Welcome!

Today’s Blog has been written by Alina. Sing songs such as 5 little monkeys, 5 little speckled frogs, 5 little men in a flying saucer etc. Songs will help children develop speech and language and if you choose songs with numbers in them this will also help children become aware of numbers and later on learn to count. Here are some links with a few songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j6AZhZFb7A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSC-gHBU_d0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E3p_51tJx0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZw9veQ76fo Maths is more than just numbers, is time, size, volume, position etc. To help with this, talk about what day it is every day, look at the calendar, ask them, what do they think the weather is doing. You can draw numbers on the pavement and ask your child to sit on a number such as 5, 2 6 etc, this will help children learn to recognise numbers. Play with blocks and Lego and ask the children to stack them ve...

Hello! This week we have continued making up our activity bags, we have loved seeing all of the photos and videos.  We try to put out a bag as often as we can, we will email you when a new one is available. Here are some more ideas that you might like to try at home. Playing cards. A simple household find that can be used in so many ways to promote number. Bingo, snap, order 1-5 or 1-10, find two the same, turn over two cards which is more, which is less? Which card comes next in a sequence? So many possibilities! Lids, lids and more lids!  We love lids at Pre-School Collect some flowers and greenery, place in a small shallow bowl, half fill with water and place in some string with a knotted end into the water. Once ready stick in the freezer, as soon as it’s frozen fill to the brim with water, this will make sure the flowers are completely iced over. Remove from the freezer once frozen, pop off the bowl and hang from the string in some trees!...

Welcome to this week's blog post, I hope you are enjoying all the puddles! We have been delivering bags of fun to some of you, we still have more to deliver and will let you know when we are in your area. This week we also started making activity packs containing simple activities with resources we could find.  If you are unable to collect one, you should be able to do a similar activity at home with any resources that you may have. We have our own YouTube channel and add new videos on a regular basis, please have a look here  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbkwxf-N6itovXSlLABZRyA Here are some ideas of activities you can try at home; Building with tooth picks and playdough or mini marshmallows, this will help develop fine motor skills. Making shakers    For this you can use bottles or containers such as the ones from bisto gravy or coffee or even socks etc. Fill them up with resources such as pasta, rice, coins etc anything that you can fin...

Hello, I hope you have enjoyed the YouTube videos!  Let us know if you have any special requests. I know that some of the children have been struggling with the current situation.  Children do not have the words or the understanding to express how they are feeling and this will sometimes result in regression with sleep, behaviour or toileting.  Here are some lovely child friendly stories to share with them. https://nosycrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Coronavirus_INSwith-cover.pdf https://youtu.be/PaXYos5T7x4 Here are some more ideas of things to try at home. I tried this one at home and we made some lovely new T-shirts! We have a few dinosaur fans! A great way to explore how we are feeling at the moment. Sand paint https://homegrownfriends.com/home/sand-painting/ I know that the children really enjoy being outside and playing in the mud!  Here are a few ideas to make your own 'mud kitchen' at home; A good basic selection of pots and...

I hope you all had a lovely Easter, here are some more ideas to try at home. Before children can learn to hold a pencil correctly and use this to form letters they first need to master skills such as using the shoulder to make arm movements or the elbow. Whole body painting – This involves placing a large sheet of paper on the floor and allowing the children to explore the paint and make marks however they like such as using their feet, hands, knees and elbows. This promotes gross motor skills and knowledge of cause and effect      Giant child Spirograph – Lay a large sheet of paper on the floor and then gets the children to lay on their fronts or backs. The Children then have to hold a pen in each hand with their arms stretched out and move the arms up and down or their bodies round on the floor to make Spirograph type patterns. Mop Painting – Wallpaper is great for this or large rolls of craft paper, place the long strip off paper on the floor and allow th...

I hope you are all well.  Thank you for all of the email updates, it is lovely to see how much fun you are all having. I have spotted lots of eggs, rainbows and bears around Brill, have you spotted Benny bear yet?  He is missing all of the children, give him a wave if you see him! Here are some more ideas for activities to try at home. You could freeze some animals, dinosaurs of people in ice then use whatever you can find to help them escape. You could paint some rocks or stones that you find on your daily walk. Why not try Cosmic kids yoga on you tube? Here is something we have tried at Pre-School before And this The children love to make up their own stories and act them out on the stage, why don't you create a story telling tin together. Bubbles are always fun and great for building up the muscles in our mouth. The children in Class 2 started using real tools, you could continue this with them at home. Can you make Elmer the Elephant or another characte...

We received some exciting news this week, we have achieved our gold award with the woodland trust! We hope you have been having lots of fun, please keep sending in updates.  Here are a few more ideas of things you might like to try. This is one we try at Forest School sometimes. This is a great activity for mark making. If you don't have dinosaurs, what else could you find to make prints into the salt dough.