Minnows

Preschool education is the provision of education for children before the commencement of statutory education, usually between the ages of two and five.

Our philosophy is quite simple but also effective in creating an informal but structured learning environment where the children can feel a real part of it. Children can then develop naturally and without any inhibitions and be able to express themselves more freely. Learning should be fun!

Spring Newsletter:

Our first topic of the term was farms and farming and what these mean to us.  We made our own fields with furrows, experimenting with texture and colour and how tools can create interesting effects on paper.  We thought about animals and where foods came from, what vegetables and plants might be grown and what machinery and animals help the farmer.  We experimented with cress seeds and different environments and conditions.  The children were very excited to see that the numbers 3 and 1 that they had scribed in the soil to sow their seeds, had turned into cress number 3 and 1.  We harvested the cress, practising our cuting skills and even got to sample it in egg and cress sandwiches!  Thank you to Erin and snowflake for the eggs-delicious!! 

Following the excitment of farming, we learnt about people who help us.  Further to the children’s initial ideas of mummy and daddy, we thought of lots of people that are there to help us when we need it.  We learnt about the police, dressing up as police officers, collecting evidence and having a close look at a police radio, handcuffs and badge before exploring a police car.  The siren was really, really loud and made us all jump!!  Thank you very much to Helen Priestley for sparing the time to come into school and tell us all about what she does and allowing us to investigate her car.  During this topic, we were also lucky enough to make use of the “Early Years Fire Service” box supplied by the fire service.  Including firefighter outfits, jigsaws, games and stories this kit helped us to learn about what the fire service do and how we can keep safe in our own homes.  We looked at a smoke alarm and talked about why they are so important and how we get help from the fire brigade, ambulance, police or coastguard in an emergency.  We used what we learnt to make our own fire engine and firefighter Ellie for our display.

Before breaking up for half-term, we focused on celebrations, including Chinese New Year, Shrove Tuesday and Ben the Bear’s birthday.  We had lots of fun learning about Chinese culture and the ways in which they celebrate their new year – for 2010, the year of the tiger!  We experienced Chinese music, made Chinese moon cakes to celebrate the dawning of the new lunar and made decorations.  We even tried eating noodles with chopsticks and answering the morning register in Chinese which was lots of fun.  A particular interpretation of ‘nee nao’ as ‘nee honk’  kept us all entertained!!  Although Shrove Tuesday fell in the half-term period, we also got in the pancake spirit early – making, tasting and racing with them (in that order!)