the story and ourselves "He has a green top on and we don't" "He has no hair" "He has eyes like me" "We all have a neck". We then used a mirror to look at the features on our face and created self-portraits.

To support our personal, social and emotional development we have continued to establish our rhythms and routines. I can't believe how settled we all are within our provision and you may be amazed to hear that we are super stars at tidying up! We have also observed beautiful interactions between the children this week and it has been wonderful to observe fantastic cooperative play and turn taking.

For our mindfulness activities, we listened to the story 'The Colour Monster' by Anna Llenas. As we listened to the story we found out that the Colour Monster is feeling very mixed up. He's yellow, blue, red, black and green all at once. We helped him to explore what emotion he was feeling. We then discussed what makes us feel happy, sad, angry, scared, calm and loving.

To develop our communication and language skills we have listened to a variety of stories – a particular favourite story this week was "You Choose" by Nick Sharratt. Children had to listen carefully to the questions asked within the story and answer the questions.
We have also been introduced to some new language this week, using different words to describe ourselves such as, skin, blonde, eyes, pupil, eye lash, ginger, torso etc.

To support our physical development we have continued to establish our hand washing and toileting procedures. We have also been developing our independence skills; we have been trying hard to put on our coats and pour our own drinks at snack time. We have also enjoyed activities to support our fine motor skills, including, using tweezers to transport pom poms, completing jigsaws and manipulating play dough. To support our gross motor skills we have been balancing and climbing!

To enhance our literacy skills we have been singing nursery rhymes with Mr. Tumble and learning all our Preschool routine songs. We have painted and talked about the different marks we have made and we have also used crayons to draw a self-portrait

Within our mathematics development we have explored a range of containers of different sizes in the sand and water tray. Children have been encouraged to talk about the sizes of the containers and we have discussed which holds 'more' or 'less'?

To develop our understanding the world we have begun to talk about ourselves and our families, we are looking forward to exploring this more next week. We have also enjoyed using binoculars and magnifying gasses to make observations of the world around us.

Within our expressive arts and design we used paints to create our self portraits. We have also engaged in lots of imaginative play, it has been lovely to observe children role play their own experiences in the home corner. We have also been busy experimenting with sound, exploring musical instruments and pots and pans!

I think we can safely say we have had a very busy week!
See you all again next week,
Tara, Libby and Asheligh.