For Yoga this week we had a Viking story.  The children learnt new moves on how to be a warrier and thoroughly enjoyed showing each other the moves at circle time after.

We have been creating beautiful butterflies for our life cycles board.  Lots of paiting, stamping, folding and cutting was done.

The children have been doing lots of target practice with bean bags.  The children loved to aim and take fire.  The decided that the bean bags actually sounded a bit like rain when they were dropped - so they decided to drop them in quick succesion.  Then it was time for one child to hide them and one child to find them.  The children were devising their own games - see how versatile one little bean bag can be!

Some good listening was done during "Molly Says..." (same as Simon Says) but sometimes Molly was very tricky and the children needed to listen very carefully.

Our new kitchen has arrived.  We have lots of boxes and the children were very inquisitive as to what was inside the boxes and asked lots of questions.  One child asked "can I see the new kitchen in a minute?"

Outside the children have really been enjoying using the ramps and guttering to make runs for the cars.  Lots of discssion was had about which car is fastest and used the higher towers to make them go faster.

On Thursday afternoon, due to staff shortages, we just went to the paddock.  The children made pictures using paints and charcoal.  We played "Molly says" and walked around taking pictures with our pretend cameras.

For our Yoga this week we had the Frog story - how the frogspawn grew into a tadpole.  The children loved this and enjoyed the moves they did to it.

We cooked pasta in our home corner.  The chidlren had great fun serving some wonderful creative dishes.  They all worked well together as a great team.  They made sure they tidied up so the floor wasn't covered in food (we wonder if they do this at home!!).

In preparation for our Preschool Cafe, the children were busy making posters and getting everything prepared.  The cafe was a huge success and a BIG THANKYOU to everyone who contributed in cakes, time and just attending the event.  We raised £54.09 - fantastic.

We have been painting Cheerios and then turning them into pretty necklaces - this was good fun. 

On Wednesday we did not have our Music session.  Instead we made the most of the lovely weather and did lots of exercising outside.  The children really enjoyed this.

We are having a cake sale in our "Preschool Cafe" on Thursday 16th May.  All donations of cakes will be gratefully received.  All proceeds from our cafe will go directly to the preschool.  Please come along and ejoy a cuppa and a cake with the children from 1.30 to 2.30pm.

We have been making our tower higher and higher but what can we use to get it even higher?  A ladder and learning to use it safely.  One person climbing, someone else holding the ladder and one person passing the block.  This was great fun and the children showed great team work and good safety awareness.

There was no yoga this week as we enjoyed an extra day off.  Some children went to the beach, some went to see friends and lots of children ate lots of ice cream.

In Preschool we have been sharing school books with children starting school.  Four children, and Lynne, visited Pensford school.  The children thoroughly enjoyed this visit and we hope to do another visit again.  (Can we remind parents to keep books in book bag please.)

On Wednesday afternoon we had the sing up CD on, followed by the Silly Soup game/song.  We had the story of the Hungry Caterpillar where the children had to think about movements and act out the story.

On Thursday afternoon, following a wet and windy morning, we had lunch at Preschool and then headed to our new outdoor area.  We hunted for the 16 hidden pots and then planted sunflowers ready for the flowershow.  More information on this will follow nearer the time.

We then played Simon Says and finished with freeplay choosing their favourite thing to do.  The children loved this.

For Yoga this week we had the story of the tadpole turning into a frog.  We did some gret moves and the children showed excellent gross motor movements.

The children are loving the Hungry Caterpillar story and are learning this story with various actions and sequencing pictures.

The children are loving the water play with the boats bobbing on water, washing the dinosaurs and just generally splashing around.  This is great fun now the sun is shining - many more children are enjoying the outside.  The children also enjoyed the giant sandpit, taking their shoes off and exploring the feeling of sand between their toes.  The children then decided they were on holiday at the beach and spent a long time discussing as a group the things we all enjoy doing at the beach.  The children really enjoy this and it offers a huge amount of learning experiences.  We encourage children to wear aprons and waterproofs whilst playing but we are finding that some children are discouraged from activities if we insiste on aprons etc.  Therefore, we ask that your chid is sent to preschool in clothes that you don't mind getting dirty and wet and that children have spare clothes for when they get wet.

As the sun is out, can we please remind you to send your child in with sun hats and sun cream.

Collaborative giant art was also very popular (so many appologies for messy clothes).  The children loved flicking, stamping and swishing and mixing lots of colours together to decorate our giant butterfly and caterpillar.  This is to go with our Hungry Caterpillar story.

The WOW board is becoming more and more popular with the children and always full by the end of the week.  So "Well Done" to parents and children.  We really appreciate your support and your children are so proud when we read them out.

Thursday afternoon:  A big Thank YOu to Manda who has planned some brilliant activities over the last few weeks as part of her Forest Training.  With the extra support we are able to go out early and have lunch outside.  Whilst having lunch we listened to the birds and heard a robin, crows and a woodpecker!  After lunch we made bugs out of anything we could find.  There was a brilliant woodlouse and a caterpillar.  We played a fun game of Simon Says and then made some great patterns on paper by using wax crayons and rubbing various things like trees, leaves and flowers.