Preschool News

We’ve had a wonderful week in preschool, filled with stories, exploring, and lots of hands on learning. Our story of the week was Handa’s Surprise. The children loved talking about the animals, the fruits, and the big surprise at the end. Our rhyme was Dingle Dangle Scarecrow, which brought plenty of laughter as we wiggled, stretched, and pretended to be scarecrows in the sunshine.

To extend our learning from Handa’s Surprise, we enjoyed tasting some of the fruits from the story. The children tried pineapple, mango, and passion fruit, using great language to describe the flavours—sweet, juicy, tangy, and even “a bit slimy”! We then made a tally chart to show our favourite fruits. The children counted how many liked each one and talked about which had the most and which had the fewest votes, helping them use early maths language such as more and fewer.

On Wednesday, we made our very own scarecrow to protect our growing patch. The children helped stuff the clothes, choose a hat, and give him a friendly face. We also planted courgettes and moved our bean plants into pots now that they have roots and shoots. The children are becoming brilliant little gardeners.

Our sound of the week was s. The children explored words beginning with s and practised hearing  and writing the sound. We also played oral blending games, including Old MacDonald, where we sounded out animal names like sh-ee-p and the children blended the sounds together.

In HeartSmart, we pretended to be different animals, moving in different ways and making different sounds. We talked about how fun it is to pretend, but how Boris reminds us that the best thing we can be is ourselves.

Friday was another Sports Day practice, and the children tried so hard. We were very proud of their listening, teamwork, and determination.

We made the most of the beautiful weather with lots of outdoor play—sand, water, farmyard animals, and plenty of excitement spraying shaving foam off the chalkboards. Indoors, the water tray, Jack’s beanstalk small world, painting, and role play were big favourites. We were also very lucky to have some special visitors in preschool this week—stick insects! The children were fascinated and asked lots of thoughtful questions.

Next week, we will be learning all about frogs with The Wide Mouthed Frog story and the rhyme Five Little Speckled Frogs. We are also expecting a visit from another exciting (and not so mini!) minibeast