4th-15th November 2019

Top tip for talking
Encourage your child to listen to and talk about the sounds around them; Spending time tuning into the sounds around us and talking about what you can hear helps children to develop good listening skills. A walk into the woods-"Can you hear the bird singing".

Makaton sign: Tractor

Easy Fundraising 
As Christmas is fast approaching and lots of presents are being purchased, did you know you know you can purchase presents through a site called easy fundraising. Easy fundraising turns your everyday online shopping into free donations for your favourite cause. How? Just start your online shopping first at easy fundraising, then shop as normal. Our retailers will then make a small donation to your supported cause to say “thank you”. 
Any donations given will support pre-school in gaining new resources. If you would like to support pre-school please find our easy fundraising link below; 

https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/stantondrewpensfordpp/?pageVersion=1&cat=cause-autosuggest&q=stanton%20drew 
Autumn walks
It is a great time of year for wrapping up warm and heading out on welly walks, listening to the leaves as they crunch beneath your feet and enjoying the different autumnal colours. If you have any different shape/coloured leaves in your garden or you spot any while you are out and about, please collect them and bring them to pre-school to add to our natural re-sources which we can use as part of our arts and crafts!

Vets and pets
Lots of the children have shown interest in becoming a vet over the past few weeks, taking this role on to make their patients better. They have been engaging in group role play activities taking it in turns to be the vet and have used props to support this play, using the vets medical bag and uniform. It has been lovely to hear lots of the children linking their experience of home life involving pets/vets to their play at pre-school.

The Gruffalo 
The Gruffalo has been a huge hit this term and the children have been using props such as masks and cuddly toys of each of the characters to re-tell the story "I love the Gruffalo, he has purple prickles all over his back". We have also used our CD player which links to children's technological development supporting them to operate it by pressing the buttons to listen to the CD story of the Gruffalo.  Following the children's interest of the Gruffalo we made our very own, Gruffalo, snake and mouse out of tissue paper, with the children referring to the book to help them carefully place each piece of tissue paper and select which colours to use "The Gruffalo is really, really big"

Pizza making
Children have been making their own pizza's this week at pre-school, which has encouraged them to try and explore a variety of new foods such as; olives and peperoni. They started off by exploring the different ingredients they could add to their pitta breads talking about what it was and using their senses to look and smell them, before making a decision on what they would like to add. Some children made their pizza's to their preference or decided to make one for their grown ups. Once they had been prepared the children spoke to adult about what needed to happen next and the adult proceeded to place them in the oven, making children aware of the dangers in the kitchen. After a short while in the oven the pizza's were ready and the children were excited to take them home and try "These smell so yummy". 

Superhero's 
Children have been showing a huge interest in superhero's over the past few weeks, taking on different roles, using the dressing up to support them. Taking on the powers of each character the children have been helping save people from being stuck, building big towers and houses for each other and demonstrating their helpful ways. Engaging in role play based activities gives children the chance to build their social skills, demonstrate their fantastic imaginations and play out events that they have observed through own first hand experiences.