Weekly Makaton signs: Hello, Good, Thank you
Yoga - We are starting to talk about our Christmas story, the story of Jesus and playing Christmas songs, so you may start hearing about the "Donkey plodding" and "Angels singing". We have started making some of our Christmas surprises, busy, busy! It is now starting to get cold and we are in an old building with very high ceilings, so please start layering up your children to keep them warm. Obstacle course - lots of balancing, crawling under and over, jumping and following the stepping stones. Once the children have tried it a few times they were then keen to adapt it and extend it, using foam puzzle pieces. Working together collaboratively to achieve a common goal. Helping one another, listening to others and their ideas, trying ideas out to see if they would work. Good ideas and great team work! Forest Club - Lots of fun as always at forest club - Hot toast made on the fire and hot chocolate, lots of talk about fire safety. We continued our den building, thinking of ways to make it more solid "I know leaves" we had great fun trying to cover our den with raining leaves! Lots of role play in the afternoon, children being ponies and learning to care for them, hoof picking and pony rides - great fun!
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Weekly Makaton Signs: Hello, Thank you, Good
Top tips for talking: Let your child be the leader. Talk about what your child is interested in. Take turns to talk even if he/she is not talking yet. With very young children, simply imitate their words and sentences. This will show them that you are valuing their words and will encourage them to keep on talking. Top tips for toddlers: I can do it myself! Even though it may take me ages to do something and I may not get it right; it's really important I have a go. I may become frustrated if everything is done for me. You'd be surprised how much I can do given the chance. Welcome back to our last term of this year and a busy one ahead with lots of Christmas surprises. So your children may come home with lots of stories of what they have been making or creating, but if these are for Christmas then they will be kept at preschool until the last day when "surprise" look at all our precious things. Welcome also to some new starters, its good to have you come and play. Let us show you around! Using pasta to make necklaces and then sprinkling in glitter. Good use of fine motor skills, threading the pasta onto the string. Tricky skills putting on the glue and then lots of fun sprinkling on the glitter. Yeah! Lots of outdoor fun in the sunshine, scooting around, balancing, running around, kicking footballs and best of all watching some men fix a roof, oh and having more than one cup of tea. Thursday - Forest Club - We made a Guy for the bonfire. We stuffed it full of leaves and named it Bernie. So busy collecting lots of leaves and then up to the pub to place him on the fire ready for fire work night. Also some toast cooked on the fire at forest club. Nice and toasty to keep us toasty. More collecting of leaves, sticks and bracken in order to cover our den so as to keep us warm and dry. Lots more exploring and discovering what has changed and what has stayed the same. Rain, rain and more rain today! time for splashing around in our wellies. Loads of fun! Weekly Makaton Signs: Hello, Good, Thank you
We try to encourage the children to use Makaton and we explain that some people communicate in different ways due to the fact that they can not talk as well or perhaps not hear as well Yoga - Three little pigs - The children now tell the story themselves and have some super little pig voices. Also using the story during their general play. Good going guys! Creativity and expressive works of art whist painting. Some very good narrative, explaining what they are painting, which colours are needed, who the painting is for and where it will be displayed at home. Also good sharing and waiting for the colour they wish to swap with their friends. Lots of building bridges, planks and stepping stones. What can we use, where shall we put them, how shall we use them. We need to stay out of the water as the sharks may get us. How many do we need, how many have we already got, how many more or less do we need. Good teamwork, sharing, waiting our turn and helping on another. Weekly Makaton Signs: Hello, Thank you, Good
Yoga 3 Little pigs - Please do ask your children to share the story with you. As we have now been practising this since the beginning of term the children are now very familiar with the actions and the sequence of the story. Get them to huff and puff and blow the house down. Vets and Pets - Pets out this week, lots of caring for the sick animals, bad legs, injections needed, tablets, are they hot, lets wrap them up in something. This then led into some of the children becoming pets themselves and being cared for by the others. Flour with the construction vehicles. Scooping, pouring, gathering, soft like snow. Just some of the words used whilst playing with the flour. Forest Club - lots of outdoor fun exploring. Watching the milk bubbling on the fire waiting for our hot chocolate. Lots of talk about our fire circle, how we need to stay outside of the circle, created using rope and placed in a circle around the fire. We call this our fire circle and the only person allowed within the fire circle is Lynne. Lynne has special fire gloves so as not to burn her hands and there is a bucket of water readily available to put the fire out out if necessary. Lynne has been specially trained how to make and care for the fire circle. We had some clay this week. We needed to work it in our hands to warm it up and then made it easier to create things, such as hot dogs and stick men. We needed to wrap up warmer with our hats, scarves and gloves and layers of clothing as jack frost is starting to pay us a visit in the mornings. Cafe and Cake Sale - A good chance for a good ole natter. A chance to welcome in new Mums and remember some of our older Mums who have since left. Thank you to all who attended and helped out. Weekly Makaton Signs: Hello, Thank you, Good
Top Tips for Talking: Try to have a conversation with your child every day. Make sure this time is quiet to help them focus on your words, undisturbed and is not being masked by the television or phone. You may want to make time to share a book or sing nursery rhymes together. Yoga - 3 Little Pigs, Props are out of which the children are using to tell the story amongst themselves and to their friends. Some very confident story tellers. Boxes lots of big empty boxes, oh the fun and the imagination. Train to the Golden Castle, cat boxes for all our little kittens, bus journey to the seaside, oh no watch out, mind the sharks! get back in your boats. There has been lots of decorating of the boxes to, with some amazing designs. Forest Club - lots of exploring, snacks, more exploring but after lunch no allotment this time because we found some fence poles. What can we do. The children all worked together as a team with a collective idea of turning these poles into a castle. Which tree could be used to support the poles, are they safe? Another child collected grass to pack around the bottom of each pole "This will help to stick them so they won't move" Another child used a plank as a draw bridge, but wait what's happening now its the merry go round. Slow, slow - oh no hold on and now its super fast, lots of imagination and critical thinking and working together to achieve a group outcome. There was also some sliding down and working their way back up again on the muddy banks. Again lots of ideas and trial and error as to whether their idea or plan would work. Name games - There are games where we can learn one another's names. Some games are where we call out our own name, others where we call out the name of some else. This is usually by using a toy and if you have the toy you are the only one who can speak, you then say the name of the person who you are going to pass the toy to. Name cards, to see if you recognise your name, and then hide these around the room, so you can find your own name. Top Tips for Talking
Get down to your child’s level and engage their attention before speaking or asking a question. Young children find it difficult to listen and carry on with an activity at the same time. Saying their name first encourages them to stop and listen. Weekly Makaton Signs: Thank you, Hello, Good Yoga - 3 Little Pigs - Good actions and getting the sequence right of the story, that it is straw, followed by sticks and finally the brick house. Understanding how a story is constructed with a beginning a middle and an end. That a story can be told without the use of a book. The props are out so that the children can feel free to use these to help in their story telling. The farm and flour. Swooping it up then clap your hands, wow! look at it fly! and some bull rushes. They are so soft, but what happens when you run your fingers over them. They go all fluffy and blow away in the wind. It looks like snow. Some conkers too. Some in their shell. Ooh they are all spiky. Where do they come from? They come the trees, but you will mostly find them on the ground, watch out for the spikes though! Forest Club - Off on our explorations today, what will we find? Lots of talk about aeroplanes and holidays, flying around. Looking at the changes of the season, leaves falling and changing colour. Off to the allotments to check on last weeks ground work, making sure it will be ready for the onions. We played our popular game of 1,2,3 where are you. The children hide, the adult calls out 1,2,3 where are you, and the children call out 1,2,3 we're over here, then when found the children help the adult find the remaining children. This helps to promote good listening skills and to try and assess which direction the sound is coming from. Also it helps children to understand that at times it helps to call out where you are hiding so as you can be found. Forest Club is all about exploring and coming into contact with sometimes new experiences, so please let us know your child has any allergies. Top tips for talking:
Try not to ask too many questions, especially ones that sound like you are testing the child. The best questions are those that challenge the child to think rather than give an instant answer, like yes or no. To many questions can easily block the flow of natural conversation. Weekly Makaton signs: Thank you, Good and Hello Yoga - 3 Little Pigs: Introducing the story with actions and not the book. Some very good actions from the wolf "I will huff and puff and I will blow your house down!!" Some good recollection after, of remembering the actions for certain things such as house and tree. Fish Chips & Peas - This is a game that needs good listening and looking. Chips card one end of the room, fish card the other end of the room and peas in the middle, the adult holds up a card and the children respond by going to the corresponding card. The children learn to walk carefully so as not to bump into one another. The babies have been outside today enjoying the sunshine. They have been taken for walks to the park and the shops. Some of the babies were a bit grumpy, I think they need some food poor babies. Forest Club - First of all we said hello to our new children who are joining us on a Thursday and we listened to our outside golden rules. They are to keep us safe, looking out for brambles, stinging nettles and other such things. We went off exploring, swinging on the tyres and then exploring on the super large log that was a train. We went off to the Mall and Frankie's café for hot chocolate with marshmallows and cream. The best hot chocolate. Then we watched behind the fire circle as the fire was lit ready to make some hot chocolate. No marshmallows and cream though! We then had a story and our lunch and headed off to the allotment to pick some blackberries and dig the area ready to plant our onions soon. Weekly Makaton signs: Hello, Good and Thank you.
Top tips for talking: Give your child time to talk to you - Children often need time to put their thoughts together before answering, so give them longer to respond to you than you would an adult. Make sure you maintain eye contact with them as you wait for them to complete their remark. Welcome back everyone and a warm welcome to our new children! its good to be back! We have had our delivery from "Sainsburys Active Kids" - new footballs, skipping ropes and stepping ladder, all of which are a big hit with the children and the children are enjoying trying them out. Thank you everyone who helped us in collecting the vouchers and roll on next year to see what other exciting things we can purchase. Lots of rolling/sliding down, with the cars and small balls. How fast can we make them go? How could we make them go slower/faster? If we move the ramps up higher they go faster! if we move the ramps lower they go slower! Picnics and cooking outside in the lovely sunshine. Mix it up, gathering stones, some leaves, eye of frog and tail of newt (no kidding on the last two!). Making pies and cakes. Forest Club ready for exploring. Has the tricky witch been around? what's changed? what's the same? The grass was taller and some blackberries becoming ripe. How do we know they are ripe? Some reminders of how to stay safe too and what to look out for and above all fun in the great outdoors. Later over to the allotments to plant some mint and try a blackberry or two, three, four and perhaps some more! We even had some hot chocolate and time for some games and a story. Weekly Makaton signs: Hello, Goodbye and Thank you
Tuesday - End of term trip to Avon Valley Adventure park, some of whom it was their last trip with us, as soon off to pastures new and their respective schools. Lots of animals to see, pig races, horse and cart rides, miniature train rides, tractor rides and a big adventure playground with death slides. Thank you to everyone who joined us parents, children and siblings for making it special and the rain held off too. Lots of practice continuing in preparation for our sports day. Thursday - no forest school, but a trip to the new keynsham fire station. We got to see where they cook their breakfast and watch TV whilst waiting for the alarm to go off, but wait what's that? the bells are ringing the fax machine is printing off instructions as to where the fire is and its at the preschool, quick to the pole, to the fire engines, everyone in the back and buckle up. The children got to try on the uniform and helmet they smelled smoky. Got to see lots of equipment such as cutters, hoses, breathing apparatus and got to use and spray water. Watch out Lynne, even got to run around in the puddles we had all helped to create. Once back we had lunch at our outdoor area and stayed and played. Weekly Makaton Signs: Good, Hello, Thank you
Making medals ready for our sports day which is fast approaching, lots of creative ideas. Finishing off the transition books, putting photos of our recent school visits, which the children seem to have really enjoyed. Having stories read, making puppets and necklaces, with their new teachers. Splish splash, the weather was so nice one afternoon that we got the splash pool out, just about everyone decided to give it a go, this is what summers about. Thursday Forest Club - a small number of children today as most of the older children were on visits to their schools. It was great to see those that were left how they made up their own games, helped one another on the tyre swings, supported each other as they climbed trees and fought the dragons hiding in the woods. It was good we had our very own knight to protect us all. Some of our friends did come back to join us after school visit, as it was our last forest school session due to us visiting the fire station next week. Parachute games, everyone has to listen or the games do not work. This is a really good way to teach those to listen and it shows up who is not listening. After a while everyone was listening and following the instructions given. Sometimes its really tricky, but when you have your friends around you to remind you, it works when we all work together. Gentle waves, to stronger. Rolling a ball around so as it does not fall off and how high can we make the ball jump. Finally on the count of 3 everyone open your hands to let go, to see where the parachute lands. |
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