A week of love at Preschool – 11.02.22

We have enjoyed a wonderful week based around love.

In our literacy development, we shared the story 'Guess how much I love you' by Sam McBratney. We listened carefully to the story and answered questions. We enjoyed exploring language within the story and acting out the different shows of love, for example, stretching our arms as wide as they can go and tumbling upside down and reaching up.

In our writing activity, we drew a picture of the people that we love and described why we loved them, "I love my brother cos he plays Mario Cart with me" "I love my mummy cos she gives me kisses". We have also continued to work on developing our early mark making skills and traced lines and patterns on love hearts.

To enhance our communication and language development, we have explored different textures in messy play, including shaving foam and flour and we have been using language to describe how it feels "sticky" "soft" "It like snow" "wet". We have also been taking on the role of teacher and some of us have felt confident enough to read story to the whole class – wow!

To support our personal, social and emotional development, we have discussed ways that we can show each other love in Preschool, "Sharing toys" "Playing nicely" "Giving each other hugs" "Be kind" "Help each other" "Be friends with everyone".

During our HeartSmart session, we learned to encourage one another. We sat in a circle and keeping hold of a ball of wool, we rolled to a friend and said something kind to them, "You have a beautiful smile" "You are my friend" "I like playing with you". We each kept hold of the piece of wool. Once we had finished we noticed that a web had formed connecting the whole class together. We discussed that we are all connected and can be kind to one another.

In our physical development, to support our gross motor skills, we have enjoyed afternoons on the adventure playground balancing, climbing and swinging! To support our fine motor skills, we have printed with heart shape cutters, made heart shaped playdough biscuits, baked our own biscuits, used tweezers to transport petals, used a needle to sew and taken part in daily squiggle while you wiggle sessions.

During our mathematics sessions we, have continued to count. This week we enjoyed counting hearts, saying which number is more or less than a given number (1-3). We then enjoyed some activities to support our subitising skills. Some our older children enjoyed the challenge of ordering numbers 1-5 – great job!

We have enjoyed lots of crafts as part of our expressive arts and design development. We made Valentine's day cards, created a salt dough heart decoration and decorated a heart using paint and tissue paper.

During our free play, we have been observing birds and making sure their bird feeder is full, I have spent a lot of time this week cleaning muddy faces as we have thoroughly enjoyed baking with the wet mud in the mud kitchen, we have cast magic spells and have enjoyed lots of fun with our friends.

Our hearts are definitely filled with love after this week and we hope that yours are too after sharing your child's creations at home.

Have a great weekend everyone
Tara