Squirrels Preschool, Highwoods, Colchester
  Squirrels Preschool
  • Home
  • Covid-19 Updates
  • Parent Pages
    • Report absence
    • Blog
    • Letters Home
    • Dates for the Diary
    • What To Expect, When?
    • Supporting children with English as an additional language
    • Keeping children safe
    • Prospective Parents
    • School Readiness
    • Songs
    • Fun Activities
  • Staff & Policies
    • Staff
    • Policies
    • Promoting British Values
    • SEND
  • Contact Us
    • How to Register
    • Funding options
  • Gallery
  • Vacancies

Week Commencing 19th January 2015

25/1/2015

0 Comments

 
This week we had decided to make the focus snow and ice in celebration of the ever popular film Frozen.  The children turned the role play area into an igloo by draping white netting over the dressing up stand and the wooden kitchen.  We added the fishing game which consists of a small pond and fishing rods with magnets.  In the pond there are wooden fish with numbers on and the children are able to catch them and identify what is on them.  We talked abut how Eskimos make holes in the ice to catch fish.

For our small world activity we used the tuff spot and we added some small wooden  Eskimo characters, an igloo and sea animals.  Each day we put something different in to represent the ice and snow.  On Monday we added some fake snow which was more like a sludge.  On Tuesday we added real ice cubes and the children were able to observe them melting over time. For the rest of the week we added some blue jelly gloop which looked a bit like a frozen sea.  The children were fascinated by the process of ice freezing and melting and so Kelly froze water into a plastic glove, which when the the glove was peeled back, revealed a frozen hand!  It took a long time to melt and the children spent all day going back to see  how many fingers had gone and how fat the hand was. 

On Tuesday there was great excitement when it actually began to snow for real.  We ran out into the garden and the children tried to catch the flakes on their tongues.  We were sad that it did not last for long and there was no prospect of building a snow man.  In fact one child said it was a “catastrophe” which is quite a big and dramatic word!  Another child said “But when will it actually snow for real”  and another observed that the snow gets “turned on and off”. 

There were many snow themed pictures produced during the week using cotton wool glitter and white paint.  

Pirates were a popular theme this week as well.  The children had been listening to the story of Mike the Knight and had asked for the pirate ships out to play with.  Some of the children dressed up as knights and some time was spent producing treasure maps.  These maps included volcanoes, swamps and raging rivers as we walked around the room trying to find where “X marks the spot” for the buried treasure.

We read the story of Elmer and a small group of children created some lovely pictures of the elephant by cutting out coloured squares and gluing them onto paper.

Towards the end of the week Helen brought in a puppet theatre made from a shoe box with small characters on sticks.  The children shone torches behind the tissues paper front in order to make shadows of the characters.  Another group of children made a large theatre under the table with blankets and torches and put on a show for us all.

Our volunteer helper Susannah created some stones with the characters from Frozen on them to go with a book.  These will be available soon for any parent/child to borrow to help with story telling at home.  We plan to build up a library of stories with props for the children to take home and always appreciate your ideas about which stories your children like the best.

Garden games have included getting out the large parachute and bouncing the ball onto different colours.  The water wall and mud kitchen are always popular and of course the bikes and scooters are requested each day.  

Words we have learned this week:

Catastrophe 

Melt

Ideas to continue this week's fun at home:

Try freezing different things in ice cubes and observe how they melt.

Make up your own story bag by using  a favourite book and a few props eg making maps for pirates or straw, sticks and lego bricks for the Three little Pigs.  This can really add to story telling and make it fun for both of you.
0 Comments

Week Commencing 12th January 2015

18/1/2015

0 Comments

 
We decided to make this an outdoor adventure week after the children showed such an interest in  making pretend bonfires last week. We began by turning the inside role play area into a campsite by rigging up a camouflage tarpaulin in one corner.  We brought the picnic bench in from outside and added a few pots and pans and we were all set for the campers to arrive.   The children had a wonderful time cooking pots of plastic bugs and serving them up for the staff.  They made their own little beds, made the area as dark as possible and got the torches out to make shadows and patterns on the wall. 

In the garden they created their own campfire using the black plastic tuff spot filled with leaves and twigs.  At snack time throughout the week we all put on our coats and sat on logs around the fire.  The children had hot chocolate and marshmallows on sticks which they pretended to warm on the fire.  Snack time was followed by signing around the camp-fire and, as we sang, we used two sticks to beat out a rhythm.

Garden games included Hide and Seek, creating pictures from tree rubbings, hiding a bear in the garden and following clues to find him.

On Thursday some of the children made bread and decided they wanted to make the rolls into trains. Pictures of the results can be seen on our facebook page.  Trains continues to be one of the most popular activities that is requested week after week.  So much can be learned from simple activities like the train set;  turn taking, counting, role play, new words, logistics, design, construction, the list is endless.  

Of course, there are other forms of transport and the children grouped chairs together to make a bus to take them to MacDonalds for a milkshake this week.  They made their own tickets with numbers on and sold them to other children using plastic money.  We had a lovely time singing on our bus ride.

Our 'book of the week' was, “Going on a Bear Hunt”.  It is a book we revisit time and again at the childrens' request.  This time we marched around the garden looking for the bear as we walked through “swishy swashy” grass, “squelch, squerch" mud and "hooooowoooo" snow (for those who are familiar with the book).  This time we kept “forgetting” the words and the children had to help us fill them in.

Next week some of the children want us to focus on activities from the film Frozen, which is still the most popular topic amongst many of them.  We are adapting this slightly to a snow and ice week so it will be interesting to see what activities come out of this.  

Words we have learned this week:

Tree rubbings

Squelch

Ideas to continue this week's fun at home:

Den making  

Reading a familiar story and missing out key words to see if they remember

 
0 Comments

Week Commencing 5th January 2015

11/1/2015

0 Comments

 
We welcomed the children back from their Christmas break this week and have enjoyed hearing all about their presents and visits from Father Christmas.  

The children were asked what they wanted to put on the wall to replace the Christmas displays and we decided between us all that we should have a large winter scene with trees and animals and snow.  The children collected some twigs and leaves from the garden and we set about making the tree.  We used thick brown paint and the children used sticks to pull through the pain to give it a more tree like texture.  We suggested that they do some leaf prints but the children had a better idea and painted the leaves and stuck them on.  Of course the theme of snow and ice gave a group of children the idea of creating characters from the film Frozen which still seems to be the main topic of conversation this term!  

As the children collected twigs a small group decided to build a bonfire in the garden and said they wanted to try and make fire by rubbing sticks together.  They had great fun twizzling sticks and trying to create a flame but were unsuccessful, (rest assured we are watching carefully in case they are successful).  This activity has given us a great idea for next week when we shall be pretending to be adventurers in the wild.  We will be building shelters and following maps and looking for wolves, bears and bugs in the wild. (more on that in next weeks blog).  

The book of the week was called The Bear under the stairs.  It is a delightful story about a boy who thinks a bear lives under the stairs and feeds it to keep him quiet.  At the end we find that it was just an old coat hanging over a chair (or was it?).  

On Tuesday we went into the large hall in small groups for some fun sporting games in sessions run by Jo.  The children had a fantastic time playing games, jumping, crawling and running.  We hope to use the large hall at different times during the weeks ahead to make sure that all of the children get the chance to join in no matter what days they attend.  We are sure the staff fitness levels will improve too.

Throughout the week we have been doing lots of other physical activities to support the childrens' hand/eye co-ordination such as catching and throwing, using scissors, making models with boxes and sorting bean bags into size related patterns.  

The week ended with small groups making their own books from sugar paper which they either wrote in or drew pictures or cut out shapes to stick in.  

Words we have learned this week:

Lair (the home of the bear in our story of the week)  

Throwing

Ideas to continue this week's fun at home:

Practise throwing small object like ball or soft toy into a waste paper bin or small tub  

Collect leaves in the and twigs to make a picture
0 Comments

    Squirrels Preschool

    Our blog to keep you up to date with what we're up to....

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.