After the Easter break we began working through a set of activities initiated by the Speech and Language Therapy Service. It is known as BLAST Boosting, Language Auditory Skills and Talking. This is a 6 week course of daily activities introducing children to verbs, concepts (size/colour), turn taking, listening and waiting.
It was very interesting watching the children as we worked through the daily tasks in small groups. Some gained in confidence as the weeks went on, initially being reluctant to talk but joining in confidently as time went by. Those whose speech was clear and confident were some times impatient  and it was good for them to learn to take their turn and wait quietly inbetween, not jumping in when it was someone else’s turn to speak.

While these activities were going on we tried some new ideas in the role play area, A castle theme, emergency services head quarters, chocolate factory and jungle camp. We also had a visit from some stick insects Mr Big and Mr Tiny!

We enjoyed lots of Easter and egg themed activities in March. We made Easter cards for our families and practised out counting skills and compare how many were in groups of eggs as we made chocolate nest cakes and counted out mini eggs to go on top. Hot cross buns for snack were the order of the day. We helped the Easter Rabbit deliver the correct number of Easter eggs to the residents of the Dolls House. Chick world made an appearance, the children enjoyed the small world role play with the fluffy yellow chicks. The children were shown a selection of eggs form a tiny zebra finch to the giant ostrich egg and then they practised their cutting skills cutting out egg shapes and gluing egg shell on them. At the end of term we had our Easter Bonnet Parade and mini fete. The bonnets were amazing and everyone was different.

Some of the children had been very interested in Pirates, fish and other beach themes so we decided to base our focus on the seaside. Staff collected resources on a trip to the beach and we made our own rock pool, we counted and sorted shells, explored heavy and light through weighing stones and sponges, used shapes to make boats, made boats from junk materials, sea creatures fron circle shapes and most exciting of all we explored real fish from the fish counter. We looked at mackerell, langustines, a red faced gurnard and a long legged octopus. Some children just wanted to look but others were happy to spend a long time touching and playing with the sea creatures. The role play area had resources from the Owl and the Pussy cat poem and we looked at treasure and money.

During January the children took part in Chinese New Year celebrations, they had great fun Dragon Dancing and hearing the story of Nien the Dragon. We had noodles and prawn crackers for snacks. We made fans and red envelopes and folded paper dragon puppets.

Our two new members of staff settled in well, soon becoming part of our happy team.

We started the new school year looking at Social Skills. We played lots of turn taking games and thought about our feelings and emotions.

We explored Autumn festivals through Halloween and Firework night activities and enjoyed a theme day based on the Longleat Safari Train.

As Christmas approached it was time for Father Christmas to join us to play for the morning to help everyone to make friends with him before the party.
We enjoyed lots of festive activities including icing biscuits ,decorating wreaths, making tree decorations from pine cones and pommanders from oranges studded with cloves.
The Nativity Play was enjoyed by all, especially the parts of the Christmas Story as recalled by the children.
Dave Hickory again gave us an excellent show during the party. The childrens faces were a delight to see as they watched, mesmerised by the hilarious magic tricks.

We said farewell to staff member Kirsty and welcomed two new ladies Sarah and Sharon to our team .

The children had lots of fun in July taking part in our camping day, reading stories in the tents, having some holiday snacks and dancing amongst the bubbles.

We also practised skills for ‘Big School’; dressing, opening lunch boxes, washing our hands, recognising our names, numbers and shapes and putting on our coats using the ‘put your coat on’ rhyme ‘Put your coat on the floor with your hood by your toes,

Put your arms in the holes and over it goes’.

The end of term was an emotional time as we said fairwell and good luck to all our ‘Big ones’.

They enjoyed their party at the newly refurbished Kalula kidz soft play centre and so did the staff.

For the children the highlight of the month was the visits from various Dads Grandads and Uncles as part of our Father’s Day Stay and Play sessions. They enjoyed trying out all our activities, jigsaws, play dough, drawing, reading stories, exploring the work shop, making paper aeroplanes and building things from junk. It was lovely to see how delighted the children were as they played with the visitors and I think all the visitors enjoyed their visits.

As part of the CAPT (Child Accident Prevention Trust) Safety Week we turned our focus to Keeping Safe. Staff provided a range of activities to help the children learn ; how to be safe with knives and scissors, keeping safe in the sun by wearing suncream, crossing the road safely and being careful with hot things.

Parents can find useful advice on accident prevention from the Child Accident Prevention Trust Website at http://www.capt.org.uk/

The Royal Wedding inspired our focus after the Easter activities and Bonnet Parade, we made crowns, bunting and coaches and even had a Royal Wedding snack Party With a Wedding cake and union jack hats.

Dancing round the May Pole caused great amusement as the children wound ribbons round the lady holding the May pole. We made flower garlands, counted flower petalsand practised our hand eye co-ordination when threading pasta and flower shapes to make May necklaces.

As the children had beeen enjoying animal role play we turned our focus to pets. The role play area became the Daisy Chain Pet Shop and Vets and we used our construction skills to make pet homes from junk boxes and toys such as lego and duplo. We counted button spots on paper dogs, made cow finger puppets, used magnetic shapes to make pet pictures, drew our own pets or one we wished to have and played the animal listening game.

The children were very interested in the visiting pets, we saw snails, Sarah’s daughter brought her puppy Fly in to see the children and one of the children’s snake came to visit, a baby boa called Selina.

We enjoyed activities with a focus on bears as result of children’s love of bears, some bring their favourite cuddlies with them to pre- school each day and we thought it would be nice to teach the children more about them. In the role play area we had the boat so the children could play out the story of the book ‘Sailor Bear’. We had porridge oats to explore instead of sand. Extending our maths skills comparing the sizes of bears, measuring them and matching them to chairs and beds and bowls from the Goldilocks story. We made honey sandwiches and bear caves thinking about what bears like to eat and where they live. This led to an introduction to the seasons and hibernation. We also enjoyed trying out the new bells Sarah bought us, making up lovely tunes.

OFSTED visited us on 9th March, we were extremely pleased to be judged OUTSTANDING in all areas.

After an enjoyable Christmas break it was back to Term 3. We enjoyed activities based on things that fly initiated by the children’s interest in paper aeroplanes. Bees made from marzipan, hot air balloons, bee hives, kites.
We explored Chinese New Year with noodle tasting, role play take away, Dragon Dancing, lantern making, lucky red envelope making.
Water was our next focus trying bubble printing, painting with ice cubes, writing our wishes on Wish Fish, number recognition was encouraged by catching ducks and seeing what number was on their bottom. We even introduced the children to the terms ‘first, second and third’ during a paper fish race. They also enjoyed small world role play with boats in a blue paper sea a novel way to explore texture.