Week beginning 3rd March 2025
World book day and Pancake day
“Reading to young children is crucial for their development, it helps to develop language, builds vocabulary and encourages imagination, critical thinking, and empathy. It builds a foundation for a lifelong love of reading”
At playgroup this week we joined in the World book day celebrations and explored some more of our favourite stories with lots of fun activities. We looked at The Very Hungry Caterpillar, We’re Going On A Bear Hunt, Stickman, Jack and the Beanstalk, Timothy pope’s Shark in the park, and The Rainbow Fish. The children also had the opportunity to come to Playgroup dressed as a character from their favourite story……. We also had lots of dress up available so that the children could role play other characters from stories.
It was also Shrove Tuesday this week which meant lots of Pancake fun for all, including a choose your own topping pancake snack.🥞🍓🍌🍯
Week beginning 10th March 2025 Science week
“Science in early years encourages skills like curiosity, problem solving and critical thinking. Encouraging our children to explore and experiment gives them a deeper understanding of the world around them”
We spent a lot of this week exploring a current fascination of rainbows through lots of engaging activities that encouraged both group discussion, and individual exploration.
We looked at reactions using the milk experiment and the fizzing rainbow. We studied capillary action with our paper caterpillars and forces with sink and float and our cup pompom shooters. It was so lovely to watch the children become engrossed in these activities and listen to the rich descriptive language that they used.
We also began looking at growth too, firstly by planting some bean and sunflower seeds and then watching daffodils bloom from tightly closed buds to beautiful yellow flowers.
On Friday we had a special day at playgroup where we looked at the importance of sleep….. you can find out more about this under the World sleep day tab.
Week beginning 17th March 2025
🐣🐑 Spring is in the air!!!🐑🐣
This week at playgroup we began exploring all things spring, from blooming flowers, hatching chicks and emerging caterpillars. We encouraged the children to think about what they could see, hear and smell as nature began to awaken in the spring sunshine. We had some very excited children as we found our first ladybird enjoying the sunny day.
Much of our time was spent in the garden but we also had lots of activities to support our learning and develop skills, from creating beautiful spring flowers with different media and materials to giving the spring sheep a haircut.
Come back next week as we continue to explore the spring theme and also start thinking about Easter 🐣
Week beginning 24th March 2025
More Spring exploration and Easter fun
This week we continued looking at all things spring and also started thinking about Easter and all things to do with new beginnings. We made some seed bombs for our gardens, some play dough Easter chicks, used ice paints to create spring inspired pictures, created some loose parts Easter eggs, created some daisy art, carefully threading daisy’s through our cardboard vases and in our cooking session we made some lovely sultana scones that we enjoyed with butter and jam for snack and also took some home to share with our families.
Another busy week of fun and exploration…… be sure to come back next week to see what we get up to in our last week of the spring term 🌸🌼
Week beginning 31st March 2025
🐣🐣Easter fun 🐣🐣
The last week of the spring term we spent together at the playhouse was filled with all things Easter!
We had great fun enjoying the spring sunshine in the garden and also lots of activities inside the playhouse too.
Lots of our children are fascinated with dinosaurs so we made some amazing dinosaur eggs for them to explore…… unfortunately it seemed a cheeky duck had laid some eggs in the nest too so it was great fun cracking open the eggs to see if there was a dinosaur or a duck inside.
For our cookery session this week we made some fingerprint flower cookies that were filled with jam….. a delicious treat to share with our families.
The term ended with our annual Easter cake sale, where our lovely committee set up a stall of donated home bakes to sell to our families and also the school children at the end of the day to raise funds to provide resources and experiences for the playgroup children.
