This week a lot of the preschool teachers have been experiencing the outdoors and the natural world.

Mrs Matthews and Mr David were once again at preschool on Tuesday and they were very busy cleaning and tidying. When they were getting the sandpit ready for the summer, they found quite a lot of wildlife!

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Mrs Back has also spent lots of time in the sunshine. This week she ate her breakfast outside and was joined by a visitor eating his! Do you know what sort of animal he is?

She has also walked around Crownhill Fort lots of times. Can you see the old cannon and thin rectangular windows which they used to shoot arrows from? A long, long time ago the moat around the fort would have been filled with water to stop the baddies from getting in! On her walks Mrs Back saw lots of lovely wild flowers and patterns in the bark on the trees. She wonders if you could do some bark rubbings on your walks? Perhaps you would like to post any that you do on tapestry?

Miss Warren has been doing some planting in her garden. I wonder if you know what plants she is growing? They should be delicious when they are ready to eat! If you know what they are perhaps you could draw a picture of what they will look like and post it for Miss Warren?

Mrs Chapple and Phebe have been creative again and have made some beautiful jewellery outside in the sunshine. The bracelet that she has made has a hidden letter, perhaps you can find it?

She also walked Codie with Phebe and Aimee. It was very hot and so they took some water for Codie to drink. She hopes that you are drinking lots of water in the hot weather so that you don’t get dehydrated.

Mrs Matthews has been out walking too. Max has been learning about trees as part of his science work and they have done some rubbings on the leaves and bark (maybe they can show Mrs Back). The patterns that they made were very pretty. They also stopped for a photo shoot amongst the bluebells. Lovely!

I know that you enjoyed Mr David’s singing this week and so did the residents at Greenacres. It’s lovely to hear his stories too.

It’s been lovely to see all of your pets on tapestry. I thought you might like to see my dog Marge before we began to stay at home and now that we’ve been at home for a while. Like lots of us she can’t go for her usual haircut and she is getting very bushy!

As promised here are some tips for promoting school readiness for those of you who are due to move to primary school this September. These are the things we would be concentrating on this term, so its good to keep them in mind while you are at home.

Charateristics for School Readiness

Children who are ready for school should be able to:

• Be independent with toileting
• Dress themselves
• Understand expected levels or behaviour
• Take turns and share
• Sit still for a short period of time
• Separate well from parents/carers
• Ask for what they want and respond to others needs

Remember that these are just guidelines and that schools will realise that children starting this year may need a little bit of extra support with separating from mum and dad and getting into routines again. It would be good if you could continue to reinforce self care skills and dressing as mastering these makes a big difference when children start school.

You will have probably seen the post that Mrs Matthews put on tapestry regarding reconfirmation of the 30 hour codes. Just in case any of you missed it, here it is again:

Good morning, I know this message won’t apply to all but just so that I don’t miss anyone out by mistake.

This is just a reminder to parents to make sure you RECONFIRM your 30 hours childcare eligibility via the GOVERNMENT GATEWAY. You have to do this every 3 months and usually get a reminder when it’s time to do this.
However I received my reminder this morning and when I logged on my window to do this was between March 20th- April 17th. I had no other reminder. So please could you all just check your codes and make sure they have all been reconfirmed as it seems they are behind on the reminders.

Thank you very much

Sam Matthews 😊

Makaton sign and letter of the week are, as usual, on tapestry (plus an added musical bonus).  Please forgive my increasingly involved videos, my daughter keeps going all Alfred Hitchcock on me! 😂

Take care everyone and keep in touch! ❤️❤️❤️