We have also had fun in our small world area with shaving foam. We used our gross motor skills to make large lines and circles in the foam and we talked about the different textures and smells and what we could add next time.

Today we practiced our listening skills again and everyone remembered to “freeze” and to “come back !” We walked past some fallen, red berries :

“No pick, no lick!”

Well done, it really showed how well everyone had listened last week.

This week we practiced our looking skills.

We watched the water flowing on one side of the bridge , then on the other.

When we arrived at our camp area we made a sweep using our eyes looking closely to make sure our camp was safe.

The group worked together to lay our tarpaulin on the grass.

Forest School is all about fostering resilience and independence.

The group decided to look for sticks again.

“Look an airplane, Easy Jet !”

So many things that we can make from sticks…

 

MacMillan Coffee Morning.  (Blossom Years Pre-school on Nightingale Lane)

The children were very busy baking and decorating cakes and biscuits on the Wednesday and Thursday before our coffee morning on Friday 29th Sept. They really enjoyed joining in with baking and decorating. Lots of parents came to join us on the morning and we had a lovely morning eating some cake, dancing and playing with our visitors. We also raised just over £100 for MacMillan.

This autumn term we have been introducing Forest School sessions for our children aged from 3 years old.

Forest School is a unique approach to learning, allowing children the time and freedom to explore and direct their own learning. We create a safe space where children can grow, gaining confidence and greater self-esteem over time.

Forest School operates across the seasons immersing children in an ever changing natural landscape.  Some of the activities we have planned include:-

• Looking for insects, learning how to identify them, counting legs, comparing colours and thinking about their habitats.
• Hunting for and finding sticks and using our imaginations creating nests, structures, magic wands etc.
• We will explore stories and how they come alive in the outdoors and most importantly we will be having a lot of fun and free play outside!
• Learning about basic construction, tripods and shelters.
• Honing our senses to look and listening closely to all the natural sights and sounds around us.

Autumn Hedgehogs making, for fine motor skills:

The children collected sticks and leaves from our garden and staff collect pine cones and conkers on their way into pre school. To add sensory play to the activity the children made their own play dough, learning adding, quantity and talking about the products. To add extra smells we added cinnamon to the play dough. The children loved this activity creating their own hedgehogs using the materials we collected.

Graduation 2017 was an emotional day for parents, children and staff, the children chose the songs and dances they wanted to perform for their families, it was a great success.

Pet Week. W/C 19.6.17 Nightingale lane.

We ran a pet week and had some animals come to visit us, we met a Hamster called chilli, who was very soft and furry. On Wednesday Spuds the dog came to preschool, we all sat in the garden and listen to what he ate and we all stroked him, some of the children then took him for a walk around our garden.

On Fri we had a tortoise called Tommy and a bearded Dragon called Sam come to visit. The children sat in small groups and learnt what they ate, where they live, how to care for them and felt their skin and shell – they were not soft !

The children helped to feed the tortoise and watched him eat some strawberries and dandelions. Some children also brought their soft toy pets into preschool to play with them in our Vets corner that we had. We also made animal masks, heard some animal stories and songs.

Photo 1

We encourage to talk about themselves so we send an all about me box home and fill it with things that are about them such as photos and toy. At circle time the children will talk about their these and their home life. Doing this encourages communication and speech development, and if a child is particularly shy we will encourage them to talk in a group.

Photo 2

We like to encourage the children to learn about their environment and the children really enjoy looking for bugs. We are very lucky as we have some really cool see and speak binoculars which the children are able to look for insects with but also record their voices and listen back to what they have heard, so they can share with friends later at circle time.

Photo 3

We like to take the children on small trips, In this photo you will see we took a trip to the recycle bank. We talked to the children before going, asking them questions about why we recycle. The children really enjoyed this and we encourage involvement from parents and thank those that volunteered to join us.

Our lovely garden at Nightingale Lane pre-school:

We have been busy getting a new planting and growing area ready. The children helped to plant the Herbs, vegetables and flowers. We recycled some old wellies by making them into little plant pots. We thought about what we need to do to look after the plants and the children really enjoyed smelling all the different herbs and thinking about what the vegetables will look like once they are grown. We all then helped to tidy up and water the plants.

We hope that when our fruit and veg grows we maybe able to eat some for snack.

Our tadpoles are now frogs! They have grown so much with the children regularly feeding them and helping to clean them out, some children even like to hold them. We are going to have to say goodbye to some of them soon as they are growing too big to keep them all here.

With Spring and the warmer weather approaching, during the Easter holidays all of the staff at our Bromley pre-school set to work to create some new outdoor learning resources for the children. Each staff member had an area of learning, Maths, Literacy, Personal, social & emotional, Communication and language and Sensory. They had a £10 budget to create a brand new resource. The staff worked really hard and came up with some great ideas that the children are already enjoying in the garden, these include number ball fishing, an ice cream shop, Binocular word search game, wooden peg boards, Sensory boxes, a fairy door and a tree goblin !

The children are really enjoying playing with these new natural hand made resources and learning in an active and exploratory way with them.

Shrove Tuesday

Today we had Pancakes for snack, we helped add the mixture to the bowl and gave it a good stir. The children then waited patiently for them to be cooked. We all shared them and had honey and strawberries with them, they were very tasty.

The children also created paper pancakes in the craft area adding ‘sprinkles’ and ‘sauce’ to create their own pancakes, they ‘cooked pancakes in the home corner with the play dough aswell.

Valentines science ……. The children use small droppers to suck up vinegar and drop it onto Bi-carbonate of soda. We thought about being careful and not putting it on ourselves. The children tried to guess what would happen……would it stay the same, get wet, bubble ?? The children practiced their fine motor skills by using the small droppers to suck up the vinegar and drop it slowly onto the bi-carbonate of soda. They watched it bubble and fizz, adding more powder or vinegar to see what happened.