Hi everyone, I hope you’ve all had a lovely Easter. Don’t forget to let us know what you’ve been up to and how you’ve been doing, we love your updates! Also if there is anything you need then let us know. 

I’ve been thinking about summer activities and about tough trays and thought I would share some ideas with you. If you don’t have a tough tray then don’t worry, you can use the ideas on a big sheet of paper, a smaller tray, a cardboard box etc etc. One of the many reasons I love tough trays is because you can take a toy that children love, for example cars and they can have fun with the cars on their own and then after a while the cars might lose their initial excitement but if you introduce a ramp using books and a plank of wood or a chopping board etc then that opens up a whole new experience and level of play, they can learn cause and effect by pushing the car down the ramp, experimenting and problem solving with more or less books to make it steeper/smaller. You can draw a car park on some paper, make a map etc etc. Adding cereal creates a whole new sensory aspect and children love running wheels through the cereal and crunching it.

Minibeasts! 

You can gather things from your gardens or your walks and make a minibeast tray or you can use the checklist attached and go out exploring to see what you can find in the world around you. Discuss the different habitats with your children, the different sizes of the minibeasts, how many legs do they have, do they walk crawl or fly? Where would you go if you could fly? Also find books/videos about minibeasts and talk about them.

Diggers, trains and cars!

Diggers and cornflakes can keep children busy for quite a while! It’s so simple but so fun. You could add pots and get the children to transport the cereal from one area to another. Talk about the different types of vehicles and what they do, can you spot any from your windows? How many? Maybe keep a tally chart.

Shaving foam!

This is one of my favourites! This does get messy so maybe a good idea outside with some water and towels at the ready. In the picture below they have made an ice cream tough tray. (We have done a similar activity making ice cream dough at pre school, you use 3/4 cup conditioner and 1 1/4 cup cornflour to make the ice cream like dough). You can add toppings etc to make it really fun! Also with the shaving foam you can add colours, easy to clean toys such as diggers, duplo, aqua beads. If you have piping bags you can fill them with the foam and let the children pipe the foam.

Books with props!

Bring a book to life with props. You can do this easily with things from around the home or drawings that help the children to act out the book and have even more fun and extend their learning. You can add in numbers to help with counting and letters to help with letter recognition and forming. On its own sand in a tray is a really useful resource for us at pre school as the children can practice letter formation in a fun way and any mistakes are easily shaken away. I’ve popped a picture at the bottom.

Another lovely idea is to collect fallen leaves and flowers and put them into a container with water and freeze them, do this part with the children and talk to them about what you’re doing. Show them the ice when it has frozen and let them experiment and play with the ice to watch it dissolve.

Let us know how you get on by emailing whpsadmissions@gmail.com

Sophie 

I’m sorry but for some reason I don’t think the Spotify link is working. This is a picture of the playlist we use:

Hi everyone, we hope you’re all well and having a good week. We would love to hear how you’re getting on and please do keep in contact. You can email: 

whpsadmissions@gmail.com 

We’d love to see any photos of your children’s learning. We can add these to their learning journals.

Here are some ideas of things that are available:

Hopefully you have all found the Twinkl link useful. Just before we had to close we were looking at the life cycle of frogs and we went out to see the frogs in the pond at school.

There are lots of life cycle resources on twinkl. We were going to be looking at the life cycle of a caterpillar/butterfly yet and use the very hungry caterpillar book. There are lots of lovely hungry caterpillar things on twinkl from colouring in to maths activities etc.

If you have Spotify they have some great counting songs that we use with the children. We would also use the numicon sheets from twinkl to help them with number recognition and learning quantities. If you can help them with their number recognition and learning quantities that would be great. This can be done in many different ways. During this lovely weather you could use chalk in the garden to write the numbers and the children can use stones or leaves etc to match the quantities with the numbers. They could practice writing the numbers too if they wanted! 

Here is the Spotify link: 

For the children starting school in September it would be great if you could continue to help them practice writing their names.

Twinkl have some great pencil control work sheets that the children often enjoy doing. We follow the Early Years Foundation Stage at pre school so click on the EYFS tab for ideas relevant to pre school age children. (They will also follow the EYFS in Reception at school).

If you’re into cooking then Becky from The Garden Chef at Chiddinglye is posting some great recipes and videos on Facebook of things to cook at home with your children. 

Please don’t forget that there is absolutely no pressure to achieve or complete anything other than having fun and staying safe. This is all very out of the ordinary and the children will be missing normality and their friends. Remember that every child is in this position and if they don’t want to learn numbers right now or write their name right now then that’s totally ok. The main thing through this is everyone staying happy and safe and us providing a loving environment for our children. You most likely will see a change in behaviour with your children, this is normal and won’t last forever. Please don’t forget that we are here to help and support you and you can get in contact if you have any worries or concerns. 

Don’t forget to keep in contact and we’ll be sending out more ideas soon! 

Sophie, Issy, Becca and Esther

I’m sure as many of you have been watching the news you have seen the decision by the government to close schools and early years settings. It’s brings us great sadness to close the pre school after Thursday 19th March. We will continue to follow all government advice and keep you updated as we receive the information. If you have any questions or anything you’d like to talk about then email me: whpsadmissions@gmail.com or call 07854128616 

We hope that everyone stays healthy and well during these uncertain times. There is a lot of support out there in the community. 

We also thank you for your continued support, especially during this past week where things have been slightly different!

We use Twinkl for a lot of our resources and they are offering a free month to parents. You might find it useful to print some pages/colouring etc to use at home. Here is the link if you wish to do so:

http://www.twinkl.com/offer

And enter code: CVDTWINKLHELPS

Dear Parents
Pre school is open tomorrow as usual!

However, Government guidance has changed this evening:

‘If any one person in a household starts to display symptoms, everyone living there must stay at home for 14 days.’

If you or your children do begin to show symptoms – a dry cough or a high temperature – the whole family now needs to self-isolate. Please let us know if anyone in the family is displaying any of these symptoms preventing your child from attending pre school.

Any question just call or email! 

 In light of the current situation we’d like to assure you that we are keeping in close contact with West Sussex County Council and the Department of Education and are following all their advice and guidance. We have posters displayed and further information is on the parents notice board.
Please wash your hands and your children’s hands on entry to pre school BEFORE  coming into the main hall. 

Please do not attend for 7 days if you or your child are displaying a high temperature of 37.8 or above or persistent cough.

 

We are expecting to open pre school as normal tomorrow unless the Government announce any changes during the course of the day. We will continue to help the children to wash their hands during the day.
Although we don’t have any confirmed cases of COVID-19 we do have some staff and children self isolating at the moment. Please keep us updated if your child is self isolating.

 

Guidance currently includes:

 

Suspected case in a family: Child can attend school – parents to ensure child washes hands before leaving the house. Child to wash hands immediately after coming into pre school. Increase monitoring of pupils.

 

Confirmed case in a family: Children in the family to remain at home for a fixed period of time.

Here is just some of the fun we’ve been having at pre school! We have also made pancakes and enjoyed eating them at snack time. We made bread rolls on Thursday. We’ve been looking at numbers every day and have enjoyed counting songs. We’ve been looking at different letters and sounds around us.

📚Tomorrow is world book day so we are welcoming the children to bring their favourite book in to pre school. 📚

Also just a reminder to keep an eye on our parents notice board for information. Our term dates are always up there, don’t forget our inset day on Monday 16th March as staff will be away on a training course.

If you’re looking for a fun activity to do over the half term then have a look at this:

We have had such a fun morning with our big build. The children were all absolutely amazing and had great fun! They worked well as a team and all helped to tidy up before Coach Ollie came.

We started by rolling the children masking tape to play with and explore. Then we rolled out paper and they all stuck it down. With the lovely graphite pencils the children drew on the paper. We then used the masking tape to make our castle and attach newspaper. After all our building we put the disco light on and usd the finger lights to play and explore in our castle. We also had snack in our castle!

The photos haven’t come out in order, sorry!

Tomorrow as part of our road safety week we will be doing a race track day at pre school. Children are welcome to bring their own bikes and scooters. Please could we ask that they also bring helmets. We have our pre school bikes and scooters here too!