World Nursery Rhyme week

                            World Nursery Rhyme Week

                     November 16th- 20th 2020

Staying safe, fireworks and poppies.

 We talked with the children about keeping ourselves safe around bonfires and fireworks when we made our bonfire cake.  They all enjoyed watching the sparklers while safely keeping their distance remembering not to get too close!

The 2-3yrs have been enjoying the Hokey Cokey following actions and singing along.  

Both groups have enjoyed firework splat painting with teabags and paint watching the effect they make as the teabags hit the paper when dropped.  All the children have been keen to do apple print poppies to commemorate 100yrs since WW1 Armistice.

Towerview children have been introduced to the Winter Forest school site, they are enjoying the mud kitchen area and the ‘tunnel’, an area where the hedgerow has grown and cascaded to provide a shelter, very inviting and a good place to hide out.

Pumpkins, fires and sparkly spider webs.

 The children continued to enjoy using the colour paddles as a traffic light system remembering what each colour represented. Red- stop, amber - get ready , green -go, additions blue -backwards, purple- puncture and yellow petrol.  This activity was introduced in music and movement and then the children with adult guidance outdoors used the colour paddles whilst playing on trikes and scooters and two wheeled bikes. The  children were so confident in remembering what each colour signified  that they took turns at being traffic control ,enjoying instructing their peers in traffic management and a few speeding tickets handed out too!  

The younger 2-3 year olds have enjoyed building with the blocks outside this week and also have been sitting very nicely whilst enjoying storytime.  They have also enjoyed the process of creating their sparkly spider web pictures by drizzling the glue and shaking the glitter pots, and couldn’t resist the temptation to explore the soft glitter with their fingers.

They have a enjoyed exploring the stringy texture of the inside of the pumpkin willingly getting hands sticky!  One child initiated an idea of posting conkers through the holes we cut for eyes.

Children in the older group explored the idea of using the cut pieces as a shape sorter! They also took the opportunity to use the pumpkins to role play accessing the medical cases.  Others explored size and weight lifting them to see which weighed heavier as well as comparing sizes and using tools to try to crack them open. Lots of discussion and opportunity for language as we talked about why they only had three teeth and why it’s so important to look after our own to keep them strong and healthy.

During both Forest School sessions the children enjoyed crumpets and brioche cooked on the basecamp fire.  They used this experience to extend their role play by building their own fire with log pieces back at Playschool.

Stop, ready, Go!

 The children have been very involved in road traffic role play, using colour codes to “stop, ready and go” which lead to some mark making speeding tickets!  Too fast in their bikes.  We explored the idea of making our own speed camera and traffic light with the junk modelling to use for role play. This involved measuring with a marble?! Exploring tools and what we need to use for sawing to make the post and looking at shapes to decide which would be appropriate for the task.

Children were encouraged to be creative with the conkers they found and produced a giant spider, there was some debate over how many legs a spider has.

At Forest School children had the opportunity to saw branches in preparation for the woodland fire the following week.  We practised our emergency evacuation too which the children coped brilliantly.

The children in the 2-3yr group made a collage bus, using a sample for reference they explored shapes selecting circles for wheels and squares for windows - problem solving, counting and positional language.

Great involvement and problem solving

 It’s been lovely to see smiley faces at Broadway Playschool (2-3yrs) and we have seen the children show some good painting skills, sand digging and balancing on planks.

It’s been really encouraging to watch the children get to know each other through role play and building constructions together. A super team effort!

The children are demonstrating good looking, listening and sitting skills at circle time recognising the symbols of the routine they put on the visual timetable.  The children are also recognising their name label to put on the tower.

There has been some great problem solving on how to collect up leaves from the ground and what to use to scoop them up.

The children seemed very excited when they spotted an aeroplane fly over Playschool. Following a suggestion from an adult a large group became involved in large outdoor construction building their own aeroplane.  Lots of problem solving working together to think about what they needed ie. wings , cockpit for the pilot bringing opportunity for vocabulary and language development. 

At Forest school we observed lots of activity in the digging area, one child discovered a dinosaur bone!  A small group were involved in fossil hunting too.

Welcome back!

 We have enjoyed welcoming the children back to Playschool after such a long absence for many and children new to Playschool who have settled incredibly well and picking up the routine quickly. The 3-4yrs haven’t taken very long at all in becoming very involved and engrossed in play.

In the first couple of weeks we have witnessed some wonderful imaginative play with small world and animal play where one child made up some inventive names for them.

Children attending Tuesdays and Fridays have been re introduced to Forest school and have remembered the rules brilliantly.  It’s been great to watch them exploring and running around freely.  They are picking up the “123 Where are you?” game brilliantly.

We are all getting used to our new Broadway setting, the older 2yr children have adapted brilliantly following the routine and children new to the group are picking up cues and coping very well.  They have instigated the story ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ and are seating and listening to the story beautifully.

Re opening Towerview- Happy outdoors 😄 🌦

Towerview Playschool has reopened to key worker and vulnerable children, also those who are transitioning to school in September and Autumn born 3yr olds.  We have had to put a cap on spaces due to some staff members self isolating with vulnerable family members.
We are trying to do our best to keep in touch with all families, we can be contacted by phone and email. We have a Facebook page where we have uploaded ideas for activities to do at home along including speech and language posts shared from Worcestershire Speech and Language.

The children who have returned to Playschool have settled very well and seem to be coping with the routine and rules very well and are delighting us with their new skills they have learnt during lockdown.  We have seen some very impressive mark making and writing skills, new songs and rhymes and have heard how one child can now “crack eggs without getting the shell in the mixture”.
This week the children have enjoyed being together, we have seen some lovely building role play where the whole group - all eight of them - have worked to together to ‘fix the playhouse’ and with all the wet weather they are keen to be outside.  Together they have discovered that the rain has collected on the sail they we have put up and have taken turns to manipulate it to create a waterfall over them, brilliant thinking!! With coats on of course. They’ve also made great use of the Playschool spare wellies for puddle splashing in the outside area and at Forest school.  Children new to Forest school seem to enjoy it immensely! It was a great opportunity for all the children to run around freely and just enjoy the space. Relaxing for the adults too, especially to see how happy the children are.