An arty challenge - 4th February 2021

  Hopefully you have all received your latest lockdown goody pack today!  You will find included some tissue paper and some black card to help you join in with this week's challenge. 

#InspiredToLearn - Lockdown 2 - Week 5 Challenge

We have been asked by Window Wanderland to take part in a Dorchester Wide community event!  

Window Wanderland is coming to Dorchester on 19th-21st February, 6-9pm.

This event asks people to decorate a window at home as part of a window trail around our local community.

Window Wanderland’s aim is to bring the whole community together to create a magical outdoor gallery of hope and solidarity, at this difficult time.

 

They are asking everybody, from individuals to businesses, to register and create a window display on the theme, 

 

'A Brighter Future.'

 

All are invited to view the wonderful windows and Dorchester's community spirit on a safe, Covid-friendly evening walk.

It would be great if you would consider signing up and creating a window even if you don’t live in the local community or want to take part in the actual event.

 

If you do want to be part of the trail, registration is quick and simple at: www.windowwanderland.com/Dorchester

 

If you have enjoyed getting Arty with your own windows and fancy an extra challenge how about making a Jiggly Jelly Fish to hang in a shop window?

Then you need #InspiredToLearn EXTRA ARTY CHALLENGE!

We have been approached by Store6 in Poundbury to help us decorate their windows with your models of Jellyfish made from recycled materials.  If you fancy joining in and seeing your design in a shop window during the window wanderland event, please bring your completed jellyfish to school by next Friday 12th February and place it in the box inside the front entrance.  Please add your name and a hanging thread to your design so that it can be hung up for all to see!

Don't forget to look out for your design if you take part in the Window Wanderland Event between the 19th and 21st of February.

Saturday 10th June - Summer fayre

The Prince of Wales Summer Fayre is this Saturday 10^th June 11-2pm! Do please come along, bring family and friends.

A football tournament, activities and games for children, BBQ, bouncy castle, skittles, prizes to be won! The event is solely to raise funds for our school and Pre-School. Finally, if you do feel you could help man a stall then do please sign up in the foyer of the main school or over at Pre-school. More helpers mean that everyone can enjoy the event.

Friday 9^th June – This day is a ‘non School uniform’ day – Please bring in chocolates and wine to donate towards the fayre tombola’s please. We do also need cakes for the café and teddies too!

We look forward to seeing you there!

Mrs Mewett, Julia Nineham and the POWSA committee

Welcome !

Welcome back to Pre School for a very exciting, interesting fun year.
We hope you have all had a lovely summer holiday, and enjoyed the super weather.

For the rest of this week and next week we will be recalling what we did in the summer holidays, and recording the children's thoughts and encouraging them to draw pictures about what they have enjoyed.
We also have some lovely paint activities, making pictures of ice creams, and using them to create a number display.

Starting back at pre school don't forget your child will probably still need a hat as the forecast is good, and a bag with a change of clothes if you feel your child needs one.

There will be a parents get together the week of the 15th September,( letter next week). At that time we will giving out changing bags so you can keep a change of clothes in the cloakroom, plus lots of exciting news and routines for your child's year at pre school.

looking forward to seeing you all
Pre School team

THANK YOU

A very big thank you to all our very generous parents for all our lovely gifts.
The Carluccios vouchers were a most unexpected gift and a lovely surprise, which we will all enjoy very much.
 Thank you all for being so kind, we have had a super year and hope the children have enjoyed exploring and learning with us as much as we have enjoyed being with them.
Thank you once again from all the pre school team.

READING CHALLENGE !!!!!!!!!!!!

The summer reading challenge at the library runs from 5th July until 6th September.

There is a challenge for early years, so your child will be able to take part.
Just visit the library fill in a registration card and collect your Mythical Maze book mark.
Your child then borrows and reads or listens to books and gets a poster and stickers when the books are returned.
Every time you go to the  library your child will get more stickers on their challenge poster.
When you have completed the challenge your child will receive a medal and a certificate will be presented in school assembly in October.

The children really love taking part in this challenge, its fun, its free and its good for you,
so get involved in the summer holidays.
There are also other free activities at the library including a Myths and Legends dance workshop on 28th July, creative family art workshops.

So take part in the Mythical Maze summer reading challenge and enjoy.   Amanda

correction

please note the dates for next week on the last blog are now correct
Amanda

the last week

The children have absolutely loved our activities this past week. We took our inspiration from a poster of the Tour de France and a visit to sports day on Monday morning.
The children had lots of ideas of sports and activities they would like to do from bike rides, to football, basketball and hockey. So we have been doing these all week and more.
We had some yummy snacks as well. lots had a go at squeezing oranges, then we loved the fresh juice to drink.
We went to watch the staff versus school netball and football matches on Wednesday afternoon, we made a lovely picnic to take with the children making egg sandwiches.

So.. as I mentioned in the last blog our last them is Captain Flynn and the dinosaur books. The children asked for pirates and dinosaurs as two of the things they would like to play with, so we decided on the books as they are so popular.

Lots to remember next week, and things to take home.
please return book bags
barbeque 16th
fish and chip lunch 17th
theatre 18th

Amanda and pre schoolteam

Bugfest!!!!!

WOW!  The Tuesday morning children were so lucky today to join the rest of the school for an hour of bugs, some of them were very big,... spiders, millipedes, scorpions, some of them were very long, snakes, and some of them were deadly ! one of the members of staff found the spider a bit difficult! however the children were brilliant even though the music was quite loud and they were sitting at the front. well done pre school! Earlier in the morning at story time we talked about important things to remember in Reception class and we decided one of the most important things is good listening, and they did that.

We continue with healthy week enjoying lots of outside games and healthy foods and drinks, so far the fresh orange juice the children squeezed themselves was very popular, as was the strawberry milkshake today. We have also been talking about sun safety.
lots more to come.

Thank you for all your replies  to the barbeque on the 16th its not to late for a late acceptance.
Don't forget our fish and chip lunch on the 17th Mr Gibson is looking forward to joining us.
Theatre visit on Friday 18th. as you have probably seen the plans have changed slightly, do reply if your child is coming, the theme is pirates, so come dressed up as a pirate or princess.

The books next week will be the Capt Flynn and the pirate dinosaurs books. Amanda

healthy me week

Hello everyone,
We have been really enjoying the sunshine this week, the children are loving our new water activity centre, we have had lots of great thinking about how we can us it, how water travels and what happens if I......
The superhero and fairies have been so popular, with lots of dressing up and imaginative games, using all our junk modelling resources to make lots of interesting models etc. Erin our student has been making some lovely sparkly hats and masks as well with the children.

The swop day went really well Wednesday, thank you for your patience, the children enjoyed the change and a picnic at snack time, and it really helps the younger children. next one 10th July.

The coming week we join the school for a healthy me week.
The activities will include, football, bat and ball games, obstacle courses and dancing.
We are going to talk about being safe in the sun,  the children will be able to make pictures and posters about how we can look after ourselves in the sun.

Of course we will be thinking about food, and will be making smoothies, fresh juice, and milkshakes. Potato wedges and dips for snack, healthy sandwiches and much more. everyone will be able to have a go at a number of these food activities, they will be for snack and won't be coming home.
 However we would love to hear what you favourite healthy foods are in your family, fruit or vegetables? salads or pasta, juice or smoothies, do let us know on a wow or even a piece of paper.

All these activities are important to your child's physical development, moving and handling and health and self care.

We will be watching some of the sports days, and the school skipathon on Friday.




Don't forget your slips for the barbeque, fish and chip lunch.

pre school team

remember!!!!!

Parents,
Don't forget we are swopping classrooms with nursery tomorrow for the whole morning so please arrive at the nursery door. pick up at 12 noon from nursery, pick up at all other times from pre school.


Also please remember if you have organised for someone else to pick up your child you must hand in a signed permission  slip, unless this is regular and you have filled in a form.


The reception and pre school teams are sorry but the barbeque is only for reception and preschool children. cold drinks will be available for parents and older siblings.


pre school team

20th Birthday Party POWSA Message

Your Country Fair needs YOU!!!

I hope you are all looking forward to this weekend.  Planning is well underway, and we here at party HQ are all ready.  There is still time to prebook your tickets and food, so dig out that booking form, fill it out and hand it in to the school office.We are still looking for volunteers to help on the day, so please consider signing up for just one hour.  If we all do a little bit we all get to enjoy the party with our friends and families as well as helping out our fantastic school.  The sign up sheet is in the staff  room, so if you wish to volunteer please ask at the school office.Fingers crossed for lovely weather!  See you on Saturday.Kate and the POWSA team

birthdays

hello everyone,
We had a great week last week exploring our whole school theme of India, the children did some lovely work making biscuits, elephant pictures, peacocks and pictures of Indian puppets, and looking at maps, however when asked the children all said they enjoyed the food! We had nan bread, popadoms, chutneys, dip and korma. We also used a pestle and mortar to grind spices and herbs, chilli and garlic, which some of the children really loved, and the playroom smelt wonderful!

Thank you so much to all the parents who brought something from India it certainly added to the week and gave us lots to look at and plan from.

This week as a school we celebrate our 20th birthday, so we thought we would enjoy some birthday party activities which will start with reading Shirley Hughes 'Alfie gives a hand'
The children will be writing party invitations, making masks, and dressing up with the theme of superheros or fairies. The costumes we are using are pre schools, which gives the children the opportunity to invent their own superhero, so please do not send your child into preschool wearing a costume, we want them to use their imagination.

There are lots of dates coming up with farewell activities for the children to enjoy, do look out for letters, I will blog a complete list soon. Amanda and team

India week

This week we join in with the school's India week.
We will start the week by showing the children where India is on the globe and  asking the children how  they think they might get there.
 We are then going to look at some photographs of the country, people and animals, and ask them what they would like to do and learn about.
Our learning focus this week will be holding a pencil effectively and correctly. We have lots of activities planned for this stage of development, decorating elephants, chalking patterns, hand printing and collage.
On Friday there will be an Indian café in the school hall, so for that event we will be making biscuits in the shape of animals that live in India eg elephants, monkeys.
For snack we will be enjoying some different Indian breads and popadoms, and the children will have the opportunity to smell some of the spices as well.
Do you have anything from India or a picture that your child would like to share with the group?

The swimming pool is open again, so afternoon swimming starts again.

         Amanda and pre school team

a bus journey

We continue our journeys theme, with a bus journey. We are going to look at some bus journey stories and see where the children would like to go, and of course sing 'the wheels on the bus song,'
 making up some new verses.

This week we are also going to have a mathematical theme, with some new fun number games for us to play, including fishing games and bingo, with lots of opportunities to enjoy counting and recognising numerals.

train journeys

The children have been enjoying our topic about trains which we plan to continue this week.
 Some of the children have been discovering about trains using the internet, and have been making posters about what they have found out, choosing their favourite pictures to illustrate them.
 The children have also been recalling where they have been on a train, and where they would like to go, we have written for them and the children have coloured in pictures to go with their thoughts.
All these pieces of work are on the board along with some lovely big train track pictures, do look out for them.
The children have also been role playing train journeys outside, and this week for mathematical development we are going to make tickets, buying and selling them to train travellers.
We will also continue to explore our new water activity centre, the children have come up with some amazing ideas of how they want to use the water centre, including seeing if we can make a moat around the climbing frame. great creative thinking!

We continue to enjoy train stories and poems, and have made a very long list of all the words we can think of beginning with t. the list is on the whiteboard in room 2, and its all the children's own thinking.
This coming week the children will also have the opportunity to make train models, do some watercolour painting and make fathers day cards.

Amanda and the pre school team

trains

The children are really interested and enjoying the start of our topic, journeys, starting with 'trains' Some of the children have done some track printing and are now drawing trains and scenery on their pictures.
 We asked the children how we could learn about trains, the answers included books, songs and the computer, so today with Julia some of the children have been making posters using the computer. They are on the big display board, do take a look.

Great excitement today as our new water activity equipment arrived, lots of fun this afternoon and for many sessions ahead, we will display some photos, and it will be out for all to see. So thank you to the fundraising committee and all parents who helped and contributed to enable us to buy it.

An idea for a WOW, have you been on a train? where did you go?

Thank you to the few parents who came to stay and play, next one Wednesday 11th June.

The reading information session is open to all parents. do try and come along.

Amanda and pre school team

Here comes summer

Welcome back to the second half of the summer term.
Our theme for the half term will be 'here comes summer' and our first topic will be going on a journey, starting with a train ride.
We have lovely poems to enjoy and songs to sing all about trains, the children will also enjoy role play making trains and going on a train ride.
Have you been on a journey this holiday,?  if so why not fill in a WOW so we can make a display.


Don't forget stay and play this Wednesday morning 8.30 until 9.00.


Amanda

The beach and sharing a shell

Those of us lucky enough to join Reception class at the beach on Wednesday had a lovely time. We couldn't have had better weather.
The children made sandcastles, dug tunnels and dams and collected shells, pebbles and other 'beach things' which we brought back to pre school to use for activities this week.


All the children will be using them in  Mathematics, counting  weighing and measuring.in  Art we shall be creating collages  and using shells and stones for  small world activities.
We are also going to continue on with our book 'sharing a shell' , talking about friendships and using the book for rhyming activities.


We will be having two stay and play sessions one this week on Thursday 22nd May and one on Wednesday 4th June. The door will open at 8.30am and you can stay and play with your child, there will be many activities to enjoy.
Remember, you can arrive any time from 8.30 but you cannot leave your child until 8.55am.


If the good weather continues please tick the sheet outside the pre school door if you have put suncream on your child.


The children had lots of fun taking part in the bike and scooter ride. certificates are on there way home to all those who took part.
A big thank you to all those who have sent in sponsorship money and to all those who helped or came along to the summer fair, a good time was had by all.

Amanda and pre school team

We were very busy last week, lots of the children were able to take part in the sponsored ride, however because of the weather Thursdays ride was postponed until next Thursday the 15th.please bring your child's vehicle in with their helmet.
 We will not let your child take part without a helmet.




On Tuesday the children will have the  opportunity to visit the Life Education Van, so our activities about healthy vegetables and exercise will help the children to enjoy the visit, thinking about the effects of exercise on their bodies, and the importance of healthy breakfasts.






The children have also particularly enjoyed a maths activity, estimating how many peas in a pod, then counting how many they really have and recording by writing the number, there is a display of their maths writing for you to see.


We are also making a poster of our favourite breakfasts, we will then turn our answers into a graph, look out for that.


Wednesday sees the start of our topic about the beach and rock pools. One of the stories we will be reading is 'sharing a shell' by Julia Donaldson. This is a lovely story about friendship, if you are not familiar with it look out for it, we always enjoy the story at pre school.


Have a go estimating how many at home with your child its great fun!


DON'T FORGET THE SUMMER FAIR ON SATURDAY.  Can you help?    Amanda
?

Thank You !

A big thank you to all our grandparents who came to our 'Grandparents elevenses' this morning.
We all agreed it was a lovely morning and the children really enjoyed showing their grandparents round. All the children were involved, and as usual the grandparents were brilliant at  including those children whose grandparents couldn't make it.


We have put some photographs on display, and some of the children have enjoyed writing words to go with the display.