Dear Parents,

We have had a lovely week greeting our new children. We have welcomed Oliver and Killian, Thomas M.T, Noah, Theo E, James B, Ella, Imogen, Annabelle, Stanley, Thomas S, Daisy, Kalin and Henry.

The Oaks have been marvellous role models and become buddies helping to settle our new entrants; this has given them more responsibility and they have fared very well. The Oaks have continued their topic ‘All About Me’ by making representations of their own faces, describing and discussing our differences and how they make us all unique, special individuals. Using sand as a medium for mark making the children have continued their interest of tracing and imprinting using their fingers, brushes and other natural tools displaying dexterity by attempting to trace letters from their own names. We have been reinforcing our group ‘rules’ and Karen was very impressed with James as he reminded a member of staff (who had accidentally kicked a car) that ‘we must not kick our toys’.

Hugo and Frankie have been terrific helpers setting the tables at mealtimes, sorting the cutlery, plates and bowls and passing drinks to their friends. The children have really been keen to note and record the development of our vegetables and this week have continued to measure the cucumbers before they picked them remarking on their shape and size describing them as big, bigger, biggest or small medium and large. Thank you, Felix, for providing us with courgettes from your garden, they were delicious cooked in our fresh ratatouille. If anyone has any tips as to how we might ripen our tomatoes we would be very grateful otherwise they are destined to become green chutney!!

In the Saplings group this week we welcomed Annabelle and Stanley and they have both settled well. Our new theme on Space begun with discussions surrounding Aliens and spaceships with lots of input from the children. They listened with interest as we read ‘Aliens love Underpants’ and other stories prompting one child to tell the rest of the group that we lived on ‘Earth’ while another pointed out the ‘moon’ saying it was ‘bright and shiny’.

We created our own space themed tuff tray using lots of interesting and different materials encouraging the children to use their senses when exploring the various textures.

We had our very own night sky projected onto the ceiling using a ‘starry light projector’ prompting the children to talk about the different colours they saw as they looked up in amazement at the ‘stars’.

The children were very absorbed in craft activities using their fine motor skills to sprinkle glitter and sequins onto black paper creating their own mini galaxies and improving their scissor work when cutting out ‘stars’ and decorating them with ‘shiny’ materials.

We also got creative while singing ‘Zoom Zoom Zoom’ and ‘Five little men in a flying saucer’ using a range of instruments to bang and tap with, encouraging the children to listen to each other as they made different sounds.

The Seedlings have been fascinated by ‘The Stickman’ story by Julia Donaldson. They went on a stick hunt, gathering as many sticks as they could, later creating their own images on card. They made salt dough, using their fingers to knead, pat, squeeze and manipulate. Combining dough and dried pasta the children made stickmen creations of their own. This activity supported their personal, social and emotional development as well as their communication and language development as they babbled, made sounds and used single words during play. We continued this theme to help strengthen their fine motor skills by making our own play doh and easing the elastic dough into a variety of shapes by adding other materials and using shape cutters. The Seedlings are showing a great deal of interest in farm animals so we created a small world farm treasure basket to support the children’s communication and language skills. We have sought out more topical books to widen their  interest in this theme.

The Acorns have been focussing on their physical development, crawling through tunnels in the garden, following a one-way system and delighting as they played peek a boo with their friends. They have also had enormous fun using gloop and flour and revelling in the sticky, messy mass. 

Indoors, the Acorns have used their core strength to hoist themselves onto the soft play block ‘steps’ and then slide themselves along and off the other side.  They had fun dancing with ‘floaty’, sheer scarves, and were challenged as they attempted to sort wooden and metal objects into the correct containers displaying critical thought and deduction. 

Stars of the Week:

Oaks Rowan for welcoming the new children into his group and helping them to learn the routines.

Saplings  Annabelle for settling into the new routine so well and showing care and affection towards her new friends

Seedlings  Thomas for settling in so well

Acorns  Sofia B for interacting so well with her peers

Yours Sincerely

The Broughton Team