Eco superheroes, dinosaurs and we are over the rainbow too!

The spring term started with some uncertainty but, blissfully unaware of the lockdown developing around them, our children were able to continue to attend the setting and enjoy all of the activities on offer. With a little bit of adaptation, we were delighted to be able to continue to offer regular Forest School and classroom-based sessions allowing the children to explore our topics ‘Toytown’ and ‘Over the Rainbow’. Each week we have continued to offer music, yoga, animal care sessions and hall slots for soft play and PE. It has been lovely to see the children resume ballet again recently and I think many parents were delighted with the return to school lunches with the reopening of the main school! After the Easter break, we will be reopening the Early Years lending library to allow all of our children to borrow books to share with you at home. ‘Toytown’ saw our children comparing toys from around the world and looking at old and new toys. The children also became eco-superheroes as they made their own toys through junk modelling, learning the importance of looking after our planet by reusing and recycling. The children loved using the litter pickers to sort out the rubbish and they used some special equipment to make their own badges and keyrings, many of which are still being displayed on their coats and bags. Our more recent topic, ‘Over the Rainbow’, has seen all of the Nursery and Pre-School children explore colours and patterns in nature. The children looked at animal prints and created their own. They explored light and dark by creating shadows with torches and experimented with colours using the tabletop light boxes. There have been some lovely outdoor opportunities, including using templates to find and describe textures and the children embraced the arrival of Spring by using digital cameras to record emerging buds, blossom and spring flowers. A recent delivery of frogspawn created curiosity as tiny tadpoles began to emerge, helping the children to understand the concepts of growth and changes over time. We hope to demonstrate the butterfly life cycle to the children next term too. The Pre-School children have embraced their new Read Write Inc. sessions and we are all delighted with how well they are progressing with the programme and enjoying the practical, phonic-based activities to reinforce the sounds. The children particularly enjoyed the dinosaur themed week reinforcing the /d/ sound which saw them searching for bones in the sandpit, making dinosaur imprints in clay and dipping toy dinosaurs in paint to make footprint pictures. More recently, to reinforce the /p/ sound, the children printed with potatoes and planted seed potatoes. We hope to harvest a bumper crop next term which the children will help to prepare and eat. More gardening has taken place in our Early Years garden which has been a hub of activity this term as the children have planted spring flowers and tended to their crops of onions, leeks, runner beans and peas. The children have also been busy planting a den which will hopefully bloom in the summer term and become an exciting place for the children to play. Bird boxes have been added to the trees bordering the garden and the children were so excited when we spotted the first bird moving in this week! For World Book Day the children snuggled down to listen to their favourite bedtime stories whilst wearing their pyjamas and, to raise money for Red Nose Day, the children wore home clothes and made us smile with their crazy hair creations. We are hoping the summer term will allow our Teddy Bear family picnic to take place as well as our Sports Day celebrations. With restrictions easing, we hope parents will be able to join us at both of these special events. Finally, I would like to wish all of our Nursery and Pre-School parents and children a wonderful Easter break. To help share this message with you the Nursery and Pre-School children have created a special Easter video for you to watch. You will all be singing the words to this catchy song for weeks!

The Early Years Spring Chicken 2021