Hope you had a lovely Summer Holiday, managed to get out during the nice weather and had a well-deserved break.
We are all set to welcome the children back on Tuesday 5 September – please note that this date is earlier than the DMat Schools are returning.

Toddlers is back on Monday 11 September

Kim continues to run our toddler sessions on Mondays from 9:15 to 11:15 for 0-4 year olds. Please email to book your place. First session is free, thereafter £3 per session which should be paid on the day, additional siblings are 50p. Fees include a healthy snack and tea/coffee and biscuits are available for parents/carers. Email toddlers@highamptonpreschool.co.uk for more information and to book your place.
Please note that even if your child/children attend our regular sessions, you are also welcome to come to Toddlers. We offer a variety of resources and a craft or creative activity for you to do with your child during these, stay and play sessions.

AGM – Wednesday 20 September – The George, Hatherleigh – 7pm

Please note that we are a Committee run, charity Preschool and therefore need your help. Please come along to our AGM and get involved with the running of the Preschool. Without an effective Committee, we cannot continue to operate so, if you are able to spare 1 evening a term, please come along.

Looking back at the Summer Term

It felt like a very busy last term at Preschool with lots of fun activities crammed into our last week at Preschool. Hope you all enjoyed the amazing Sports Day/Leavers Assembly and Preschool Trip to Paignton Zoo.
As always it is extremely emotional when we need to say goodbye to the children who are starting school in September – our sincere best wishes go with them. We know they are well prepared for the next stage in their learning journey.

However, earlier in the term we focussed on the following topics:

PLANES & TRAINS
Seems such a long time ago now but, we started the term focussing on Transport starting with Aeroplanes and Trains and the Thomas the Tank Engine series of books. We completed train shape activities, enjoyed the wooden train set, playing with the small world airport with planes and helicopters. We practiced writing our names and played with lots of shape toys including puzzles, geometric wooden toys, wooden blocks, and drawing around 2D shapes. The teeth cleaning toys were out along with the Crocodile Game and we also had our own role-play version of the Co-op including small food boxes, tins of food, tills, shopping baskets and bags, and we also had large boxes that we could climb inside.

CORONATION OF KING CHARLES III
We made crowns and beautiful hand printed Union Jack Wreaths to take home and also coloured crowns for our British Values Board. We practiced curtseying, bowing and doing royal waves. We listened to lots of brass band marching music and created our own marching band.

BOATS & FIRE ENGINES
We played with Pop-Up Pirate game, the Fire Engine and Pirate Boat small world toys. We enjoyed the climbing frame, wooden wave and rainbow puzzles and lots of tracing. We enjoyed a floating and sinking experiment and even did the washing up!

TRACTORS & BIKES
Inspired by the Tractor Ted book series by Alexandra Heard we played with the ride-ons, cars, and tractors as well as lots of dinosaur resources, celebrating Dinosaur Week. We looked at colour changing with our new light box and also made handprint pictures where we painted our hands different colours and then mixed them to see what new colour it made. Of course, we made the most of the fabulous weather and spent lots of time outside too.

APES & MONKEYS
After half term our focus was Zoo animals leading up to our End of Term Trip to Paignton Zoo. Taking inspiration from the Monkey Puzzle book by Julia Donaldson, we played with the Zoo animals, and sang lots of songs about monkeys and animals in the Zoo. We had Playdough, home corner, climbing frame, lots of construction, maths tuff spot and lots more. We also made some surprises for Father’s Day.

BIG CATS
Focussed on ‘big cats’ and the story of The Lion Who Wanted to Love by Giles Andreae. We learned lots about lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, jaguars, etc. We did dot-to-dot pictures, made a tiger craft puppet, played a dice game with a bingo dauber, and lots more, including playing with zoo Duplo, shaving foam tuff spot, compare bears, cutting tray, castle with woodland fairies, dressing up, bikes, outside play and practicing for sports day.

LARGE MAMMALS
Taking inspiration from the book ‘Giraffes Can’t Dance’ by Giles Andreae, we played with the zoo animals and wooden train set, spinning tops and pop toys, threading, ICT, wooden sorting toys and baskets, new wooden number and counting sticks, pan and pasta and lots more including the hoops, scoops and bean bags to practice for Sports Day.

SPORTS DAY
Sports Day went well. The children were BRILLIANT!! We hope they enjoyed their races and stickers. Thank you to all of you who came to support the children and a huge thank you to Highampton CP School for letting us use their field and for coming out to cheer us on.

LEAVERS ASSEMBLY
As always, our leavers assembly was emotional but we are confident all of our leavers: Amber, Amelia, Gabe, Isabelle, Melanie, Oscar, Theo C and Theo D will all do fantastically at school and we wish them well with their onward educational journey.

PAIGNTON ZOO
The Zoo – we certainly had a great time and hope you did too. The weather was kind to us and we managed to see all of the animals that we had hoped to. The children that we saw around the Zoo definitely seemed to be having a great time.

PLANNING

Please remember that our detailed planning is available for you to look at on the notice board in the foyer.

What to bring to Preschool

Healthy Drink – Always send your child to Preschool with water or a sugar-free drink in a labelled drinks bottle. Sugary drinks are not good for their teeth our policies actively discourage them. Juice may be offered as part of their lunch but if you chose to do this, please also provide water or a sugar free drink for them to have access to throughout the day.

Healthy Lunch – If your child stays for lunch, please provide a healthy lunch box for them to enjoy in a labelled bag or box. Please ensure that it is food that they like to eat – pasta is always a good alternative if your child doesn’t like sandwiches (but please note that we are unable to warm this up). We will encourage them to eat whatever you send so please ensure that it is a reasonable amount.

Sun Cream – If we are lucky, we will still get some nice weather for another couple of weeks. If you know it is going to be a sunny day, please apply suncream before your child arrives at Preschool. We do have suncream to reapply throughout the day but if you prefer to use your own, please ensure that it is in your bag and your child knows it is there.

Sun Hats – Please also remember sun hats, although we do have Preschool sun hats if needed.

Spare Clothes – Always send a spare set of clothes – accidents can still happen as they are still very young and we love messy and water play!! Send lots of extras if your child is potty training.

Nappies – If your child is still in nappies, please remember to pack enough for the day, with wipes.

Coat – Please also remember to send a coat in every day. The weather is going to get increasingly colder but we would still like to get outside as often as we can. Send woolly hats, scarves and gloves if you think your child will need them.

DO NOT BRING IN:
No prescribed, or non-prescribed medication is to be left in your child’s bag. If you child needs medication to be given, this must be prescribed by a doctor and you must give this to a member of staff to store it safely and fill in the appropriate forms so that this can be given to your child in accordance with doctors orders.

Please do not bring in toys from home – we have plenty of toys and cannot guarantee that their toy will come home again, and will not get broken. Obviously, if a child needs a particular snuggle toy, we will accommodate this but will encourage them to put this in their bag when they don’t need it.

CaD Books
The Communication and Development books continue to be updated with your child’s work and are available for you to take home and review with your children whenever you would like them. We tend to update these ready to be sent home each term with an End of Term summary. However, if you feel that you would like to see these books more frequently, please speak with the Keyworker of your child – if you are unsure who your child’s keyworker is, please ask.

Please feel free to comment in the CaD books on the photos and observations that you read and add your own if your child is doing fabulous things at home.
Please also comment at the bottom of the end of term summary.

If you have any queries about your child’s development, please do not hesitate to speak to a member of staff or your child’s keyworker.

Communication
As always, your Key Worker is available should you need to discuss any particular aspects of your child’s learning and next steps. You can speak to a member of staff at drop off and pick up, call on 07837 357815 or 07801 581054 out of hours or email info@highamptonpreschool.co.uk. Please check our closed Facebook page for Parents/Carers for weekly updates, events and news or refer to the Website for general information and queries. We are trying to send important updates via email as well as Facebook but we would recommend that you access Facebook if possible as we also include other interesting updates and general awareness issues that may be pertinent to your child.

Fundraising
YOUR SCHOOL LOTTERY is an exciting weekly lottery that helps raise money for Highampton Area Pre-School. Tickets for the lottery cost just £1 per week, with a top prize of £25,000! Each ticket will consist of 6 numbers and each number will be between 0 and 9. There will be a draw every Saturday night when a 6 digit winning combination will be picked. Match all 6 and you win the JACKPOT of £25,000! There is also a guaranteed winner for Highampton Area Pre-School very Saturday which is drawn on a raffle basis, so there are two chances to win a prize. More tickets sold the more the prize money will be each week.
Please go to our Website to find out more.

Absences
Please ensure that you phone or text us each day that your child is absent from Preschool, unless you are able to predict a longer period of absence and we are aware of this. 07837 357815 or 07801 581054 out of hours.

Change of Contact Details
Please ensure that the contact details we have on file are correct and any specific requirements for your child are up to date.

Preschool Dates for your Diary

• Tues 05.09.23 – Preschool Return
• Mon 11.09.23 – Toddlers Return
• Wed 20.09.23 – AGM, The George @ 7pm
• Sat 14.10.23 – Wine & Wisdom @ 7.30pm
• Tues 31.10.23 – Harvest Celebration Day
• Wed 06.12.23 – Xmas Bingo @ 7:30pm
• Date tbc – Xmas celebrations
• Wed 26.06.24 – Wrong Trouser Day – Parent Stay & Play – Cakes, Tea & Coffee
• Date tbc – Sports day
• Thurs 18 July – Last Day – Trip