St. Edmunds Preschool CIC

Our book of the week this week is the Smeds and the Smoos. It follows a red smed and a blue smoo who are very different but still love each other. They have a purple baby smoo smed! The children chose a partner and mixed the red and the blue paint on their hands together to make their own purple baby aliens!

Our painted caterpillars went into their chrysalises at the same time as our real caterpillars. The children were very excited to see a real butterfly had emerged earlier today in our enclosure but were even more excited to see that some of their paper caterpillars emerged out of their chrysalises, after they came in from outside play and had turned into butterflies too! Maybe tomorrow there will be more real AND cardboard butterflies emerging!

One of our butterflies has emerged! The children have called him Timothy Pope (a character from one of their favourite books, Shark in the park) and were so curious how such a big butterfly could fit in such a small chrysalis!

One of our caterpillar pots has 100% formed into chrysalises! The other pot is very interesting as 2 are chrysalises, 2 are hanging down ready and one is still a very active caterpillar who keeps knocking and crawling all over his siblings! One chrysalis in the pot where they have all changed has fallen so tomorrow we are on a mission to hang it back up! Wish us luck!

🐛 Caterpillar watch 🐛

I think the warm weather of last week has helped these caterpillars grow quickly. Some are already hanging and ready for the next stage of going into the pupa or cocoon.

📚Book of the week 📚 Sammy the snake

Our theme is maths and this week we are exploring shapes. Sammy is a snake who just loves shapes! This is a brilliant book to help our preschoolers explore the different shapes around us.

Look at the beautiful artwork created by some of the children and the excellent work they did identifying the different shapes that make up the pictures.

👀 Look who has arrived 🐛🐛🐛

We can’t wait to watch these tiny caterpillars change into beautiful butterflies! 🦋

We have another recommendation for a family day out if you're looking for something to do this week. Bradgate Park in Leicester is lovely to explore on a warm day. With great walks and views, plus free roaming deer 🦌 why not take a picnic and explore. There is also a lovely brook where children can paddle if the weather is nice as well!

Following on from yesterday we thought we would share another recommendation for all the aeroplane fans at preschool! East Midlands Aeropark. It's only £5 for adults and £3 for children over 5. I took 6 children there, some are big aeroplane enthusiasts and some weren't but they all loved it! And...it's next to the runway at the airport so you get to see the planes landing and take off! You get to go inside some of the aeroplanes at the park and there are lots to see! Let us know if you have been here before and what you think of it!