St Paul's Pre School Ashby

Screen time guide for under 5's

Keep mealtimes and bedrooms screen-free, and try swapping screens for reading, play, and conversation. Young children copy your habits, so try to limit your own screen use around them.

An important point to remember is that screens shouldn’t replace a young children’s sleep, physical activity, play or quality time.

For more advice on how to help little brains to develop healthy screen habits

https://beststartinlife.gov.uk/

This week we turned our home corner into a school, some children have already visited their new schools and had a look around. They enjoyed trying on uniforms, carrying book bags and looking at pictures of their new schools and teachers, we also practiced carrying dinner trays - quite a skill for little hands especially in new surroundings so all of this play helps prepare for that next step 😊 We have been learning about bees 🐝 and the important job they do, we tried honey at snack time and explored honeycombs at the play dough table. Over at the craft table children had the opportunity to make a bee using wool - this took some concentration and some fine motor skills! Our caterpillars are growing very quickly so we revisited the hungry caterpillar story to check what will happen next! The children were able to act out the story and feed our very hungry caterpillar 🐛 🍃🍓🍊Outside we experienced some crazy weather 🌦️ the hail stones made the children very excited and they were very loud as they bounced off the veranda roof! Construction using large items was very popular and it was lovely seeing the children work as a team together to create some fantastic structures 😊 The girls put on a little singing show and there was even dancing too 🕺it’s lovely to see how much their confidence has grown over the last year

This week the children have been learning about birds! We looked at different garden birds and made some fabulous nests to take home! Our song was ‘sing a song of sixpence’ 🐦‍⬛and we also sang and acted out ‘5 little bluebirds’ 🐦 which involved some cheeky birds and a carefully creeping cat 🐈 the children did a great job 😊 We tested out heavy and light objects using our weighing scales - the children did a great job of predicting which was heavier! There was some brilliant mark making going on - our giant blackboard and chalks give great opportunities for children to use both small and large motor skills. Our home corner was busy, plenty of cleaning and hoovering going on, bed time stories being read, cooking and taking care of the babies. In the water tray we started looking at what floats and what sinks but this soon lead on to pouring and seeing what floated down the guttering 🚤 . Our green beans, strawberries,
sunflowers and herbs are all growing - the children are making sure they are well watered! This week we are revisiting insects as our live caterpillars have arrived ready for us to see the transformation from caterpillars 🐛 to butterflies 🦋

Another fun filled week at preschool before the half term break😊 This week we talked about rubbish and how it might affect creatures living in our oceans 🐬🐙🐠 the children used tongs to pick out rubbish and recycle it ♻️ we talked about why we put rubbish in a bin and what we put in our new big red bins and our brown garden bins. Our story this week was ‘Badgers band’ the children loved using the instruments to make music and create our own band! 🎸🎤🎹 Our drive through Mac Donald’s was very busy - the children were cooking, taking orders, making ice creams and delivering food - we talked about different kinds of food and what is healthy for our bodies and what is a nice treat, we had lovely fruit salad pots for snack time and tried some colourful new fruits 🍍🥑🍋🍓🍒 Outside we enjoyed some beautiful weather and the children made their own ‘swimming pool’. We sang a song about ice cream sundaes which the children could participate in, this helps with counting and number recognition. We are back open tomorrow for the last half term before the summer holidays. We do have a few places available in September due to our. big children ,owing onto school - please share with anyone who may be interested 😊

This week has been all about holidays! The travel agents has been open ready to take bookings ☎️ The children have been busy packing their cases, preparing their snacks and checking out the maps for some exciting places to visit 🌍 they thought about how they were going to travel 🧳 and used trains, planes, buses and boats 🛶 It’s lovely to watch the children acting out their experiences of holidays and days out, they swam in our ‘pool’ and made sure the baby stayed safe when they threw it back and forth to each other in the shallow water. This gave good opportunities to talk about water safety on holiday, at the swimming pool, in our gardens and the local area. Our small world was a large train station 🚂 we worked together to make made fabulous tracks. Over at the play dough we used different coloured and shaped flags to make castles giving opportunities to talk about colours, shapes and practice our counting skills. Our story of the week was ‘frogs day out’ 🐸🧳 We learned a new song this week about 5 monkeys and a snappy crocodile 🐊 which was fun! Just a reminder we break up on Friday for half term😊