Weeks Theme - Mechanic

Monday 1st February - 7th February.

Key breakdown, wheels, car, chassis, garage, mechanic, ramp, engine, tyre, gears

Skills:children will develop an understanding of language associated with position and direction, investigate their environment and follow a route, listen to and join in with stories and rhymes that use positional and directional language such as The Wheels on the Bus and Jumping up and down on the little red tractor. Children should be eager to explore new learning and be actively involved in a number of activities. They will verbalise numbers by counting and show an awareness of subtraction and pairs.

Attitudes: children will practice independence and take part in role play – increasing their confidence and imagination. They will develop refined hand movements while playing with small fiddly resources such as peg boards and develop an awareness of safety and danger when we practice the Green Cross Code.

  • Staff will: help children develop an awareness of road safety reinforcing the knowledge the children already have in the safety of the school grounds.  Use positional and directional terminology during play and encourage children to use it during their play with each other..
  • Parent and carers can: reinforce children’s road safety knowledge while out and about – encouraging children to hold their hand while near the road, walk on the inside of the pavement, look and listen before they cross giving children some ownership of when to cross and praising the child’s decision. Discuss with your child why it’s never safe to cross the road without an adult and point out  a safe place in the street to cross such as zebra crossings or pedestrian crossings. .

Activities - Knowledge and Concepts.

  • Painting zebra crossings: creative development – colour discrimination, using directional language while painting and becoming aware of road safety.
  • The Car – Physical Development – using and refining hand movements as children use tools to “fix the car”. Encouraging discussion and role play amongst peers and working together as a team.
  • Practicing the Green Cross Code – Communication, Language and Literacy – encouraging language for thinking, memorising and increasing children’s knowledge of the world around them and how to keep safe.
  • Make a car – mathematical development – looking at shapes, circles, triangles, rectangle and squares. What is the best shape to build a car.
  • Rolling or not rolling – a science project that encourages children to decide beforehand if an object is going to roll – or not!

ICT Suite

On Monday mornings we will be taking small groups of pre-school children into the ICT suite in school to do specific tasks on the computers. This will be 1:1 or 1:2 depending on your child’s ability. A theme relevant programme will be practiced by the children for 15 minutes at a time and they will either bring their print outs home or they will go into their profiles. The programme they have followed will be written in the cloakroom area notice board. Two members of staff will accompany the children to the ICT suite and plan activities for the children using the computers at that time.

Library

On Wednesday mornings we will be taking small groups of children into the library in school to make books, read books, make scrapbooks and create their own stories. This will not clash with Jo Jingles. The group dynamics will change each time we use the library ensuring all children take part. Two members of staff will supervise and plan activities for the library session. If your child has favourite stories or books please let us know.

The Hall

The pre-school will use the main hall in the school every Friday morning for an hour to play large group games such as the parachute, counting games and friendship games. The activities we do will reflect the theme of the week and will be child initiated. If there are any games you know your child loves to play please let us know.

Jo Jingles

On every other Wednesday morning Jo Jingles attends pre-school. This is available to all children that attend on Wednesday morning sessions and is differentiated to suit all children’s ages. Children have the opportunity to sing, dance, move, play musical instruments, and improve physical development and co-ordination. Sessions with Jo Jingles correspond with our theme and reinforce the learning within the pre-school.

Baking and Cookery

Every Tuesday and Thursday we have baking or cookery sessions. This is theme orientated and helps to reinforce the theme of the week. Risk assessments are carried out before any baking or cooking activity and safety is paramount at all times. Children do not have access to the kitchen and do not taste food as it is being prepared unless it is part of the activity. 2 members of staff supervise this activity and plan around the weekly theme. All children that want to take part are able to as many times as they want to and if your lucky they might even save it to eat at home!

Spanish

We have a new Spanish Volunteer working with us for the next year so we have decided to teach your children basic Spanish every day during circle time. Issabella will plan activities for a short period of time each day for all children to join in with.

All activities are child initiated, child led and differentiated to suit all stages of development. If you would like to discuss an activity please feel free to ask any member of staff at any time.

  • Belinda - floating
  • Nici -
  • Bryony - nurse jigsaw
  • Jane - funny bones
  • Izzy - hospital role play
  • Tracy - baking
  • Sarah - play dough