Week Beginning 3rd November 2025
Firework Fun
This week at playgroup we have been exploring bonfire night and fireworks, looking at all of the beautiful colours we see. The children created some amazing artwork including sparkly firework pictures using paint and glitter and colourful firework wands. We practiced our mark making skills swirling paint into shaving foam, looking at all of the different colours we could make as the colour mixed. We also used the special star patterns to create patterns in the tuff tray. The children used their shape knowledge to create some super rockets looking at the properties of all of the basic 2d shapes. We perfected our fine motor skills threading pipe cleaners and using tongs to place Pom poms on firework pictures. We also had 2 STEM - science activities this week firstly fizzing fireworks, using mini spray bottles and pipettes to drop brightly coloured vinegar onto bicarbonate of soda. And secondly we looked at the coloured milk activity which the children were absolutely fascinated in, watching the reaction between the milk fats and washing up liquid push the colour around the plate. In our cooking session we made some chocolate sprinkle sparklers It was lots of chocolatey fun for all! Come back next week as we take part in Nursery Rhyme Week and also join in the act of Remembrance
Week beginning 10th November 2025
Nursery Rhyme week
This week at community playgroup we joined in nursery rhyme week focussing on rhymes that are our children’s favourites and capture their current interests. We took a deep dive into the following rhymes with various activities to really embed them and spark conversation. We started with a firm favourite Incy Wincy Spider and then moved onto Twinkle twinkle little star, 5 speckled frogs and I’m a little teapot Nursery rhymes are so important in Early years and help to support early language and communication development. They build confidence in exploring sounds, letters and rhymes and also prepare children for reading and writing as they get older. At Community playgroup we give our children lots of opportunities to learn songs and rhymes and enjoy stories and hope to foster a love for songs, books and the written word.
Waterbeach Community Playgroup
11th November 2025
Week beginning 17th November 2025
Keeping Ourselves Safe - Pants and Be safe Be seen
This week at playgroup we were thinking about keeping ourselves safe firstly with NSPCC’s pants campaign and secondly now the nights are drawing in how we can keep ourselves safe in the dark, and revisiting our road safety topic from a few weeks ago.
We spent time looking at how our children can keep themselves safe by learning the PANTS rules, which the NSPCC have developed to be like the green cross code for staying safe from sexual abuse. The activities introduce a range of ideas in a way that is fully age appropriate and empowers children to be confident and keep themselves safe. The pants rule is simple and children pick these messages up really quickly. Here are the basic rules
Privates are private.
Always remember your body belongs to you.
No means no.
Talk about secrets that upset up.
Speak up, someone can help.
The children absolutely loved The Pantosaurus song https://www.google.com/gasearch?q=pantosaurus%20song&source=sh/x/gs/m2/5 which helped them learn the rules and we also used several stories including the aliens love underpants, Dinosaurs love underpants and Pantosaurus and the power of pants
We would urge all parents to take a look at the NSPCC websitehttps://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/support-for-parents/pants-underwear-rule/
The children also enjoyed thinking about how to be safe and seen whilst out in the dark, exploring reflective clothing and torches and renewing their road safety knowledge.
As always another busy week at community playgroup, why not come back next week as we start exploring the the beginning of the cooler weather
Weeks beginning 24th November and 1st December
All things cold and icy and……. Its beginning to look like Christmas
We’ve spent the last couple of weeks thinking about the beginning of winter and what the children associate this period with. When we talked to the children about winter and what it meant to them there was lots of talk about ice and snow, building snowmen and also polar animals and their habitat. Unfortunately there was no actual snow to explore so we made do with lots of sensory experiences and ice creating with some amazing structures and artwork. The children also made some snowmen garlic bread muffins and blueberry and white chocolate rice cake snowflakes. Snow and ice are very broad themes and we were able to incorporate lots of the children’s ideas and interests in each activity and they really enjoyed the winter construction site and the skating penguins who actually moved around as the ice melted. We also spent time creating our “Jolly Roll Christmas Tree” entry to the Landbeach Tree Festival, the children carefully painted what seemed like hundreds of toilet rolls and created beautiful decorations to decorate our lovely tree and this got us all in the Christmas spirit. We were also all very excited to begin opening our advent calendars. This year we had one with all the staff and children hiding behind the doors of our gingerbread house and also a cottage story one. The staff read a different story in session each day and have spent time recording the stories too so that even if it’s not a playgroup day the children can still hear and see the stories at home. Remember to come back next week and see all of our Christmas activities
