This week in pre-school we have been celebrating Harvest Festival and what that means, we have also alongside this talked about Autumn and the changes the season brings. Our story of the week ‘Little Acorns’ has been a lovely story of an oak tree and its journey through the seasons. It teaches the children how the different seasons help the little acorn grow into an impressive mighty oak tree. 

We have had such a busy week filled with lovely activities. The children practiced their cutting skills chopping up apples we picked in forest school last week, with these we made delicious apple cakes.  Some of the children helped to chop lots of wonderful harvest vegetables, which we turned into our harvest soup.  We enjoyed trying this at snack time.   

By exploring lots of vegetables, the corn husks proved very popular! The children were keen to try the variations of ways we can enjoy corn.  So, we had sweetcorn, popcorn and cornflakes to try too!  

On Friday this week some of the children joined the whole school over in church for the Harvest Festival service with Reverend Richard, they have loved practicing the song ‘Big Red Combine Harvester in preparation to sing along with their actions! 

A very busy but lovely week celebrating such an important time of the year.   

Happy Harvest time to all our farming families too.  

Next Monday 14th October Tempest Photography is in school to take sibling and individual photographs.  If your child has an older sibling in school, or Monday is not their normal session day and you would like their photograph taken, you are welcome to take them into school at 9am. 

We hope everyone has a lovely weekend, 

The Pre-School Team.  

A week celebrating friendship and birthdays! 

This week our book ‘Anyone Can Be My Friend’ had us reading about a special bear who travels the world looking for a friend and ends up finding many.  It celebrates our amazing diversity and that every single person in this world is special and unique.  

There are so many details on each page that the children really enjoyed looking at the illustrations and talking about what they can see.  

Taking inspiration from our story we have created our own ‘Friendship Tree’ to put up on the wall, all our handprints different but special in their own way.  

The children have also really enjoyed making their friendship bracelets, telling us who they were making them for and why.  The threading of beads and pasta tubes has been great for their fine motor skills development and a lovely activity to watch the children figure out how to thread themselves.  Not always an easy task for little hands!  

We took a blustery walk over to forest school earlier in the week and picked some apples from the tree.  We have exciting plans for these next week when we celebrate harvest. We also went on a leaf hunt to find the biggest leaves whilst they were crispy and dry! 

We have had 2 birthdays this week, a big happy birthday to both Tommy and Albie – thank you for sending in cupcakes to share with your friends.  

Finally, next week will see us celebrating the beginning of autumn and harvest time.  The Harvest Service held by Reverend Richard will be in church on Friday 11th at 2.15pm.   

We hope everyone has a lovely weekend, 

The Pre-School Team. 

This week has been about a whole lot of love and kindness within pre-school.

Our story of the week ‘Love Makes a Family' has been a beautiful story to share and discover all the different, amazing things that parents and carers do for their little ones. The vibrant illustrations show a diverse range of loving families, spending time enjoying each other's company.  It has sparked lots of conversations with the children and we discovered that alongside love there is always kindness.  

During our Grand Conversation’s this week we shared our ideas on what it means to be kind, and how we can show kindness.  The children all had some super ideas, and we used these to start our class kindness paperchain.  We will make this paper chain grow throughout the year by adding to it each time we recognise an act of kindness from the children.  We are all excited to see how long our kindness paperchain will be at the end of the year! 

Our focussed art this week has been ‘Home is where the heart is’, using painters' tape to make a house and a heart, then using water colours over the top.  The children were very excited to see their homes and hearts revealed when peeling the tape off!  It has made a beautiful display on our wall.  

We have had a few incidents of sickness/diarrhoea over the past couple of weeks, a polite reminder that it must be 48 hours from the last episode before children return to pre-school. This is to keep the risk of spreading to other children and staff to a minimum. Thank you.

We hope that everyone has a lovely weekend,

The Pre-School Team.

It has been a beautifully sunny week with us all enjoying as much time outdoors for our learning, exploring and playing. 

This week our book ‘My Big Fantastic Family’ was a sensitive story about how a little girl copes with change after her parents separate.  It explores the feelings of what it is like to be a part of a big, blended family.  

We developed our social skills by exploring what our own families look like with some grand conversation time. We understood that some families have siblings, and some have none. Some of the children have been able to stand up with their own family pictures and talk about their family members to their friends.  Thank you if you have already sent in a picture, the children have loved sharing them.

Also, this week we enjoyed our own garden area, painting outside, and had our first explore of Forest School. We walked around talking about the different areas to explore, spotted some apples ready to eat, and found some autumn treasures along the way. 

Next week we will be exploring emotions and feelings, and how we can show kindness to our friends and families.  

The weather is looking a little more unsettled for next week so please do remember raincoats for your child. 

Newsletters were handed out in paper format but if you have not had one then there is a copy attached below.  

We hope everyone has a lovely weekend. 

The Pre-School Team.  

Our first full week back in pre-school was about getting to know each other and learning about ourselves. 

All about me activities allow the children to learn about their own self-identity including their physical features, emotions, likes and dislikes.  Even at this young age we are building on their own self esteem. It also is a lovely theme to explore at the beginning of the school year to get to know everyone in our class. 

This week’s book ‘Who are you?’ has been a great starting point to open discussions about what makes us who we are.  We have introduced our ‘Grand Conversation’ time into our pre-school routine this week, with the children using a mirror to tell us what they could see as their individual features. We asked them to describe what colours they could see in their eyes and hair, could they give a big smile and see their teeth.  The mirror activity was very popular, and they continued using it when making their own paper plate portraits. 

We have also enjoyed plenty of outside play and painting while the September sunshine has been shining. Although we have definitely noticed a chill to the air on more windy days. Please do ensure you send a coat in with your child each day.

Next Wednesday18th September, a nurse from Old Bridge Surgery will be in our extension room to administer the flu vaccine from 9am.  Parents are welcome to take their child in first before dropping them at the door as normal, or if your child attends pre-school on a Wednesday morning a member of staff can take them through if you are unable to.  

Consent forms must be returned by Monday 16th September as they will be collected by the surgery.   

Next week we will be talking about our homes and families, please do send in picture of your child with their family for us to add to our 'Family Wall'.

We hope everyone has a lovely weekend. 

The pre-school team.  

A big welcome back to all our returning preschool children and families, it has been so lovely to see all of you and to also welcome some new faces to our preschool too.  

This week has been about settling the children back into preschool and gently introducing our daily routines again.  The children have all settled back in so well and it has been lovely for us as staff to see them happy to return.  

We made use of the first few days and the brilliant sunshine to have a little clean-up of our outside area.  The children have shown great enthusiasm and teamwork to help weed our summer planting areas and sweep and collect the many leaves that have already fallen into our playground area.  A clear sign we are entering our Autumn term. 

Next week being our first full week, we will begin to explore this half term’s enquiry question ‘Who am I?’  

We would love for the children to have a picture of them with their families to go on to our Family wall. You can send these into preschool via email to preschool@pelyntprimary.co.uk and we will print them for you.  Alternatively, if you have a printed photo, we can take a copy. Please pass these to one of the adults.  

On Wednesday 18th September we will have a nurse attending preschool in the morning to administer sniffy flus, the children’s nasal flu vaccine. Consent letters with details will be given to all parents/carers this week. 

We hope everyone has a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing the children next week. 

The Pre-School Team  

We hope that all the children and their families enjoyed our leavers ceremony and Teddy Bears picnic.  It was so lovely to celebrate each and every one of our individual leavers, they all made us so proud standing up and being presented their leaving gifts by Mr Knight! 

All of you are wonderful, and we are going to miss you lots! But we wish you all the best as you move on to Lantic Class.  

We also must mention the younger children that sat with them during the ceremony who made us very proud too, understanding that it was a celebration for their friends who are leaving pre-school. 

Thankfully the rain held off and we were able to enjoy a delightful picnic in the garden with our bear friends, thank you if you came and joined us in the celebrations. 

Before we sign out for a little rest and reset over the summer break, we would also like to make a special mention and thank you to Mrs G. I know all our families will follow in saying a heartfelt thank you for everything you have done for the children and families over the past year.  You are wonderful and we will miss you.  We also wish you lots of luck in your new school.  

Finally, we return to pre-school on Wednesday 4th September, Mrs Rickard, Miss Carr and Mrs Rowe will be there to welcome back all the children and our new starters. 

We wish you all a safe, fun, and hopefully sunny summer break, 

The Pre-School Team. 

This week our story of Sharing a Shell by Julia Donaldson has led the children to discover the many wonderous sea life that have shells as their homes, and what they do when they outgrow their home. The book has also been a great story to talk about friendship and sharing.  

We have watched clips of real-life sea creatures that live on the seabed or against the rocks who use their shells for protection and to help them move around. We are lucky to have a lovely collection of seashells in Pre-School and the children have enjoyed discussing their shape, size, colour and even what sea creature may have once lived inside! 

Taking inspiration from the vibrant illustrations in the book we have recreated our own sparkly hermit crabs, sequined scallop shells and also some salt dough handprints decorated with shells. A lovely variety of artwork the children have all enjoyed.  

This week the children have also discovered environmental sounds we may hear at the seaside, using their listening skills to correctly match the sounds with their corresponding image.  

We have also used shells in our number work to recognise numbers and then count the correct number of shells.  

Plenty of sunshine has allowed outside play and discovery to be enjoyed, with more planting, car washing, mud kitchen baking and watering of all our wonderful plants. 

Next week we will enjoy the story of ‘What the ladybird heard at the seaside?’  

Lastly, a polite reminder to please send your child in with suncream, a hat, and a refillable water bottle when the weather is warm. 

We hope everyone has a lovely weekend. 

The Pre-School Team.