Wishing you all a very Happy New year from everyone at Community Playgroup. We can’t wait to share what we get up to during 2025 with you all
Week beginning 7th January 2025
All things icy and cold …..and our Ofsted
We spent this week looking at all things cold and icy, it’s been quite chilly outside so we utilised this and looked at what happens to water if we leave it out overnight in the freezing temperatures, and then what happens if we bring the ice back into the playhouse.
We created some beautiful snowflakes using a variety of resources, firstly loose parts, carefully lining the gems ,buttons and sequins up to make snowflakes, and then tissue paper and cellophane to created some amazing sun catchers for the wintery January sun.
We practiced our mark making skills with some winter trails, looked at shapes, thinking about what shapes we could use to create a snowman and also had lots of fun exploring some fake snow we made from kitchen staples, which actually felt cold to the touch
We also designed our very own woolly hat, made some sparkly ice cubes and also made some warming vegetable soup in our cookery session. This activity really helps the children to develop their skills, strength and confidence when using knives. It also offered us the opportunity to talk with the children about how to keep ourselves safe when using sharp tools like knives and scissors.
On the 3rd day of term we welcomed an inspector from Ofsted who came to inspect our setting. Our newly formed staff team were amazing and we all enjoyed showing just what we get up to at Community playgroup and we’re thrilled to maintain our good rating with inspector saying “Staff follow children's interests when planning their learning environment. They set up an inviting environment with arange of interesting learning opportunities each morning. Children also choose to add their own resources. This enhances their engagement and concentration”
You can read the report by following the link
https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/provider/16/221774?utm_source&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=report
Week beginning 13th January 2025
All things cold continued…..
We started the week continuing to explore all things cold, thinking about cold habitats and which animals might live there.
We rescued animals frozen in ice using pipettes, which help to develop our fine motor skills. Carefully squeezing the bulb of the pipette to take up the warm water and then squeezing it over the ice to help it melt. The children enjoyed using the pipettes so much that we then used them again to create some lovely colourful snowflakes, dripping water onto the snowflake shapes, and watching the colours seep through the tissue paper.
We created some other beautiful snowflakes firstly painting on tinfoil and then using watercolours to add colour to some snowflakes created using salt.
The children also enjoyed using their mathematical language when creating jar snowmen, filling the different sized jars with materials looking at capacity and which jars hold the most. We also looked at numbers with our matching game, matching numeral to quantity, carefully counting the wintery items on each card and then finding the corresponding number.
For our cooking activity this week we made some filling and warming porridge and tried it at snack time with different toppings to see what we all liked….. and of course you can’t have porridge without thinking about the 3 bears so we had fun exploring the Goldilocks and the 3 bears story together.
We also created some delicious snowflake biscuits and trialled our new reading teepee!
What a busy week, come back next week for more playgroup fun and exploration
Week beginning 20th January 2025
Great British Bird Watch Week
Moving on from the winter theme, and joining in the Great British Bird Watch we spent time this week looking at what type of birds visit our playgroup garden and thinking about what they like to eat and whether we can find any of those things in our garden. The children worked in pairs and had a check list of things to look out for, from worms and mini beasts to seeds and berries. We soon realised that the birds had a real struggle to find food at this time of year so we set about making some bird feeders to hang in the playgroup garden and also at our homes.
We had lots of activities on offer to help develop the children’s understanding of the bird’s habitats and how we can support our feathery visitors, at the same time developing our own skills like, fine motor skills, counting, mark making and our creative skills producing some wonderful bird sculptures and pictures.
Week beginning 27th January 2025
Our favourite stories and Rhymes
At Community Playgroup we put huge emphasis on just how much stories and rhymes help our children learn and develop. They are an extremely valuable tool for helping support early language and communication development, and they also help build children’s confidence which in turn prepares them for reading and writing as they get older.
We spent time this week exploring some of our favourite stories and rhymes of the moment including
The Gingerbread man and the Harry and the bucket full of dinosaur series stories and our rhymes were Incy Wincy Spider, Hickory Dickory Dock and Twinkle Twinkle little star. The children’s choices change very rapidly but at the moment these are firm favourites.
We try to incorporate activities that will pique all children’s interest whilst also ensuring that we cover all areas of learning so we had great fun making some movable incy wincy spiders complete with their own drain pipe, we explored chemical reactions with some bicarbonate of soda stars, we did some weaving, looked at numbers with our number stars and making clocks and also managed to rescue the dinosaurs who had been trapped in the tuff tray using our developing scissor skills…….. All in a days play!
We hope you enjoy looking at what we got up to this week 😊
