SAND,SAND AND MORE SAND.

 

What an exciting week we have had with the arrival of our new sand. It was quite emotional as we have not been allowed to use sandpits since the beginning of the pandemic. With that in mind I was the first to jump in. The children have enjoyed this new experience and especially because the weather has been so good. We have created some new experiences for the children in the garden and we will be developing more over the next month. This environment supports the children with risk taking. Risk-taking like other skills, needs to be learned and practiced over time. By empowering children in their self-management, trusting them to make decisions around risk and allowing them to push themselves to that point of risk and danger, we are enabling them to learn and practice their risk assessment skills consistently giving them confidence in their own abilities.  

Growing up in a risk averse society, such as we currently have, means that children are not able to practice risk-assessment which enables them to match their skills with the demands of the environment in which they are growing up. A risk-taker, becomes and independent thinker, who develops into a confident learner who is willing to take that step into the unknown following their innate learning path. Empowering children by developing this independence, giving them the power over their choice of risky decisions will better prepare them to be autonomous individuals at a young age and acknowledges their right to be seen as individuals now, rather than an adult in waiting.

With all this in mind I would like to reassure you that we conduct daily risk assessments in the unit in accordance with the EYFS 2022 and the risks we are expecting the children to take are very simple eg holding onto a rope and swinging or balancing on a log. 

It may appear not too hot at the moment but as the unit is in a sheltered spot it does become very hot. Can you please bear this in mind and use sun protection on your child if you feel they need it. 

Finally I would like to ask you all to put names on your children clothing as we have 60 jumpers that are all the same in the unit. 3,4,and 5 year old's do not take responsibility for their clothing as much as we try and encourage this they do not always put their jumpers on their pegs. This often results in us spending lots of time searching for missing jumpers at the end of the day. We will be putting all the jumpers without names on the table outside at the end of the day so please look in the pile if your child is missing one.

Have a great weekend I think it may be a warm one wooooooooo.

Mrs Robinson:)

Spring has sprung.

 What a lovely week we have had with lots of warm weather for the children to really enjoy their time outside without the extra burden of coats, hats and gloves. We have been looking after the flower garden and the children have had their first experience playing on the new side garden. It is not yet complete but they have absolutely loved it and have enjoyed exploring new surfaces, with many climbing and balancing experiences for them to try. We ask that you don't let the children play in this area before or after school as we want it to remain tidy for the children to use during the day. 

Next week we will be focusing on the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Lets hope we don't get any giants paying us a visit!

Have a great weekend.

Mrs Robinson:)

 Thank you for your donations of plants, the children have enjoyed digging and watering them everyday. We look forward to seeing them grow over the coming weeks. 

The weather is finally beginning to change and we have enjoyed having less clothing on outside. I think we at the point of getting rid of hats and gloves wooooooooo. Our new garden is slowly developing and we are looking forward to spending lots of time exploring.

Next week we  are going to be using our wildlife garden and the outside classroom. We are planning on lighting our fire pit, weather permitting. 

I am sure many of the children will have mentioned the fox and the wellies. Recently a fox took some wellies during the night and ripped them apart. I have been using this example with the children to make sure they put their boots back on the shelf when they take them off. Quite a few of our children take their boots off and throw them over the garden. This scenario has helped them understand that they need to take care of their belongings. 

We have Red Nose Day next Friday so the children can wear their own clothes for school.

Have a great weekend.

Mrs Robinson

Pancakes

 This week we have been very busy celebrating Shrove Tuesday and World Book Day. We have also planted some pansies in our new garden. Fingers crossed the frost does not come back.

The children enjoyed making the pancakes but most of all eating them. I was surprised with the requests for toppings. Maybe Potty Pancakes makes pancakes far more exciting than we do. 

Our new garden is beginning to develop and Mrs Sheehan and the children spent time in the rain planting pansies. We are going to be observing  this area over the next few weeks to see what we can grow.

On Thursday we all dressed up for World Book Day. The teachers all had characters from books printed on their t-shirts. Foundation staff had the three little pigs, the big bad wolf and Little red riding hood. The children created a story about the characters and we wrote it on the board for the children to extend throughout the day. I unfortunately was the wolf and had to chase all the pigs away. It was exhausting huffing and puffing all day. I think the wolf must have a very hard job.

We are going to do some more planting next week so if you have any plants that you would like to donate to the unit we would be very grateful.

have a great weekend.

Mrs Robinson