Little pig

They say one man’s trash is another mans treasure which was the case this week with some very large boxes I had left over from a recent Ikea delivery.  Very soon the children were busy decorating them to become houses made from straw, sticks and bricks. Once the paint and glue had dried they were brought into the gym for the children to use as props during their assembly performances of The Three Little Pigs. We had some very scary wolves and some very anxious piggies and together they put on some great shows for their friends. These big cardboard boxes are a great resource for us as the children can transform them into all sorts of things and then play in them until they are destroyed.  If you get any of these at home please let us know.

In the preschool year we incorporate a number of activities which are designed to gently prepare the children for their transition to primary school. This includes time each day at Miss Natalie’s table in the classroom where they work on handwriting, maths skills and phonics. These fun tasks are great at building the children’s concentration and cooperation with an adult and develops a love of classroom based learning. Miss Natalie records many of these activities on the children’s Tapestry Learning Journal and can be easily replicated at home.

In Tuesday’s cookery session the children made delicious mini quiches. These are a fun and simple savoury snack that children can do by rolling and cutting the dough, mixing the eggs and other ingredients and bringing it all together in the pastry tray.

We have had a couple of parents coming in to read books this week during our circle time sessions. The children have really enjoyed this and put on their best listening ears when listening to their favourite stories. If you wish to take part in this please arrange a date with your child’s group leader.

The next sound of the week will be ’t’.  For show and tell please ensure that your child only brings in something that begins with the sound of the week and not the letter.  For example, next week the children could bring in a tomato, torch or train but not a  thermometer because that begins with the sound ‘th’.  The idea of phonics is that children are able to identify the different phonemes (sounds) and link them to the corresponding grapheme (the letter or group of letters) so that they can eventually blend the different sounds to make up the word they are reading or writing.