Pre-School - Hedgehog Class

 

 

Welcome to Hedgehog Class

Class teacher: Mrs Bolt

Teaching assistants: Chloe, Becky and Sophie

 

This year, we have a wonderful, light,airy and engaging environment for the children to play, learn and explore in. We have lots of exciting new resources for the children to share and a wonderful new interactive whiteboard to enhance learning opportunities. Our continuous provision -the space where they use and explore independently, provides the children with endless opportunities to develop their skills in each of the seven areas of the EYFS.

Children in pre-school learn through:

Three characteristics of effective teaching and learning.

• Playing and exploring- children investigate and experience things, and 'have a go'
• Active Learning- children concentrate and keep on trying if they encounter difficulties, and enjoy achievements
• Creating and thinking critically- children have and develop their own ideas, make links between ideas, and develop strategies for doing things.

We have created lovely, calm areas to explore mark -making and our senses as well as purposeful zones to further develop specific skills.

 

Term 6 in Pre-School 

Growing Things, Mini beasts & the Great Outdoors 

This term, the last one of the year, is full of ‘all things growing’. The older children in pre-school are growing bigger and starting their preparations to transition to big school.  Our newer children are growing in confidence, learning to explore their environment with increasing curiosity and purpose and our garden is growing greener and fuller with pumpkin plants exploding from every pot.  

 

Throughout the next few weeks, the children will have ever increasing time in the outdoor areas where we will be exploring all aspects of growing. We will be hands-on with various seeds, plants, soil and herbs. We will be learning how to handle plants with care, how to water our seeds and how to plant. We will be trying some of the things we have grown for snack time. The children will continue to have opportunities to choose resources independently, to explore collaborative play and decide how they want to develop their ideas and play. 

  

We will also be exploring minibeasts, as Mr Minton really engaged the children with finding a real ‘slow worm’. Now the children are on the hunt for another one. We will share stories and books around mini-beasts, gardening, growing and lifecycles sharing ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’. We will continue exploring environmental sounds and body percussion with a selection of stories around frogs and ‘Oi Frog!’, and some non-fiction books about minibeasts. We will continue developing our number recognition and subitsing with songs like '5 speckled frogs'. 

This term is really about the children developing friendships, problem solving, turn taking, resolving conflict and working out ways to do things independently in preparation for their transition to big school in September. We are very much looking forward to following the children's own interests to see where our learning takes us, and supporting each child where they require us. This time of year really allows for so much incidental learning which we are very excited about! 

 

 

Weather

We will be spending lots more time in our outdoor environment so please ensure your child attends pre-school with a sun hat and sun cream daily and a raincoat and welly boots!

‘Widgit’ in Pre-school

We use ‘widgit’ signs and symbols to help us learn the new words and vocabulary in our stories. These are published on the website but please ask us if you would like a copy in your home language as we really value dual languages and recognise the importance of you being able to share this learning with you at home.

Makaton

Miss Potts comes to play at Pre-School on a Monday and Friday to show us how to use Makaton. This is to help us express and communicate our wants and needs. Last term, the whole class learnt how to say yes please and no thank-you, say what fruits they like to eat and make choices independently using their Makaton skills.

Phonics fun

In Pre-school this term, we will continue to engage in fun activities to support our phonics development. We are really focusing on our speaking and listening skills, learning to distinguish the sounds we hear, patterns of speech and sounds of speech. We are having great fun using our bodies to make sounds like clapping, stomping, patting, rubbing and clicking our fingers. We are also learning to do this loudly, softly, fast and slowly!

What a busy term we have ahead of us!

Mrs Bolt and the Pre-school team