Term 3- 3rd-14th February 2020

Top Tip for talking:
Join in with your child's play.
A language and thinking will develop through interactions with others.  This arises naturally from a shared activity which provides something of interest to talk about and gives a clear context for works and meanings.
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Makaton sign:
Glasses- start at the inside corner of your eyes and move outwards circling around your eyes
Dates for Diary:
Start of Term 4- Monday 24th February 2020

Speeding into car park
A polite reminder that when entering the village hall car park, please do so at a reasonable speed. Children and their parents/carers can be in the car park at any time during drop off and pick up and in order to keep everyone safe, it is important that all service users enter and leave at a steady,slow speed.  

What is good listening 
Over the past two weeks the children have been trying really hard to demonstrate their good listening skills. In order to demonstrate this it is important that the children are aware of what good listening is. As a group, the children told us that good listening is when we use our listening ears to listen to each other and when we listen to someone we do not speak until they have finished talking. To practice our good listening skills, we have been using the symbol of placing a finger on our lips, which is supporting everyone to take turns when talking and supporting our listening skills while part of a group.

Vets and pets
The children have shown a huge interest in our vets and pets role play over the past two weeks, taking on the role of vets building a clinic for their poorly patients and enjoying taking on the role of different animals. They have been handling several types of animals such as; spiders and snakes, dogs and cats and engaging with adults learnt how to handle them all with care and learnt about animal characteristics. The children have also demonstrated their caring nature helping to make the poorly animals better, first of all by making sure they were comfortable and had water/food and then providing the correct pretend medicine to make them better.
It has been amazing to see the children's imaginations come to life and use their past experiences to link into their play. Supporting a child to use and develop their imagination, helps to build up several elements of their learning and development.  It can help to; 

• Develop communication skills and form the use of language
• Give children the chance to explore, experiment and  investigate
• Collaborate with others
• Develop confidence and build self-esteem

Next term we will arrange a week where we will hold a pets show and tell where children can bring in their pets to share with their friends and tell us a little bit about what their pet eats, enjoys and how to look after it.

Fairy house
Last week at forest club the children used a variety of natural resources to build a fairy house. They very carefully placed and balanced sticks together to build a small house for the fairies to shelter in, but were not sure if the fairies would stop by and visit.
Much to their amazement, when we arrived in our exploring area on Friday, the fairies had visited!! They left glitter trails and wool tided in trees and around their fairy house to let us know that they had been near and the children were left in great amazement. Following on from knowing that they had visited, the children wanted to make a park for the fairies to play and have fun in.
​They began by collecting small sticks and leaves and with some adult support began to place them into the ground and wind string around the sticks to hold them together. Working as a great team the children built a slide, a swing, a trampoline and a climbing frame for the fairies to enjoy and they cant wait to see if they have visited again next time we're at forest club!!