Westonzoyland Primary School ‘Achieving, Learning and Growing Together’
Fledglings – Mrs Morris (Pre-School)
Welcome to Fledglings
This page is intended to give you an overview of the routines in Pre-School, together with useful information. We will also post photographs throughout the year. We hope that you will find it useful.
Teaching Team
Mrs Morris - Pre School Supervisor
Mrs Gardner - Deputy Supervisor
Miss Parnell
Mrs Harris
Miss Warren
Mrs Whelpton
Christmas has arrived in Pre School!
Mark making isn’t limited to just paper and pens! We love coming up with ways to make mark making activities enticing and engaging for the children.
We’ve enjoyed the story Supertato this week. The evil pea visited Pre School, trapping our veggies and prompting lots of “wanted” poster making! We used this opportunity to talk about healthy eating, and the children prepared and enjoyed their own vegetable soup!
Today we got suited and booted, embraced the drizzly day and made mud paint! The children love nothing more than getting stuck in and muddy!
Last term we noticed a theme in the children role playing as pets and their owners, so we thought we’d follow this interest and develop their play further with a Vets corner! It’s been very popular and has facilitated some super imaginative play, mark making and new vocabulary.
We’ve enjoyed hearing all that the children have been up to over half term. There‘s been lots of talk about the carnival and fireworks, so we’ve focussed on these this week.
The children have enjoyed dressing up and dancing along to the carnival on the interactive screen, junk modelling their own carnival carts, making sparkly firework play dough and singing some firework rhymes.
We were lucky enough to visit the carnival shed to see our local carnival float being made this week. The children (and adults!) showed great interest and fascination, asking lots of questions. We're all excited to see it in the parade next week. On the way back, we stopped off to see some sheep in a neighbouring field before the children enjoyed a play in the local park. What a super afternoon had by all.
We’ve been thoroughly enjoying the Autumn sunshine, spending lots of time picnicking in the forest school and building dens. We’ve bought maths and technology outdoors, introducing an iPad for the children to use the stopwatch timing one another in moving across an obstacle course.
We’ve also been out on autumn walks collecting conkers, stamping in the fallen leaves and talking about the changes we notice and sounds that we hear.
We love finding new ways to make learning fun and engaging. We're led by the children's interests; observing what each child likes to play with and then planning how we can provide learning opportunities that tie in with these interests. These pictures demonstrate how engaged the children were in recent mark making activities that we introduced with toy train tracks and cars that are currently a favourite in the Pre - School.
This week we were led by the children’s passion for superheroes as inspiration for our activities. We read lots of superhero stories, such as The Superhero Hotel, Ten Little Superheroes and Supertato. We made a superhero headquarters, complete with lots of “iPad” emergency messages which proved very popular, and made our own capes, masks and prison cell for baddies! It was wonderful to hear some great terminology as the children enthusiastically discussed what their own super powers would be.
What a super term we’ve had! Our topics this term have been The Little Red Hen and The Three Little Pigs. It was wonderful to see the children bring these traditional tails to life, enthusiastically chanting the key phrases as they got to know the story. We’ve baked bread rolls, piggy biscuits, had guinea pigs come to visit, and worked our way through gallons of paint! We’ve also seen the grand opening of our new play equipment which the children adore; it’s facilitated some super role play so far as a fire station, house and pirate ship!
We’re looking forward to beginning our next term with the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff.
The children used a range of resources to create a castle from the story Jack and the Beanstalk. Some children used the wooden blocks to create "castles, castle on a trailer, aeroplane castle". There were also a selection of boxes and containers for the children to use to create a model.
A castle for Jack and the Beanstalk
The children have experienced the cold and wet elements of our weather. We have talked about what we need to keep dry and warm, " hats, gloves, coats, wellies, waterproofs and hot drinks and food to warm us up. The children also added warm clothes to their paper self to demonstrate their understanding. The children noticed the white frosty grass and trees, they noticed the ice melting, sometimes in the sun! We made large and small ice cubes to add to the tray, where animals were added and to explore the properties of ice further.
Exploring outdoor elements
After our half term break, the children had lots of news to share about their holidays. A few children were aware of the Chinese New Year that was being celebrated, one child has family living in China, therefore we extended learning by showing some celebrations on the interactive screen. "Dragons" said a child very excitedly. We took the large parachute into the hall and proceeded to pretend to be a dragon, walking around the room going up and down. After we played lots of fun and exciting games shaking the parachute and hiding underneath it.
We have some flowers growing in the garden area, some children used the crayons to record their growth. They selected the colours they needed and wanted to create their picture.
During the morning Wake and Shake sessions, we used some sticks to tap out a rhythm to the song, music, music, music. The children are having fun and moving to the rhythm and beat of the song.
In the outdoor area, the children have used a range of resources. They have used the wheelbarrows with confidence and have shown an awareness of safety for self and others. The outdoor kitchen area is proving a fun area for peers to use imagination in their play.
During December the children have made lots of Christmas decorations, using fine motor control to thread small items onto a pipe cleaner, sticking lollipop sticks into triangles to create a reindeer, a tree or a Santa hat. They have also practiced their pencil hold and control as they coloured in a Christmas bauble for the tree that they have created.
The children made Gruffalo crumble. They learnt how to use a knife safely as they chopped the apple up into small pieces and added it to the bowl. They mixed the flour into the butter, making it into breadcrumbs before mixing in the sugar and spooning it onto the apple and blackberries. The Gruffalo crumble was cooked and enjoyed by all, yummy.
Wk 16th October. This week it is Teddy Bear Picnic week. Children brought in their teddy bears, they joined in with the register, songs, the Picnic and we watched the story called Going on a Bear Hunt. Lots of fun and a lovely Teddy Bears Picnic.
The children have worked together to set up the channeling system to make the water flow, lots of critical and active thinking.
Both the children and adults have had lots of fun learning how to use the new interactive boards. The children have learnt to use the icons to create and draw, selecting different options and clearing it all away, or selecting a new page to create more pictures. We have used the interactive boards to tell stories and watch slideshows of familiar stories. The boards have also been a good tool to use to show the children how to search for something on the internet, pick an image and click onto it to find out more about it.
Welcome to our page on the new website.
The children have been very busy settling back into Pre-School. We also welcome lots of new starters to Pre-School, they have all been exploring and learning with the new resources in both the indoor and outdoor area.
For information about our Pre-School