pre-school planning

 by riverside

Boosting our Pre-schoolers’ Literacy Skills

Learn about the work we do with our pre-schoolers to prepare them for school

To prepare our pre-schoolers that will start school in September 2017, Mary spends time each week playing games with the children to develop their phonics and literacy skills. The children also focus on a letter of the week and are asked to sound out and write down (with help) items beginning with that particular letter.

Additionally, if your child starts school next year, you’ll receive a wallet in January with a reading book or puzzle sheet to look at with your child at home.

The idea is to help your little one become familiar with taking books home to read when they start school. Also in the wallet is a reading record. This is so you can write feedback about your child’s reading, for example, what they enjoyed or what they found tricky.

Mary ran the scheme earlier this year with our pre-schoolers and feedback was extremely positive. One parent said how much their daughter’s listening and language skills had improved in the months before starting school.

Examples of the children's writing skills

Examples of the children’s writing skills

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 by riverside

Caribbean Capers for our Pre-schoolers

Feeling hot, hot, hot! Our pre-schoolers have been exploring the Caribbean ocean and islands.

The pre-schoolers have been having ‘a totally tropical time’ learning all about the Caribbean.
As well as doing crafty activities, such as, making jellyfish, beach scenes, seahorses and octopi, we’ve been learning about what lives in the deep depths of the ocean. The children have also got stuck into making a big art display about the children’s story The Rainbow Fish.

To begin building the children’s maths skills, we’ve been playing the adding and subtraction fish game. Whilst to aid literacy and language development, we’ve been looking at the letters that make up the days of the week, matching sounds to words with phonics games and writing words beginning with the letter ‘O’, such as, ‘Octopus’.

Our pre-schoolers have also been playing simple, fun games such as searching for fish in sparkly water (which involved plenty of splashing!) and a sandcastle building competition in our lovely indoor sandpit.

Continuing our Caribbean theme, we‘re about to start learning about sea-fairing pirates. Watch out for our pirate ship art, treasure maps and sensory trays full of gold! Ahaaaaarr!

: Our under the sea display including our big sparkly rainbow fish and smiley octopus

Our ‘under the sea’ display including big sparkly rainbow fish and smiley octopus

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Pre-schoolers enjoy Rainforest Adventures

Our pre-schoolers have been learning all about the Rainforest – and what a fantastic time they’ve had!

As well as playing in their own rainforest, they’ve got to know the different rainforest animals by making fantastic animal art. They’ve also made the lifecycle of a butterfly covering the four different stages: egg, larva, pupil and adult. It’s hanging up in the pre-school room if you want to take a look.

We’ve also read the story Monkey Puzzle by Julia Donaldson. After hearing the story the children got busy creating a magnificent display board including a brown wooly monkey, handprint parrots and bubble frogs.

Lots of the children love butterflies and frogs, so we’ve spent time talking about the different stages of butterfly and frog development. As you can imagine, the children loved making their own frog spawn by mixing shaving foam with tea leaves!

To help develop our pre-schooler’s numeracy skills, we’ve also played games such as counting ladybird spots and matching animal prints.

Of course, what theme would be complete without cooking?

The children have cooked up a (rainforest) storm, including scrumptious ladybird pizzas and butterfly cakes.

The children’s swinging Monkey Puzzle display

The children’s swinging Monkey Puzzle display

From egg to butterfly – our pre-schooler's huge butterfly life cycle

From egg to butterfly – our pre-schooler’s huge butterfly life cycle

The Caribbean’s coming to The Riverside Day Nursery

Next stop on our pre-schoolers world tour is the sunny Caribbean.

Starting Monday 4th July our pre-schoolers will be able to enjoy summer on the beach.
We’ve got plenty of Caribbean capers planned, from messing and mushing about with clay to making dangly jellyfish and a big leafy palm tree.

We’ll also be playing games such as ‘seaside bingo’ and the very hungry shark game (yikes!). Plus, we’ll be rolling out some literacy favourites – Commotion in the Ocean, The Rainbow Fish and Smiley Shark – there’s plenty for the children to get their teeth into (sorry).

The pre-school planning schedule will be emailed out to parents in the usual way, in the meantime if you have any questions let us know.

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