WELCOME BACK, HAPPY NEW YEAR and very best wishes for 2023. Hope you have all had a fabulous Christmas, that Santa was generous in your homes, and that you had a very happy Christmas and enjoyed your New Year celebrations. We also hope that you managed to get some well-deserved rest over this festive period.

As always, please remember to send you child to preschool with a healthy packed lunch, drink (preferably water), spare clothes (lots if potty training) and nappies/wipes (if needed). Your child will also need a coat every day so that we can continue to play outside.

REVIEW OF AUTUMN TERM

The first half of this term was focussed on the ‘Marvellous Me’ theme.

The first 2 weeks were all about our favourite things and the choices that we make. We focussed on the book Cats Colours by Jane Cabrera, and made posters showing our favourite things for our ‘I Am Unique/All About Me’ display board. We also spent some time painting some fabulous pictures of the Queen to celebrate her life which went on our ‘British Values’ display board.

The middle 2 weeks of the half term were focussed on our feelings and emotions and the book Sometimes I Feel Sunny by Gillian Shields & Georgie Birkett. Space Week also occurred during this 2 week period so we enjoyed playing with the space toys in the tuff spot. We were also learning about shapes and made some fantastic shape monsters which went on our display board.

The final 2 weeks of the half term were spent learning about how we are all unique and valuing differences and we used the Elmer book series by David McKee to support this. The children enjoyed making some Elmer milk bottles to bring home.

After the half-term break, we focussed on Fireworks and Remembrance with a particular focus on the book Whatever Next by Jill Murphy. We made Rocket Fruit Kebabs for our snack, Sparkler Crafts, Glitter Mark Making Tuff Spot and Fork Firework Painting as well as scooping our pumpkins and playing with spiders and mini-beasts. We also took a little time to talk about, read stories and do some Diwali colouring. We also focussed on Remembrance with Handprint Poppy Fields, Poppy Tracing and Colouring, Poppy Counting and making an Apple Print Poppy Wreath for our British Values Board.

We raised a fabulous £88.61 for Children in Need at our Coffee Afternoon. Thank you for your support with this event. Within our new topic of Dinosaurs, the children made some fabulous Name and Shape Dinosaurs that we displayed on our active work notice board. They also made a Peg Dinosaur that they brought home. The children also had fun creating dinosaur fossils in the playdough, playing with our small world dinosaurs in the tuff spot or our large dinosaurs with the building blocks. We read dinosaur books and watched short dinosaur videos.

The last 3 weeks of the Autumn Term were spent focussing on Christmas focussing on the classic poem, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ and other fabulous Christmas stories. We put the Christmas tree up and the children decorated it completely independently making a fantastic job! We made some fabulous Christmas crafts, including stockings, paintings, glitter pine cone decorations, we measured our height for the string of our baubles, made Reindeer food and practiced our handwriting on our footprint Christmas Cards, letters to Santa and baubles. The children counted the chocolate items to make the gifts that they brought home. Our PSED focus was, giving and receiving gifts, and saying please and thank you. We practiced lots of our favourite songs and some Christmas songs so that we could perform them for you. We hope that you enjoyed them. We were very lucky to be visited by Father Christmas who really enjoyed our Christmas songs, and loved meeting all of the children and giving them a present. We had a lovely bring and share lunch on the last day of term. The children really enjoyed all sitting together to eat their party food, and the disco party that we had after. The afternoon was finished off with some parachute games!!

TODDLERS

Kim continues to run our toddler sessions on Mondays from 9:15 to 11:15 for 0-4 year olds. First session is fee but please email to book your place. First session is free and the cost is £2.50 and additional siblings are 50p (paid half-termly), thereafter. Drop in sessions are £3 and should be paid on the day. 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.

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 setting information and general 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.

AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support us. Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price of your Amazon shops to your nominated charity at no extra cost to you. Simply log-in to your Amazon account at smile.amazon.co.uk and nominate “Highampton Area Pre-School Group” as your chosen charity, then every time you shop at Amazon a percentage of the purchase price of your orders will be donated to Highampton Area Pre-School. AmazonSmile is available at smile.amazon.co.uk on your web browser and can be activated in the Amazon Shopping App for iOS and Android phones.

Please go to our fundraising page out more about these fundraising opportunities and to buy tickets.

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