Newsletter April 2023
Welcome back to Pre-school. I hope you all had a lovely Easter break.
I would like to welcome all our new children and their families to Pre-school this term.
Focus: Over the next few weeks we will explore the topic of ‘life cycles’ and learn about how flowers, frogs and butterflies grow. Later in the term we will have have some real caterpillars that we will watch as they grow, turn into cocoons and become butterflies. We will be planting seeds in our new outdoor pots and each child will plant their own seed and bring it home to watch it grow. We will also be making a little herb garden so the children can use all their senses to explore the smell and feel of the plants. Some of our focus stories linking to these topics will be, ‘The Tadpole’s Promise,’ ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ and ‘The Tiny Seed.’ We will also be celebrating the King’s coronation and will hold a special royal party on Friday 5th May. We will provide a picnic lunch for the children on that day.
Some of the children will be taking part in more focused phonics sessions at their own level where we will be practising listening skills as a priority but also learning letter sounds and copying/writing letters from their names and other words if the children are ready. The children will also learn about rhyme. We will be basing some of our plans around the early stages of the ‘Read Write Inc’ phonics’ programme which is used in Bollinbrook Primary School and if you google ‘Read Write Inc guide for parents’ there is lots of information on the website.
Parent Questionnaires: We will shortly be sending out some simple questionnaires about our setting for you to complete. We use the replies to these in helping to plan for improvement so would really appreciate you taking the time to fill them in.
Parent’s Evening: We will be holding a parent’s evening on Thursday11th May from 5-7.30pm in Pre-school. We will be putting up time slots on the cloakroom door for you to book in to see your child’s keyperson. Each slot will be 10 minutes long. If you do not usually drop off or collect your child just let us know what time would suit you via email and we can book you in.
School Leavers summer trip: We will be taking our school leavers to Gruff Outdoor Learning Centre in Marton for our summer trip. If you would like to have a look on their website you can see what the children will be getting up to- www.gruffoutdoorlearning.co.uk
We will be sending more details about the trip in the next few weeks with consent forms and pricing etc. If your child is not a school leaver and normally attends on a Friday and they are 2- years- old, we can rearrange their session for another morning/day that week. If your child is not a school leaver but they are 3-years-old and normally attend on a Friday, they will be invited to come on the trip with us.
Sun Cream: If the weather forecast is for sunny weather could you please ensure you have applied sun cream to your child before they come into Pre-school and that they have a named bottle of sun cream in their bag. Could you also send them in with a sun hat. If your child is in Pre-school all day, we can help them re apply cream after lunch.
Spare clothes: Could you ensure that your child always has a spare set of clothes in their bags. We will be exploring lots of water activities over the coming weeks and could well need them! Please also ensure that outer clothes, particularly coats, hats and the Pre-school sweatshirts and cardigans are named, as well as lunch boxes, drink bottles and any containers within them. Thank you.
Caroline Bickerton Pre-school Manager
