Week beginning 3rd June 2025
Feast preparation and children’s interests week.
This week we have been preparing for the Village Feast, creating costumes, banners and decorations. We want our children to be proud of their village and surrounding areas and become active supportive members of the community and one way we can achieve this is to encourage the children and their families to join in events like the Feast. All costumes are made by staff and children which means that there are no barriers for families and all children can be part of this lovely community event. This year the theme was ‘Something beginning with Q’ so at playgroup we settled on ‘Questions of a pre-schooler’ Children love to ask questions especially why so we thought that this was perfect. All questions were posed by our children recently and included
Why do spiders build webs?
Do butterflies have tongues?
Why do birds build nests?
Why do dogs wag their tails?
How is a rainbow made?
We had a great day and the children were so excited walking beautifully in the parade, and waving at their friends and family on the way.
As well as preparing for Feast we also explored some other activities following the children’s interests and ideas.
Another busy week at Community Playgroup
Week beginning 9th June 2025
Oral health week/ keeping Ourselves healthy
This week we have spent time thinking about oral health and keeping ourselves healthy. We looked at lots of teeth cleaning activities and what were good choices for keeping our teeth protected and cavity free. We made some tooth friendly snack recipes and explored good brushing techniques.
We incorporated two of our favourite stories in our planning firstly ‘Alan’s big scary teeth’ a book about a scary crocodile who has some rather surprising teeth and also ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar which helped us to think about which foods we could each more of and which we should try to eat less of.
We also looked at good hand washing practices and thought about why it was so important to ensure we wash our hands properly.
The children were all given a special teeth cleaning pack to take home which included toothpaste, a toothbrush and a teeth cleaning sticker chart to help remind them to clean their teeth at least twice a day.
Week beginning 16th June 2025
All things summer.
As the summer term progresses we have all been enjoying the lovely sunny days. Many of our children have also been going off on holiday or enjoying day trips to the beach and pools or home based garden days, so there’s been lots of chatter about sandcastles, water play and of course ice cream. So this week we decided to incorporate these things in our planning. We also wanted to decorate one of our display boards so had lots of fun creating an amazing paper chain octopus, colourful fish, decorative buckets and spades and some rather delicious looking ice lollies. We had beach themed activities specifically designed to help with our fine motor skills. Carefully using pipettes to decorate our ice creams and also creating summer potions. When we made our play dough together we added some sand to give it a different texture and then used beach shells and shell themed glass pebbles to make imprints. It’s so lovely to hear the children talking about their experiences with their families but also using rich descriptive language to talk about what they are making and exploring in playgroup. We hope you enjoy looking at and hearing about what we got up to during our summer exploration this week.
Week beginning 23rd June 2025
Numeracy and Mini Beasts
This week we have been focussing on our numeracy skills. As the children continue to be fixated on mini beasts and the amazing variety we have in our garden we decided to combine the two. Our story of the week was Superworm so we created a fine motor tuff tray and encouraged the children to count how many worms they caught, we also introduced one more and one less and thought about who had the most and least. We used shapes to create our own mini beast not only imbedding basic 2d shape names but also looking at the properties of the shapes. We rescued the mini beasts from the giant spider web, carefully using tweezers to pick them up without disturbing the web or the sleeping spiders….. and I can tell you it was very tricky!! We then counted how many we had rescued. Our STEM activities this week were also mini beast themed and we looked at the principle of air pressure and its effect on movement. We created paper caterpillars and then used straws to blow onto them. The air blown from the straw creates a force that pushes against the paper, causing it to move forward, mimicking the wiggling motion of a caterpillar. This simple activity introduces children to the concept of how air can be used to create motion. We also had some of our favourite growing worms. Dropping water onto worms made from paper towels and watching them grow due to capillary action. We also spent lots of time in the garden searching for real mini beast and we seemed to have an abundance of ladybirds. Some of our children were really interested in lining up counting and ordering our outside toys demonstrating they had understood the concepts we were looking at and independently incorporating them into their play. Wow! What another great week of learning and exploring.
Week beginning 30th June 2025
Transitions, Growth and Change.
As we near the end of this school year we start thinking about transitions, growth and change. We spend time with those moving into primary school looking at school readiness and how much they’ve changed during their time at playgroup , and for those staying with us for another year we support them to understand the changes ahead and also strengthen bonds within their own year groups through fun activities and learning experiences. So this week we had lots of activities around fine motor skills, mark making, numeracy and creativity. We also looked at change both in terms of how we’ve changed but also how we can change the properties of things for example adding 2 materials together or colour mixing. We used the butterfly lifecycle to demonstrate growth and change. Using a butterfly kit as a great visual for the children to see the changes from tiny caterpillars who quickly get bigger and then pupate into chrysalis before emerging as beautiful butterflies. Watching metamorphosis is amazing and the children were eager to see each day what was going on. It’s so lovely to see our rising fives so ready to take on the next steps of their early learning journeys at school and also for the children staying to see their thirst for knowledge and eagerness to play, learn and explore. Come back next week as we continue to learn and explore….. and also enjoy a special Teddy bears picnic day as we join the Teddy bears picnic week 2025
