Ladybirds Pre-school

😎 🌞 Hi everyone, hope you are having a good summer holiday and keeping cool in the heat.
During the last weeks of term, we increased our cold water play, to help us feel a little cooler! Lots of exploring with floating, sinking and transferring. A few simple props, but lots of discussion and discovery during these shady group tuff tray activities. 💦
Inside, we had a building challenge, to construct bridges across the river, using a wide variety of construction sets. Lots of great ideas, problem solving and testing each other’s ideas. We added guttering with water, but had to work together as a team to stop the water coming out of the end!
It is always a pleasure to observe the children, listen to their ideas and contribute to discussions around their discoveries. 🐞😊
Watch out for another post early next week!

A sad but very proud day for the Ladybirds Ladies today as we say a big goodbye to our school leavers, all 22 of them!
Each child shared special facts about themselves: favourite colours, what they want to be when they grow up and favourite things. It was just lovely to watch them brave the stage for photos, dancing, smiling and singing the goodbye song.
Each of our leavers received gifts including personalised name tags and ladybird cupcakes.
As ever, the ladies wish to thank everyone for their kind words, cards and gifts, we are so very grateful to each and every one of you and wish you a wonderful summer.

On Thursdays we are joined by Coach Dan for fun sports sessions. We always have such a great time and Dan teaches us how to use different sports equipment safely. This term we have used rackets, hockey sticks, footballs and so much more. We show him our developing skills with throwing, catching, kicking, balancing etc.
Coach Dan has very kindly presented our school leavers with a wonderful medal, wishing them luck as they move on to big school.
Today we gave Coach Dan some gifts to show our appreciation for his hard work, patience and encouragement.
Thank you DM Sports Coaching, we think you’re amazing and can’t wait to see you in September 😊🐞

We had a fantastic time on our Summer trip to Frinton-on-sea. The sun was shining and there was a wonderful breeze too!
We paddled in the sea, which was surprisingly warm, and some of us were brave enough to have a swim too. There were quite a few jellyfish which gave us the chance to talk about some fun facts that we had previously learnt at Pre-School.
We made sandcastles of all shapes and sizes, dug lots of holes with the help of some of our grown ups, and rushed to fill them with buckets of water.
Wonderful artwork was created using items found on the beach, some of us decorated pebbles and took them home as pets and some very beautiful mermaids appeared as if by magic!
We all hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, thank you to those who attended and made our trip so very special 🐞🐝🦋🐛

It’s been a whole week since the Great Bentley carnival and we thought we’d post some of the amazing photographs that had been shared with us.
We would like to thank you all for the wonderful comments we have received this week 🏆🏆🏆
We are already excited for next years carnival 😊😍

We are so proud of us!
A wonderful time was had at the “Countries themed” Great Bentley Carnival 2026.
We decided to include the whole world with our theme and chose to title our entry “Food from different countries.”
The children looked magnificent in their costumes, each representing a different country, a plate containing 3D, handmade foods: Ireland - potatoes, England - fish and chips, America - hotdog, Thailand- pad Thai, the list goes on!
We are, as always, blown away by the fact we were awarded 1st prize in three categories, these were: VISITING GROUP, DECORATED FLOAT and BEST OVERALL!
The children love the preparation for the carnival and enjoy getting stuck it with paint projects over the past few weeks. A lot of effort goes into bringing our visions to life and we couldn’t be happier with the final result.
A huge thank you to all of our amazing ladybirds and baby bugs children, families, friends and of course, the staff team. We can’t wait for next year!

Happy Father’s Day 2026.
Our little ones made wonderful cards to say just how much they love their Dads. We think they did a fantastic job!
Sending love to you all 🐞

Food Friday. Week 9.
🟢🟠🔴
This week we highlight ‘Understanding food labels’ and ‘Traffic light labelling.’
There is a wealth of really interesting information on www.nutrition.org.uk
It is so important to know where to find the information you need and what to look for. Food labelling should be clear, easy to read and not misleading. It helps us make healthier choices, for example by choosing foods and drinks that are lower in saturated fat, sugar, salt and calories.
A array of key facts and guidelines to help us, including understanding allergy information, food additives and the ‘contains’ box can all be found on this comprehensive website.

Our week continued with an Ocean theme. We rescued marine life from being tangled in rubbish and created a safe beach and ocean. The children took great pride in helping the animals and worked brilliantly together, sharing their ideas on how to get the job done! They ‘reset’ the beach and were very excited to show off their hard work.
(Throughout our sessions we have special ‘reset’ times where we all work together to tidy the play areas, we don’t put the resources away, we make the room look inviting to play in, items are returned to their areas ready for play to continue after lunch, circle times etc.)
We have created some wonderful fish, starfish and sharks which now swim on our ‘Under the sea’ board.
Have a great weekend everyone 🐞