As this half term’s focus has been learning about the natural world around us, the children have been exploring and investigating the school grounds, including the Jubilee Garden.  They’ve found flowers, fir cones, feathers and ladybirds giving the children plenty of opportunities to talk about and describe what they see.  The children have also been responsible for watering Playgroup’s daffodils and have been looking every day at how the flowers grow from bud to bloom.  This growing theme will continue through to next term with cress growing, real live frogspawn and the planting of runner bean seeds!

The children have also been exploring inside school, with trips to Nursery, visits to see the goldfish in Year Two and one afternoon a few children had the chance to listen to some very loud steel pans being played in the hall!  The goldfish visits went down so well Playgroup now have their very own fish bowl and three goldfish – thank you Miss Kirwin!  The trips to Nursery will continue throughout the Summer term to build on the children’s understanding and awareness of their forthcoming transition.  These visits will link in to discussions and activities about the children growing, including measuring and weighing and looking at baby photos!

Links to the EYFS:

PSE – show care and concern for living things

KUW – show curiosity and interest in the features of living things

KUW – develop an understanding of growth and changes over time

On Thursday 19th April, the children received a surprise visit from Fiona, a Veterinary Nurse from The Chestnut Veterinary Group in Ware.  Fiona bought in some animals for the children to see and ask questions about.  They met Bam Bam who was a very slow tortoise, Annie the ferret who was very quick and wouldn’t keep still for one second and three very tiny and very scared ducklings.  John, Matthew and Mark were just three days old!

As we slowly shake off the remnants of Winter, Playgroup is ready to gently embrace the warmth of the Spring sunshine. Our traditional home corner has been transformed into a friendly Flower Shop with tills and pretend money and the courtyard into a Garden Shed with plenty of role play props from bulbs to brooms, wheelbarrows to wellies and hoses to hats!

Towards the end of term we will move on to everything Easter with chicks, eggs and bunnies galore! Through these play experiences, the main focus of learning will be numbers as labels and for counting as well as learning about the natural world around us.

Playgroup is open as usual, yesterday we had a lot of fun making a snow man.

We raised a fantastic and festive £400 at our Christmas Fair in December and thank everyone for their contribution. There was a selection box of things to make, eat and buy and even Santa took some time out of his busy schedule to ride in on his sleigh and meet the children. Ho! Ho! Ho! The funds raised will be used to buy some new tricycles for the children so they can practice their pedaling skills!