Scamps Pre-School

🇨🇳 🎆 🏮 🥢 The children have had a fantastic time exploring some of the beautiful Chinese traditions and celebrating Chinese New Year. They’ve decorated the Pre-School with their fantastic lanterns, painted with chopsticks, filled lucky red envelopes with gold coins, explored noodles during sensory play and enjoyed songs and stories about the celebration.

Based on the Chinese zodiac, 2026 is the year of the Horse, so it seemed only right that ‘Horse’ was this weeks makaton sign of the week! 🇨🇳 🎆 🏮 🥢

Well, let us just say that Christmas Party week did most certainly not disappoint! The children have enjoyed SO many festive activities and have had a go at everything from making 'reindeer food' to creating Christmas crafty trees and lights! ...Not to mention our delicious festive snack menu! We are well and truly in the Christmas spirit!

We wanted to say a huge thank you for all of our wonderful cards, kind words and gifts! We really appreciate them all and wish all of our families a wonderful Christmas and look forward to seeing you all again on the 5th January 2026!

Merry Christmas everyone!

We are one day into December and already we are well and truly into the Christmas spirit here at Scamps!

The children here have met our new elf who very thoughtfully brought us a Christmas gift of a new story which we enjoyed at group time!

We had lots of fun decorating our Christmas tree, adding baubles and tinsel (and lots of it!), exploring our nativity set and talking about the story of Christmas, and we even decorated our very own snow person using the loose parts play resources!

We have made our very own advent calendar created especially from our beautiful artwork and we enjoyed turning over number 1 this morning!!!

phew....and that was only the 1st December! We look forward to lots more festive fun as the month continues!!!!!@

Today’s nursery rhyme is “two little dickie birds” the children thoroughly enjoyed making a nest for the ‘birds’ with straw and twigs. We talked all about different habitats and environments and what birds like to eat.
We then had a go at creating our own bird feeders using our fine motor skills to thread multigrain hoops onto pipe cleaners. We hung these on the trees outside preschool to provide the birds with a tasty treat!! At group time we all had a go at singing the nursery rhyme together using our fingers to represent the ‘birds’ and ‘hiding them’ when they flew away! Maybe you could have a go at making these at home, we would love to see your pictures!!

Today we enjoyed the nursery rhyme 'I hear thunder'! We explored this through sensory rice trays, 'stirring up a storm' by following a weather inspired recipe which incorporated numbers and letters!

We made our very own 'rain' musical instruments by filling rice into yoghurt pots to create rain shakers too!

We found it very funny when Sarah sprayed us with water as we sang the rhyme at group time! We explored the sounds of thunder and rain using instruments and thought of words to describe these sounds (bang, crash and pitter, patter were just a few!). We also enjoyed creating a windy, thunder storm in the garden with the parachute!

Tomorrow, for our last day of nursery rhyme week, we look forward to singing '2 little dickie birds', watch this space!

This week the children have thoroughly enjoyed immersing themselves in the wonderful world of nursery rhymes 🎵🎶.

Nursery rhymes are embedded in our Scamps curriculum and here are some of the reasons why…

* Nursery rhymes offer so many wonderful opportunities for rich learning.

*Early literacy skills begin during the early years and nursery rhymes support exposure to language, rhythm, repetition and intonation, all of which form the basis for language development, understanding and early literacy skills. Through actions, speaking and singing, children are developing, building upon and using new language as well as exploring stories through a whole bunch musical of fun!

*Many nursery rhymes offer opportunities to explore numbers through counting, sequencing and ordering, and quantities.

*Children are able to enjoy meaningful positive interactions with adults and their peers through shared enjoyment of rhymes as well developing social skills through small world play, imaginative play and taking turns with peers.

* Of course nursery rhymes offer opportunities for children to express themselves through using instruments and props and dancing and movement too!

We hope that the children are enjoying nursery rhyme week here at Scamps, we wonder if they might share any at home with you?

Today we explored the rhyme ‘When I was one I played the drum…’, (pirate style) and explored learning with numbers, music and instruments as well as sensory play! Perhaps they can recite this at home with you?

Have a great evening!

Today's rhyme is 'Humpty Dumpty' and we have had lots of fun constructing walls using wooden blocks and bricks! We engaged in small world play using the soldiers and horses and worked hard to 'put Humpty Dumpty' back together again by matching up the numbers on his top and bottom half!

We enjoyed singing the rhyme at group time and completed 'Humpty Dumpty' themed puzzles! We even role played the rhyme in our play (but thankfully nobody fell off the wall!).

What a lot of fun!

It's.....Nursery Rhyme Week!!!..

..and the fun has begun with the popular rhyme, 'Sing a song of sixpence'.

The children have enjoyed making playdough 'pies' (using a range of playdough tools to cut, roll, prod and splat), king and queen crowns (being creative genius' by tearing and rolling tissue paper, mark making and adding jewels using glue and glitter), as well as exercising their fine motor skills (and learning important life skills) as they pegged up the clothes in the garden on the washing line!

Of course we enjoyed singing the song at group time too!

More nursery rhyme inspired fun coming tomorrow, watch this space.....

Support for potty training ⬇️

Helping your child to say goodbye to nappies and begin using the potty can be an exciting yet often daunting milestone for many families.

Here is some useful information, including tips, suggestions and FAQ's from ERIC UK, the children's bowel and bladder charity, which may make the process feel just a little less overwhelming.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/tiny-happy-people/articles/zhqts82

ERIC UK also have a free helpline, webchat service and lots of resources and advice available on their website. https://eric.org.uk/potty-training/

Potty training - ERIC We've broken down potty training into 3 easy steps: preparation, practice and perfecting those skills! Use our step by step guide to help your toddler become toilet trained.

Happy Bonfire Night everybody!

We have had a great week exploring all things fireworks! We have made marks in the sand, explored words to describe the noises fireworks make (pop, bang and whizz were our favourites), moved like fireworks dancing with colourful scarves and talked about ways in which we can keep safe!

Have a brilliant (and safe) evening everybody!

We have had SUCH a wonderful half term, exploring lots of Autumn treasures and themes within our play (with a touch of 'spooky' added in!)

We hope you enjoy these photos of a few of the activities the children have particularly enjoyed, featuring our brand new 'Tonies Box' which has been especially popular with the children!

Wishing you all a fantastic half term and we look forward to seeing you all again on Monday 3rd November!