This half term Blue & Green and the pre-school room will be focussing on planting and the environment. We will be growing vegetables and flowers and attempting to grow a tepee with sweet peas and runner beans!

Pre-school have tiny caterpillars, which the children will watch as they grow, change to chrysalis and finally emerge as butterflies which will be set free.

WB 12^th April For the first few weeks we will be planting vegetables indoors in pots and in the back garden. The children will also be growing their own sunflowers, which they will take home to continue to grow in their garden.

If you could send us some pictures on Tapestry to show us how they are doing would be fantastic!

Blue and Green room will be making bug B&B’s using empty 4 pint milk bottles.

Pre-school will be doing a runner bean experiment in clear plastic bottles.

WB 4^th May Pre-school will be learning about rhyming and alliteration.

Blue and Green will be reading rhymes and doing rhyming activities.

WB 10^th May Blue and Green will be getting the easel out for ‘What’s in the garden’ painting, and Pre-school will be doing I-pad activities.

WB 17^th May We will be preparing for ‘Bee Day’. Which is 20^th May.

This week we will be making bee bombs (wildflower seed balls) in the tuff spot and making bee headbands. Pre-school will be making bee houses. We will also be explaining to the children how important bees are to the environment, and what we can do to help them.

On Thursday 20^th May we will ‘bee’ asking everyone to either come to playgroup dressed as a bee or wear something yellow and black.

WB 24^th May Pre-school will be making clay mini beasts and going out and about with the cameras.

Blue and Green will be making mini or large beasts! With the junk modelling and going for a bug hunt around the playground and back garden for ideas.

This half term Blue & Green room will be focusing on shape recognition. We will be going on walks around the building and the playground pointing out everyday shapes in the environment. This is something you too can do at home, when out on a walk or in the house. Alongside the shape art activities will be shapes in the tuff spot, shape stories and weighing scales to put their shapes in.

Blue and Green Room Activities:

Week beginning 4th Jan: We will be doing dot paintings using cotton buds, cotton reels, round sponges and anything else the children might find that is round!
WB 11th Jan: We will be painting with square wooden blocks, Duplo etc
WB 18th Jan: We will be making triangular collages, then threading them together to make bunting.
WB 25th Jan: We will be making rectangle robot pictures.
WB 1st Feb: Will be our shape finale! Where we will be making shape trees and seeing how much the children have learnt about shapes during the last few weeks.
WB: 8th Feb We will be celebrating Chinese New Year.

Pre-school room Activities:

WB 4th Jan: We will be making snowmen pictures, with the children attempting to cut out their own circles. Alongside this will be counting numbers and matching numerals.
WB 11th Jan: We will be doing a science experiment, to make snowflake crystals. Alongside this we will be making snowflake pictures using wax crayons and water colours.
WB 18th Jan: We will be going on a Winter walk to the pond to use our cameras. We will also be collecting twigs for the following weeks activity.
WB 25th Jan: We will be making Winter trees with the twigs we have collected the week before. The children will be using cotton buds to paint snow, which will help their fine motor skills.
WB 1st Feb: We will be acting out the ‘We’re going on a Bear Hunt’ story
WB 8th Feb :We will be celebrating Chinese New Year.

During the lockdown, we stayed open for children of keyworkers and were delighted to be able to support our parents this way.

We reopened for all children on June 8th, dividing into two bubbles and implementing new routines to reduce the risk of transmission. We learnt and improved our ways of working and are now confident in our approach to this.

We will be opening as usual after the summer holidays, with all children in one bubble. This means we can offer our usual timetable and rooms, with our preschool room running some mornings subject to demand. Our outside play equipment will be back in use, and we will be continuing with our new hand washing routines!

Thank you so much to all our parents who have continued to support us over the past few months. We can’t wait to see all the children again in September!

If lockdown happens again, we are now much better prepared to face the challenges ahead of us!

We would like to say a massive thank you to two of our families who voluntarily raised money for us during lockdown. We would normally have had our Easter egg hunt and Summer BBQ fundraising events, but both of these had to be cancelled.

Firstly, just a week into lockdown and on the morning of what should have been our Easter egg hunt event, one of our parents Sally raised over £400 for us, with a live online child-friendly Easter-themed yoga session! Many of our children joined in and really enjoyed it. Thank you so much Sally for doing this.

Then, in July, one of our children Charlotta raised an incredible £1,133 for us, completing a 14 mile round trip sponsored bike ride into Cambridge and back. What an incredible achievement and thank you so much to Charlotta and her family for arranging this.

Also, the Comberton Friendship club very kindly donated their proceeds raised from a charity coffee morning they held before lockdown in January. 

We really appreciate the generosity of our families and supporters so much, in these difficult times. All money raised will go towards improving the playgroup facilities and provision.