CHRISTMAS WEEK !

We have been very busy finishing off some Christmas crafts and keepsakes this week. Some have made some lovely Christmas cards which they had great fun making.

At Forest School we lit the kelly kettle and made some custard, to eat with our banana for snack. This week we are toasting pancakes on the fire while keeping warm !

Last Friday afternoon we walked down to St Michaels church to watch the First Schools nativity, a couple of the children were really excited to see their siblings taking part.

On Tuesday this week we had our nativity sing song - the children did very well and were supported by lots of grans', granddads' and parents. The slide show of the autumn term seemed to be well received and the children have loved seeing them selves up on the wall!
PARTY DAY is Thursday. 

ALL OF US AT BROADWAY & TOWERVIEW PLAYSCHOOL WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A PEACEFUL NEW YEAR!

BACK ON WEDS 6TH JAN 2016

CHRISTMAS EVENTS !

HAPPY CHRISTMAS !!! 

PLAYSCHOOL XMAS EVENTS

                  2015

· FRI 27^th Nov and 4^th Dec – see our Playschool Xmas  Tree in U R Church–at Broadway’s late night shopping evenings.

 

11TH DEC afternoon-  walk down to church to see First School Nativity

TUESDAY 15^TH DEC  =Towerview XMAS SING SONG   11-12 NOON  (Please bring your Playschool child along = even if not normally in Tuesdays) .

EVERYONE WELCOME TO COME AND JOIN IN INCLUDING GRANDPARENTS/AUNTIES/UNCLES & CHILDMINDERS.

 

THURSDAY 17^TH DEC =PLAYSCHOOL XMAS PARTY 10.30-1pm  (children not normally in Thursday’s but going to school in Sept 2016 welcome to join us at 10.30 till 1pm) Playschool will be open normal hours 9-3 please SIGN FOOD LIST.

FATHER XMAS will be making a visit!

-------------------------------------------------------------FRIDAY 18th LAST DAY - wear Xmas Jumper or hat & BRING IN A DONATION for TEXT SANTA -to raise money for charity !

   BACK TO PLAYSCHOOL ON

WEDNESDAY 6th  JAN 2016

Oh Christmas Tree ! Oh Christmas tree.! ........

This week the children have been busy making snowmen for the late night shopping in Broadway this Friday and next. They then walked to the church to put their own snowman on the tree and se the other trees there.

Do come and see our Xmas tree at the United Reformed Church in the upper High Street !

We have had play dough that smells like ginger  bread and glitter in the sand !

At Broadway Playschool penguin potato prints have been made by the children and ice explored outside.

At Towerview Playschool ice was also found inside the tyres and brought in to setting to see how long it would take to melt.

The children have taken home their Diwalli lights and are busy making junk model construction of every kind imaginable!

Some of the children have walked down to see the Xmas tree in the church and to look in the decorated shop windows.

MEETINGS WITH STAFF to talk about your child's development are available every afternoon next week - please see form or talk to staff to book a slot.

 

FESTIVAL OF LIGHT

There was some fab mark making and collage this week from flowers to 'Minecraft' at Towerview.  Most of the children have also enjoyed getting messy with the clay making Diwalli tea lights for the Hindu Festival of Light.

It was great to see some of the children role playing using the puppets and soft toys, with a dragon theme this week. They have also  been getting really involved with role play with the outside building equipment again making ‘aeroplanes’.  

At Broadway Playschool the children are becoming more settled now and we are having good fun playing "who's wearing the glasses game" and getting to know each other at snack time.

Forest school session - saw many children building on their confidence to climb the tree at various heights, and challenge themselves further. This also helps builds the muscles they need to write with.

Jude and Jo have been on Local Authority SENdCo training in Worcester . This is training for our special educational needs support in Playschool and benefits all the children with their development.

THE PLAYSCHOOL COMMITTEE HAVE THEIR ANNUAL MEETING THIS TUESDAY EVENING AT 6.30 AT TOWERVIEW PLAYSCHOOL. ALL PARENTS ARE INVITED.

bonfires and remembrance...

This week we have been seeing wind & rain lashing the playschool – the children have still managed to get outside and build aeroplanes, trains and houses. The one plane even had ‘TVs in the seats’ so we could all ‘watch’ different films!!

We have made felt poppies and talked about remembering people and soldiers and wars. The children worked hard to split the wool weft and to layer it – then to soap it then roll it out and then leave to dry. The poppies look very effective !

We have also been discussing fire safety and how to keep ourselves safe. The children have made a ‘krispie’ bonfire cake at both settings – it all tumbled down the sides of the bowl and they added different sweets to make the ‘flames’. They have seen matches and sparklers and we have talked about ‘fire’ ,‘hot’, heat’ and ‘burning’. They know these things are for adults to do and they can watch, to keep safe.

The bonfire cake at Towewrview went to Forest School and was beautiful with the sparklers in it – then we all had a piece- yum yum !

AUTUMNAL FUN!

This week we had a fantastic time making birdfeeders at Forest school with the children. we have had fun getting our fingers sticky in forest school making seed feeders for the birds.  We mixed the ingredients then used our fingers to put the food into fir cones, hanging them in the trees for the birds to find.  It was great fun, with lots of language from discussions about where to hang the feeders.

One of our newest Play assistants felt that the best thing she had enjoyed doing with the children was footprint painting and making the iced biscuit faces – she now felt confident enough to take responsibility of doing the activities on her own with the children. 

Other staff members also enjoyed supporting the children whilst they decorated their biscuits to make their ‘face’. The children really had fun with this activity.

Another staff member said she enjoyed the yoga session and playing in the shaving foam with the children.

At Broadway Playschool, on Wednesday morning, the children enjoyed their walk, chatting about what they saw and collecting the autumn leaves. It was incredible how much more language was used; out and about !

OCTOBER SHOWERS !

This week the rain ‘wooshed’ into Playschool – so the children got out the umbrellas and enjoyed singing in the rain!  They were surprised when the rain washed away their chalk floor drawings and explored the raindrops coming from the roof and fence.

They have enjoyed filling containers with different amounts of conkers in, and shaking them to hear the different sounds they make.

There is much interactive role play emerging with plenty of interesting conversations and engagement. When one child was asked if he could let his friend share their ideas – his friend piped up – “oh I don’t have any ideas” !!!  There has been some lovely kindness shown by our older children to young children who are still settling.

A number of children constructed a balancing walkway using planks, crates and logs.  Most of the children enjoyed spending time balancing as they walked along the walkway, time after time, after time.  Someone even decided to crawl underneath it!

CONKER TIME !

At Towerview Playschool everyone had great fun joining in with action songs and raps and realising they were getting hot because they were ‘moving around’. They all seem to be really enjoying group activities, joining in with yoga and action songs.

We have been on a ‘conker ‘ walk and collected leaves and even had birthday snack under the trees.  We have been sorting them into different sizes, counting them and sorting them into different size boxes.

All the children enjoyed the forest on Wednesday digging with water, lots of jumping in muddy puddles and very dirty faces and hands. Some children made nests for the animals as we have been talking with them about which ones hibernate for the winter.

The children have been involved in role play, working together to build a train to go to CBeebiesland and Cheltenham racecourse. Learning to share their ideas and using the timer to take turns to drive the train.

At Broadway Playschool the younger ones have been learning to climb the 'A' frame safely and slide down the slide. They have been outside in the sand and stacking the soft blocks to make towers.

Welcome back to the autumn term 2015 !

We have got off to a grand start with children settling quickly in with a few tears but soon dried and happy and involved!

At Broadway Playschool the children have been busy learning the routine and enjoying playing in the sand in the autumn sunshine & rain!

At Towerview we have also had sand play and lots of role play and interaction as the more confident children support the other children to become involved- lots of chatter as they play.

BROADWAY HORTICULTURAL SHOW 2015

We won the Junior cup back with our clay mini beasts, we made at the end of last term.

We had a 1^st and 3^rd prize and  four ‘ Highly Commended’ – well done to all the children – their entries looked great in the big marquee!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU ALL !

Lots of activities covered these last two weeks from colour mixing, ice cream making, drilling, sawing and whittling in forest school to watching Jo cover herself and everything within a metre in cornflour, this got the biggest laugh from the children, Jo had fun too!

Some of the children have enjoyed setting up role play areas outside using the various resources available. We have enjoyed watching the children become scientists and experiment with the different ‘food colouring’ water, whilst seeing what 'new' colours they could make.

The children going up to school had their last sessions in their respective schools and our last visiting reception teacher came and did yoga with us!

The children have been busy making their clay bugs ready for the Broadway Horticultural  Show in September.

At Broadway Playschool the 2-3 yr group are enjoying being outside all session and are loving the bubbles !

The Tower Walk was fabulous – the children were all brilliant and it was great fun sliding and rolling down the hill – Becky led the rolling and was hilarious! They also enjoyed making their own sandwiches on our return & eating the jelly we made on the Monday and our homemade ice cream too!!

THANKYOU ALL FOR ALL OUR LOVELY CARDS AND PRESSIES !

Look out for our fab Ofsted reports which you can view on their website: www.ofsted.gov.uk/reports.

                        PLAYSCHOOL RE-OPENS  

                     MONDAY 7^TH SEPTEMBER 2015

KEEPING COOL BY THE POOL !

This week the heat got to all of us - so we endeavoured to keep cool by spending time at forest school under the tree canopy and paddling in the tuff trays - making foot prints & watching as they disappeared!

At Broadway Playschool- the water play and bubbles continue to be a favourite and as usual fun was had dancing to the 'animal boogie woogie' !   Many are trying mark making with the chalks and building up their fine and gross motor skills ( needed for writing)  using the brushes and rollers.

At Towerview - clay proved to be a big hit - making mini beast for Broadway's September Horticultural Show.

The 'leavers' going to Broadway First School, went for their 1st real school dinners in the hall
- we were very proud of the way they conducted themselves - they tried all their dinner and said 'please and thank you' to the dinner ladies- who were very helpful.  It was lovely that the older school children helped our young ones, helped them with their dinner tray, with open toilet doors and accessing the drinks fountains. They also kept an eye on them when we went out to play in the BIG playground. Thank you Broadway First School children.  

Big box play saw the children working together to problem solve making 'houses' - they painted them with rollers and carpeted them - they also drew plans. Our Ofsted Inspector who was in  seemed very impressed by their organisational and creative skills.

The sour dough starter for our bread stinks - but we are hoping it will work. The volcano experiment was really exciting and the children are hoping to try it out at forest school and in the dough !!

TOWERWALK SLIPS need to be back in next week- thank you!

FOREST SCHOOL TRIP

We had such a lovely trip to the farm with the big forest.

The children explored the enormous space - finding drums- tyre assault course- musical pipes- tyre swings -mud kitchen and mud slide - tunnels to crawl down and big muddy ditches to roll in ! 

We had to use eco loos and wash our hands very carefully and use wet wipes allot !

We had marshmallows and pancakes around the open fire and ate our lunch under the tree canopy.

There were two farm dogs who looked after us and we could hear all the bird twittering in the trees.
 
The journey on the coach was fun - we went down a steep hill and sang songs a we travelled along.

We saw lamas in pyjamas, goats , horses, chickens and cows. There were tractors and diggers and a delivery lorry.

Phew what a long day but only one child fell asleep on the coach on the way back.

Well done everyone !

Like busy busy bees !

At Broadway Playschool the water play tray has also been very popular this week, and we have seen lots of utensils being used to have fun playing.  They have been having fun pouring and scooping and also blowing and chasing the bubbles outside as they fly up high into the sky. The little ones were really excited by the bubbles.
Some children were really enjoying using the chunky egg-shaped chalks to create beautiful colourful artwork on the floor outside (and on the planks too!). 

At Towerview we made carrot cake, some of the children tasted it for the first time and really liked it.  Then later on at forest school a group of the children made a rainbow cake!  Next week we are going to make flap jacks with chocolate on top!

 

The children have been so busy working together using the cardboard to build houses, water painting the inside, laying the floors with planks and carpet squares, making doors with planks....but remember  "you need the passcode to it before you can go inside" !!!

Lots of fun in the water play this week, they've enjoyed putting boats in the guttering and tipping water behind seeing how fast they can make it go. 

We made jelly worms – eugh! But will they taste nice or not ?!!! will they work ??? we shall see.............

We all enjoyed jiggling and wiggling to the action raps and everyone experienced the effect exercise has on our bodies.

Some of the children helped to weed the flower beds and plant the sunflower seeds. There was also a group helping to put some fencing up – it took a lot of patience but it does look good!

 

WELCOME BACK TO SUMMER !

After a rainy start the week's weather turned beautiful and the children were glad to really get outside for the whole day and use all the space available !

We have been looking at how waves are made - using oil and water- making melted bead sun catchers and building constructions outside.
The older children are having some brilliant conversations now - they are really listening to each other - lovely to hear.

At Forest school the cow parsley is really high and there is plenty to do - searching for bugs or making mud pies too! The new overalls arrived - big green and smaller yellow sets - the children loved wearing them proudly.

At Broadway Playschool - much fun was had 'rollering' with water all over the outside of the hall and the playhouses. The flowers are out in the flower bed and we searched for snails using the magnifyers. There are even some tiny strwberries showing now - YUM YUM !

everything is still growing!

This week has seen our runner bean developing roots and our carrot seed growing.

The caterpillars are now chrysalis and have been put in their new home until they emerge as butterflies.

The rotting fruit - is getting really smelly now & brown and sludgy.

The 'dragons' have had a castle built for them outside at Playschool and houses made from sticks, mud and leaves at Forest school.

Biscuits have been made - baked and eaten !

It has been a busy week all round !

lets get active !!

At Towerview Playschool, this week, there has been lots of physical activity with team games, action songs, obstacle courses, the children have been really involved and motivated. We all enjoyed jiggling and wiggling to the action raps and everyone experienced the effect exercise has on our bodies.

Great session at Forest School that involved finding the ‘dinosaur eggs’, there was much excitement as the dinosaurs in ice eggs were discovered! We then had to explore how to get them out of the ice ............

 It was lovely to see the role play developing this week with ‘fire fighters’ rescuing everyone from the ‘burning’ playhouse!

At Broadway Playschool, we have seen lots of children enjoying the sand this week, they've been very busy transporting, tipping and pouring and also working together to help tidy it all away. 

How things grow !

This week the caterpillars have grown and are wiggling around their home. We also had delivery of some ladybirds and set them free at Forest school.

The children have been exploring air and its affect on different things – like egg whites –the children enjoyed watching egg whites turn into what they called “clouds”. Then when whisked the egg whites got bigger and whiter –until we could tip the bowl up over our heads!! The resulting meringues were delicious!

This week the children have been trying lots of experiments,  “what cleans coins?” Looking at decaying food and what happens when we put freshly planted seeds on the windowsill and in the fridge.  They all enjoyed 'Harry and the hazelnut' story sack too.

There has been loads happening outside .....tennis, den building, obstacle course, planting seeds and lots of mark making with chalks- the outside floor area is covered with a variety of lovely colours and shapes. The children have enjoyed playing in the ’hamster wheel ‘, hoola in hoops and using the cart together there too !

Some Dragons came to Forest School !!!–  there is a book about their arrival in Broadway and we are trying to look after them and see what adventures they will bring......................the baby Dragons escaped and turned up at Forest school – we rescued them and reunited them with their parents!

At Broadway Playschool, the little ones are getting very good at remembering the ‘Hungry Caterpillar’ story and playing ‘what’s in the box’. They had fun pulling each other up and down in the big cart outside in the sunshine.

 

OUT & ABOUT

Today we have been enjoying the glorious sunny weather by playing football on the school field. 

 

Whilst outside some of the children filled a few buckets of water up, then we discussed what things may sink and float and they made their prediction before trying.  They found out shells 'sink' and small round bark pieces 'float'

We watched the raisins dance in a glass of lemonade and discussed what was making them dance and why.  It was great seeing the dancing raisins experiment and hearing what the
children thought what might happen next!

Lastly we unwrapped our newly delivered caterpillars, took a sneaky peek at them and left them quietly to grow, whilst discussing what is going to happen to them over the coming weeks.

At Broadway Playschool the children are gradually getting used to being in a pre-school environment and away from their parents. They too are enjoying getting outside and playing in the sand and on the bikes.

 

WECLOME BACK TO THE SUMMER TERM !

Hope you all had a lovely Easter.

We started back to lovely spring weather – REMINDER that your child will need a sun hat each dayand sun screen on before they attend.

This term we are doing experiments, building dens and looking at mini beasts- the caterpillars are on order !

We have been busy painting pictures of daffodils and spring flowers and making our initials out of cress. The grass heads at home have grown well and the children report enjoying cutting their grass head’s hair !

The new children have settled well into Towerview Playschool – our rolling a ball to each other and saying our names game has supported this transition.

At Broadway Playschool the new children to the 2-3 group to seemed to settle well and we're all looking forward to getting to know them and their families.

It has been good to get outside with plenty of sand play- block building and whizzing around on the bikes and scooters.

HAPPY EASTER !

We all had a lovely last week - making Easter nests - chocolate ones !! and paper chicks and an Easter Egg hunt on the last Forest School session.  Jude thinks she saw the easter bunny hopping up to the Tower!

 Hopefully the grass heads will be growing well at home - they should be able to have a 'hair' cut soon.

         Have a lovely Easter everyone !

      Back on Monday 13th April

SPRING ECLIPSE!

At Broadway Playschool we are seeing some great role play from the children. The dolls house is extremely popular and is encouraging a lot of shared play. 

A lovely time was had in the water play, making boats out of junk modelling & finding objects that float or sink – this was all one child wanted to do all morning !

The children and staff enjoyed laughing at Jo, when she lost her balance and fell back off the logs of their "car" at Forest School....it was funny!   One child’s chuckles could be heard streets away !

Bug hunting revealed a lot of woodlice and it was lovely to feel the sun on our faces and hear the bird sing.

The children have enjoyed planting their carrot seed and thinking about what other things are needed to make them grow.

 

The partial eclipse was felt rather than viewed- even though we have our ‘pinhole’ cameras at the ready ....... – it went really cold for a short while and very quiet – then the sun came back out !

Our felt flower & spring paintings display is looking lovely and colourful – take a look when you are in !!

Last week Jo & Jude attended the SENdCo conference on special needs and bereavement and this Saturday Jude attended the Montessori conference in London – looking at ICT in Playschool.

PHOTO ORDERS NEED TO BE BACK IN START OF NEXT WEEK – THANKYOU!

 

Happy Mothering Sunday !

AT Broadway  Playschool the children really enjoyed creating their Mother's Day peppermint creams sweets this week...they had to knead the icing to mix the colour in and then shape the sweets, lots of concentrating. They were very creative!!

At Towerview we had a lovely, sunny walk to see the diggers at the road works on Tuesday morning.

 At Forest School the staff enjoyed supporting the children make their ‘mud medallions’.

We were all busy rolling out wool weft to make felt flowers and hand printing flowers for Mothering Sunday.

TRAINING-The staff team have been updating their training again. Alison, Jo and Becky went to a conference on ‘2 year old’s’ and Jude and Jo went to the SENd Conference. We all learnt a lot and revisited previous training. Amy & Charlotte are off to learn about how to use visuals to support children’s learning too.

SPRING HAS SPRUNG!

We have started our Spring theme with some excellent artwork being produced  including  fantastic paintings of the tulips.

At Towerview Playschool we have a nice big craft/collage table with lots of different things to use and try and the children have been very creative making flags, ‘a horse’, ‘pig’, fishing rods, ‘a house’ and flowers amongst other things.

It was a lovely sunny forest school session on Wednesday – making mud pies – climbing the climbing tree and digging for worms – then we all sat and said what our favourite thing had been that day while the birds sang to us over head!

All had fun trying out our obstacle course too.

Over in the school hall – the children are now good at finding a space and had fun balancing along the beams and crawling like spiders and hopping like rabbits – all great gross motor skills developing & in a REAL SCHOOL !!!

On Friday - we walked to se the lambs - we also saw 5 horse a lady walkingher dogs, daffodils, fir cones and some great tits in the tree !

At Broadway Playschool we have seen some beautiful artwork this week. Lots of colour mixing and sticking and gluing using different materials to create some great pieces! There has also been lots of role play happening. The children are enjoying building towers with the grey blocks and enjoying the dolls house too!

Baby it's cold outside !

Even though it has been bitterly cold this week, some of the children have enjoyed having a blast on the bikes and scooters. We have enjoyed finding ice in the tyres and tuff tray – making our fingers ssooooooo cooooold !

RSPB BIRD WATCH - Great to see so many children enjoying the bird watching area, then looking in the books to see if they can find one that they've seen.

Musicians in the making singing "push the button to make it go" song for flushing the loo !

The junk modelling is still going with even more fantastical models being made. Some excellent vehicle pictures were made out of 2D shapes too.

---

At Broadway Playschool  the children have been exploring the dried pasta table - filling big and small containers, pouring and practising how to hold and use the tongs to transfer the pieces of pasta from one container to another - lots of concentrating!!  Also making shakers, using the tweezers to pick pieces up, counting, more or less, full, empty – lots and lots of ‘learning through play’!

Outside the children really enjoyed the balls in the paddling pool, colour matching & counting & rolling them down the guttering and transporting them around the room in baskets.

 

REMINDER – sending in a piece of fruit or veg each week helps us offer more variety for the children’s snack time – thankyou !

INTO THE SCHOOL HALL FOR THE BEETLE CRAWL !

This week we started using the school hall as part of the transition to get the children used to a school environment. Everyone had fun being beetles and snakes as we crawled, jumped and balanced during P.E.  It was great to see the children getting used to the hall and some really great ‘slithering like snakes’ going on!

Junk modelling is popular at the moment; the children have been very imaginative and created some brilliant models including aeroplanes, rockets, 'houses with chimneys' and 'boats with engines'.

They enjoyed finishing off the traffic light biscuits after wee made the biscuits and then iced them and put sweets on them. They all knew stop = RED, get ready= ORANGE and  Go = GREEN !

THINGS THAT GO ‘BRUUMMM!’

At Towerview Playschool on Monday, Jude brought her car into the outside area – the children especially liked the horn beeping and the hazard lights flashing. Everyone enjoyed looking around the car and there were lots of clever questions asked when we looked at the engine.  Jo showed everyone how to check the oil – we were all impressed !

 We have been busy stencil painting vehicles, making tracks on paper with car tyres and junk modelling vehicles rockets and other creations.  Some of the children are really
enjoying making all sorts with the junk modelling – what very creative children we have!

The story ‘Room on a Broom ‘ started a discussion about whether or not a broom is ‘transport’!!

At Forest School exploring how the cold is affecting the woodland and trying to dig the hard soil has been fun. We made ‘dragon breath’ when we stopped for hot chocolate.

On Friday, we let toy cars down a ramp and measured the different distances they travelled in cm with a tape measure.  Lots of enjoyment with picking their own cars, placing on the guttering
and seeing whose went the furthest.

Some wonderful junk modelling is happening at Broadway Playschool,

The children are really enjoying the cellotape experience !

 

 

WELCOME TO ALL RETURNING AND NEW FAMILIES - HAPPY 2015 !

It was lovely to see everyone back all so excited after the Christmas break. There were lots of conversations about Christmas and presents and Christmas trees.

-      Jude said she got a bag of coal to which one child replied

“No Jude what did you really get from Santa?” !!!

It was a great first week back with couple of new ones who have settled really well. One morning was spent looking at items that had been frozen. We got the ice out of the freezer this morning as a big group activity, they were all really involved, We put the different frozen items outside on the tuff tray and the children came up with lots of ideas- estimating which one would melt the quickest.

Completing our ‘weather’ theme form last term the children painted some lovely rainbow pictures.

One afternoon we played the Lycra game which they all really enjoyed t and Beck read ‘Monkey Puzzle’ story –they love joining in with the refrain “Butterfly Butterfly   that’s not my Mum....” !!!

Great to see lots of language being used in the kitchen and cafe area (role play)- the new cooker has proved a big favourite and although the weather hasn’t been great this week it was good to get out and have a blast on the bikes!

We would like to extend a warm welcome to the new children this term and we are looking forward to a great new year.