25th Nov-6th Dec

 Top Tip for talking: Observe and comment on your child's current interests;
Describe what is happening.  Think of 'commenting' like 'commentating' - as in what sport presenters do! Watch and describe what you see your child is doing.
Commenting does not mean that there should be no silences when a child is playing.  Pauses will help your child think about what they are going to say.

Makaton sign: Christmas Tree

Dates for your diary: Friday 20th December - story sharing and Children's Christmas party 

Christmas Party
​Each year at our Christmas party we like to arrange a visit for Santa to come to pre-school and say hello to the children and give them a small gift. We currently do not have any volunteers to take on this role, however if you know someone who might like to play this role(10 mins max), please do inform the pre-school team.
At our children's Christmas party, the children can enjoy a small buffet styled lunch. Christine has very kindly printed out a list and stuck it on our noticed board to create a list of foods, cups and plates that you might like to bring along and provide for all of the children to share. If you have any questions or queries in regards to this please speak to the pre-school tea. It is one of the children's birthdays over the Christmas holidays so a cake is going to be provided on our party day to share with his peers and we can all sing happy birthday!

Christmas songs
You may hear your children singing lots of Christmas songs over the next few weeks as we have began practicing them at pre-school. Please click the link below if you would like to access a copy of the song words to sing along with your children!
Christmas_songs_2018.docx

Unwanted baby mobiles
If anyone has any unwanted cot/pram mobiles at home that they no longer need we would be very grateful if they could kindly be donated to pre-school.  
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Hairdressing
Lots of the children have loved taking part in role play based activities based around hairdressers over the last few weeks, pretending to wash and dry each others hair and doing each others hair ready for parties "Ok you sit here and I will do your hair and then you can check if you like it in the mirror over there". They have been using brushes and combs to brush hair before adding a variety of clips to get party ready. 
If anyone has any old hair related resources such as hairdryers, straighteners at home that they no longer need, we would be very grateful for to be donated to preschool to add to our hair dressing collection!

Cooking
Some of the children enjoyed making jam tarts and mince pies with Laura at preschool this week. First of all exploring which ingredients they were going to use and they used their senses to smell, taste and touch the different ingredients. They took it in turns to roll out the pastry using large rolling pins making sure it stayed nice and flat. After this they had the choice of 3 different sized cutters which they placed into the dough to make several pastry shapes. These shapes were then added to a baking tray and the children helped to mould them up the sides to make them look like little dishes. It was then time to decide which fillings they were going to add "I'm going to add jam, i love jam on toast its so yummy". Laura then spoke to the children about safety in kitchen and the importance of letting a grown up operate the oven. Using a timer we timed the jam tarts in the oven to make sure they were cooked properly. "DING, DING, DING they're ready ,lets go and check them" the children excitedly exclaimed. Once they were safely taken out of the oven by a grown up they were left to cool on the side and were prepared in little bags ready to take home and share with our families. 

Some links you might find useful 

Toileting; www.eric.org.uk/poo-and-wee

Sleeping;www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/tips-and-advice/bath-book-bed/#!?q=&sortOption=MostRecent&pageNo=1

Healthy eating; www.sugarsmartuk.org/about/