This week we have been exploring colour mixing, based on the Rainbow Fish story. The children loved combining primary colours to make secondary colours. The transformation always seems to delight them!

We also made some rainbow play dough and spent all week encouraging them not to mix it as we wanted to avoid sludgy brown play dough for as long as possible! 😀

Outside the children formulated a game using some buckets that we had recently bought. The aim of the game was to throw the beanbags into the bucket to score a point. This activity had a lot of learning benefits. The children could practise their motor skills (throwing and catching an object) and also learn how to share and take turns. In addition, the scores were tallied up and counted, which is a valuable maths skill.

It’s always lovely when the children share their achievements with us. If you child does something great, please let us know. For example- swimming 5 metres! 👏

This week the staff had the opportunity to have some training on healthy eating in the early years from some student nutritionists at Plymouth University (so no biscuits at that staff meeting! 😉) It was very interesting and made us all realise that there is always more to learn. One of our parents is also trained in nutrition and has kindly provided us with some guidelines that we thought you might be interested in:

Ideas for healthy packed lunches for pre-schoolers.

Savoury-

3x plain rice cakes with 1x medium carrot, 1x babybel/ portion of cheese, 1x slice turkey or ham.

2x oatcakes with 5cm portion of cucumber, triangle of omelette or pizza, 3-4 cherry tomatoes, 10 sugar snap peas.

3x oatcakes / plain rice cakes / corn cakes / ryvita / wholemeal bread sticks chopped into pieces with 50g of hummus / vegetarian pate, 1x medium carrot, 1/2 red pepper, 1x cheese portion.

Wholemeal / multigrain sandwich filled with egg mayonnaise / tuna mayonnaise / grated cheese / low-fat soft cheese / hummus / veg pate / slice of turkey or ham with chopped carrot / cucumber / cherry tomatoes / sugar snap peas / sweet peppers.

Sweet / snacks (all handfuls are child-sized)-

3-4 dates with half an apple or pear, chopped.

Handful of raisins, a small satsuma or similar and half an apple or pear, chopped.

Handful of chewy banana and blueberries.

Handful of dried mango and half a large banana.

Handful of grapes (halved), half an apple or pear, 2x handfuls of home-made popcorn.

Small yoghurt, blueberries / grapes / apple / pear.

The best drink is water!