Well what a busy week! But for the children the highlight was the walk we went on yesterday that ended up becoming a true expedition, complete with wall scaling, mud sliding and stone hoping!! It was an exercise in experiencing the great British winter weather first hand and the children had great fun! We didn’t find any hibernating animals though.
Next week we will be continuing with the winter and hibernation area of interest and creating a display for all the parents and carers 
to see. The children could tell us lots about hibernating animals and were keen to make hedgehogs so we made some lovely smelling coffee and chocolate playdough and they found sunflower seeds to use as spikes, some of the children chose to make random patterns of spikes and some chose to do precise rows of spikes, they were all very proud!
The letter sound for next week is v, a long stretched out vvvvvvvv sound. They have loved feeding the letter monster this week with jars of jam, jam sandwiches, jellyfish, and letter j that they had written. He’s now ready to eat volcanos, vanilla cakes and valentine cards!
The beginning of the week saw several children combining their life experiences and their new knowledge of Chinese New Year to create a bonfire like we have in Allendale, complete with safety cones! They built the fire, made sure it was safe, then ran around shouting ‘happy Chinese New Year’ and hugging and kissing their friends ‘because that’s what happens at new year’. Its wonderful to see them combining their own knowledge and new knowledge to create and recreate events!
We break up for half term on Friday 14th February and return on Monday 24th February, It doesn’t seem two minutes since we broke up for Christmas, I only hope I’m not ill over these holidays!!
I’ve had a few questions about extra sessions, how much they cost and how they can be booked, so I thought I would share some information about them. If you need or want an extra session just ring, email or pop in to see us, if it is short notice we will do our absolute best to accommodate your needs, we have a couple of spaces at each session currently so can normally accommodate requests. The cost of any extra sessions or lunches are added onto your next bill and the current costs are:
Morning session: £8.94 + 50p consumables
Lunch session: £3.25 – hot lunch an extra £2
Afternoon session: £8.13 + 50p consumables
Full day: £20.32 + £1 consumables
Our costs are kept low because we are a charitable organisation, therefore are able to pass many of the savings onto the service users. If you have any questions at all about extra sessions either on a regular basis or ad hoc please get in touch.
Some of you may have noticed that we have been moving about the areas at Pre-school and creating new ‘pods’ or areas. This is in response to the children’s interests and observations we have made about how they like to spend their time. This is a work in progress and we are involving the children, asking for their views and what is wanted and what is not! They are very vocal about what they do not want! We hope to have the reorganisation finished by the end of this half term, but don’t be surprised if you see more things appearing or disappearing, it depends what works and what doesn’t and what the children like and don’t, they are why we are here and it is the children that we want to be happy, engaged and having fun! If you want to come in and spend time at a session to see what we get up to or to help out please get in touch, we love family members volunteering at Pre-school and the children love visitors!
We hope those who are able to make it to the swish party have a wonderful time tonight! Well done to the committee for all the organising they have done!
Have a fabulous weekend everyone and we will see you all next week! Dani, Helena, Hayley, Diane and Jane
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