(Reg Charity 1199330)
C/o Greystones Primary School, Tullibardine Road, SHEFFIELD S11 7GL
Telephone: 0114 2671111 email:greystonespreschool@ymail.com
20th February 2023
Dear all,
I hope that you have all had a very happy half term even though the weather has been very mixed.
As stated in my last newsletter this topic for this half term is entitled ‘Down on the farm’.
We will be using this topic to talk about animals and the noises the make as well as lifecycles. We will also be planting beans and sunflowers and measuring them to see how much they grow. We will be looking at the festivals of Pancake Day, Mother’s Day, Ramadan and Easter as well as the importance of exercise, keeping healthy whilst working on our fine and gross motor skills and hand eye coordination. This half term we will also be continuing our Letters and Sounds work looking at Phase 1, aspects 4-5 (rhythm and rhyme and alliteration) as well as continuing patterns and counting forwards and backwards to and from 10. We will also be looking at the changes in the weather and our surroundings as we transition from winter into spring. As part of the expressive arts and design curriculum we will be encouraging the children to be creative with their imaginations by using lots of different materials including construction and creative mediums.
With this in mind we will be changing our role play corner into a construction area, The children will have access to high visibility vests, play tools, clip boards, hard hats, lots of different forms of construction including foam house bricks and boulders as well as Duplo, mega blocks and mobile. We will also have our magi cube in the role play area so the children can pretend that they have their own construction vehicle, whatever that might be!
We will be re-visiting our theme of friendship and sharing a story called paper dolls. With this in mind we thought that the children may like to make their own paper dolls and to decorate them. We will be using some of these to add to our display board about friendship along with taking photos of the children playing together.
On Tuesday we will be celebrating Pancake Day by making and eating apple pancakes! The children will be able to undertake a number of tasks including measuring out the ingredients, beating eggs, grating apple and then mixing it all together. On Wednesday the children will also be able to join in a Pancake Day activity with Liz.
We will also be sharing the story of Jack and the Beanstalk using our story sack before going outside to plant a broad bean to take home to grow. In our register times both groups will discuss the life cycle of a bean and the children will be able to make a very special name label complete with a castle. Fee, Fi, Fo Fum. Beware of the giant!!!!
In the week commencing 27th February we will be continue to make paper dolls except this week we will revisit the topic of it’s good to be me celebrating our similarities and differences and talking about emotions and how we feel, Happy, sad, angry or surprised.
We will also continue to look at the properties of shapes, playing musical shapes, having a shape treasure hunt and matching the shapes attached to bikes and scooters to the corresponding parking space.
I have also noted that children are climbing on the railings at the side of preschool and on the street at the beginning and end of every day. Please note that in the event of your child having a serious accident neither preschool or Greystones Primary School will be liable as your child is your responsibility until they are handed over to us at the gate.
Finally just a little reminder to make sure that the setting is in receipt of all your up to date mobile phone numbers and email addresses.
Home Learning Challenge
Water your seeds and plants
Use chalk to draw shapes and numbers outside
Talk about feelings emotions and change
Play a counting game like hide and seek
I am looking forward to having a brilliant start to the second half of the school year.
Take care,
Julie.