West Park Kindergarten

🌟 Pre-School 🌟
This morning we had a visit from Erin and Otis from the hearing dogs for deaf people charity. This charity is run mostly on donations and did you know it costs £70,000 for each dog.
Erin spoke to us about how Otis helps her around the house, how he alerts her by nudging or tapping her leg when there is a fire, or her alarm goes off and even when the door bell rings.
Otis like all hearing dogs are trained from 8 weeks old and are working dogs until they retire.
Otis showed us some of his special tricks and got rewarded with some treats.
We spoke about how we must always ask before we stroke a dog and if we see a dog with a special strap on their lead then we must not distract them because they are working dogs and it might be dangerous to the owner.
We finished off by doing the BSL alphabet which we have all been learning.

🌟 Pre-School 🌟
Our new topic is people who help us and we were very lucky to go visit the police museum in Lancaster.
We started off our trip by going on a train, some of us had never been on a train before so we were very excited.
The museum was inside a big castle, “a very big castle, even bigger than our house.” We looked at different uniforms from past and present and even tried them on. We enjoyed looking in each different room exploring all things policing from the past.
We had a mission, we had to look for different things in the rooms and tick them off on our sheet. We found them all and got a sticker.
The children were all amazing and did fantastic listening and we are very proud of each of them.

🌟 Pre-School 🌟
This week we are learning all about doctors and nurses as we were due to have a visit from the ambulance today, unfortunately the ambulance has had to rearrange for next week but that hasn’t stopped us having fun and learning along the way.
Auntie Monika has made us a doctors surgery in the role play area and we have had fun using the stethoscope, putting on bandages and dressing up as doctors and nurses.🤩

Yesterday we had a Little Kickers session with Coach Rebecca, the children had lots of fun developing their football and learning skills.

We explored:
🔴🟡 Colour recognition
🔢 Number recognition and counting
⚽️ Little and big kicks
🤝Turn taking and teamwork

The children showed great listening, enthusiasm and confidence throughout the session. Well done everyone! ⭐️

We’ve had such a fun-filled week in the babies room! 💛

The little ones enjoyed sensory play with colourful ribbons and a variety of different materials, exploring new textures and colours. 🌈

We got creative with sticking and gluing, making our own unique flowers using a range of bright colours – each one as special as the children who made them! 🌸

There was lots of excitement with wet sand play too, as we practised filling and emptying while getting wonderfully messy! 🏖️

To finish off the week, we explored free painting using cotton wool and cotton buds, creating some lovely little masterpieces. 🎨

What a fantastic week of learning, creativity, and fun! 😊

Happy Easter 🐣

🌟 Coming to Pre School next week 🌟
Westpark’s very own hairdressers and nail salon 🤩
We have recently discovered that some of our pre school children are a little bit afraid of going to the hairdressers. Role play is a great way to let children safely explore scary thoughts and feelings in a world they control. By pretending to be a doctor, dentist or hairdresser children can replay situations that worried them and gradually change the outcome.
This process helps them understand what happened, express emotions they may not yet have the words for and practice coping strategies like asking for help or being brave! Over time repeating the story in play reduces anxiety because the child’s brain learns the situation is manageable turning fear into familiarity and confidence.
Please be assured that all scissors will remain safely in the cupboard 😂