Schools across the nation this week have been holding special road safety assemblies and lessons to bring awareness to this year’s Road Safety Week, 21-27 November.  The children here at Bengeo Playgroup have had plenty of opportunities to learn important pedestrian skills with our Stop! Look! Listen! song and talk about the importance of keeping safe in the car with the wonderful story ‘Teddy Takes A Tumble’.  As well as supporting the children’s imaginative play with our road safety set, parents have joined us to help take the children to our local pedestrian crossing on The Avenue so everyone could practice pressing the button and waiting for the green man.  The children have learnt to always hold hands, always buckle up and that traffic is dangerous.  Stay safe everyone!

As part of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), we must ensure the children are continuously introduced to different communities so that they can begin to know their own and other people’s cultures in order to understand and celebrate the similarities and differences between them. To help support this area of learning (Knowledge & Understanding of the World) we have set up a ‘Celebration’ corner, where artefacts, pictures and books will be displayed of a relevant festival every half term. During the last couple of weeks of this half term, we will be talking to the children about some of the different celebrations that will be going on around the world in December, one of which will be the Jewish holiday Hanukkah, which starts on December 20th.

The team were delighted to meet all the new families at the start of the Autumn term and over the course of their first few weeks with us, the children have gradually settled in and become familiar with our daily routine. As well as beginning to say goodbye with confidence, they have been busy getting to know names, checking out our toys and learning important skills such as hand washing and where to go if the fire bell rings.

This half term we will continue to build on the children’s interests and enthusiasms, but also introduce some new songs and activities to extend their learning. We will talk about and re-create firework displays, celebrate Children In Need and raise awareness of Road Safety Week to learn some important pedestrian skills.

Then it’ll be December and time to get ready for Christmas. There’ll be decorations to make, cards to write, gifts to wrap and we’ll even do some baking so the wonderful, festive scents of cinnamon and spice will float through the air! And listen out for a special visitor who will be joining us at our end of term Christmas Party with a special delivery for all the children! Ho Ho Ho!

Links to the EYFS : Creative Development

• being creative: responding to experiences, expressing and communicating ideas
• exploring media and materials
• creating music and dance
• developing imagination and imaginative play

Thank you very much to everyone who was involved in our Spring Fun Day back in May, which raised a truly staggering £1,600. The purpose of the event this year was to raise monies to buy some new equipment to improve the day to day running of the Playgroup and we are delighted to share with you our purchases.

First is the fantastic bespoke canopy in our courtyard – this wonderful construction has been designed with a water tank to collect the rainfall, which the children can recycle in the sandpit or digging area. Very eco-friendly! We also had the children’s pegs recycled and relocated to the entrance area. This has made a huge difference as it means we no longer have lots of outdoor shoes walking through our room every morning (which can be particularly yukky on those grim rainy days) and has also helped speed up things up when the children are being dropped off.

Another purchase was the very smart and very ‘grown up’ noticeboard, which has been installed by our signing in desk and where you’ll find information about forthcoming fundraising events and local activities etc. And finally, with the introduction of packed lunches this term and all day opening next term, a bright red lunchbox trolley and a rainbow of rest mats have been bought for those children who may stay all day and need an afternoon nap. THANK YOU ALL VERY MUCH!

Thank you to everyone who joined us on Monday evening for our AGM. It was a great success -not only did we have a fantastic turn out from our new parents joining us in September, but many have decided to join the Committee. This is truly wonderful and we very much look forward to working with you. Here’s to a great 2011/12!

To end this year we are going to focus the children’s play, activities and experiences around their families to really cement their sense of personal identity ready for the forthcoming transitions. The role play area will be transformed into a home and the courtyard into a back garden, with a washing line, pond and mini allotment! The children will be learning to listen to their friends and help and care for one another too.   In addition, we will be singing galore with the focus on number songs to support the children’s knowledge and use of numbers and counting in play.

Main link to the EYFS

	Area	Aspect	Learning Intentions
	PSE	Self Esteem & self confidence	self-confidence & self-esteeem is about having a sense of their own value and understanding the need for sensitivity to significant events in their own lives and other people’s lives sense of community is about how children understand and respect their own needs, views,  cultures and beliefs and those of other people
	KUW	Communities	communities is about how children begin to know about their own and other people’s cultures in order to understand and celebrate the similarities and differences between them in a diverse society
	PSRN	Numbers as labels and for counting	numbers as labels and for counting is about how children gradually know and use numbers and counting in play, and eventually recognise and use numbers reliably, to develop mathematical ideas and to solve problems

The Bengeo Playgroup Fun Day on 14th May was a great success.  Thankfully the weather was kind to us which helped contribute to it being very well

attended. There was a great variety of stalls, bouncy castle, raffle which resulted in a fantastic total of £1,653.74 being raised. A big thank you to

everyone who made donations, helped on the day and supported the Playgroup by attending.

Bengeo Playgroup has joined Hertfordshire’s Buggy Buddies campaign to encourage children to use the outdoors to learn about the world and be happy, healthy and safe.  This is a campaign that can be shared between practitioners and fathers/mothers/carers with activities that can be carried out at Playgroup and at home.  Its aim is to;

• encourage fathers, mothers and carers to walk or cycle and be active on their journeys with children
• promote children’s outdoor activity and their understanding of how important it is to keep us healthy and happy
• help children to learn about our world and how to look after it and stay safe

Breeze the butterfly, Baxter the Bee, Webster the spider, Poncho the caterpillar, Pipo the ant and Luna the Ladybird have all been introduced to the children and gone down a storm.  Following the successful Walk To School Week, we will continue to embed the Buggy Buddies activities into each term. So watch out – there could be a friendly bug coming to you soon! If you have any questions about this compaign, please speak to Mrs Carol Perrett who is co-ordinating the materials and resources. Thank you.

Bengeo Playgroup was awarded a GREEN rating this month by Hertfordshire County Council to comply with the new Code of Practice.  A GREEN rating means that Bengeo Playgroup is providing high quality early years provision and making accurate reflections and evaluations of their practice.

Well done to the staff and Committee for all their hard work!

If you have any questions, or would like to see a copy of our submitted R.A.G. Categorisation Form, then please speak to Sally, our Playgroup Leader.

This half term we are going to continue playing in small groups to help the children form friendships, with activities and experiences based around Growing. We will be looking at the life-cycles of caterpillars and tadpoles, planting cress seeds, looking at baby photos and measuring one another all to help the children develop an understanding of growth over time.

Main link to the EYFS

	Area	Aspect	Learning Intentions
	PSED	Making Relationships	the importance of children forming good relationships with others and working alongside others companionably
	KUW	Time	how children find out about past and present events relevant to their own lives or those of their families
	CD	Exploring Exploring Media & Materials	children’s independent and guided exploration of and engagement with a widening range of media and materials, finding out about, thinking about and working with colour, texture, shape, space and form in two and three dimensions.

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