Spring 2 - Cygnets Pre-School

Welcome back from what we hope was a lovely half-term break. The second half of the Spring Term is yet another short one. With just 5 weeks before the Easter holiday, we will be cramming in as much fun and learning as we can!

This half term’s Learning Question is: Do we know any Superheroes?

Surrounding this question, we will be starting week one with a dive in to the text ‘Super Worm’. Super Worm is a worm of many talents and so we will learn about the different things he’s used for and other ways that he could be used to help. We will talk about what a superhero is, and create our own shared write, continuing the story with a different animal in need.

As well as the obvious superheroes to 3 and 4-year-old children, we will be learning all about real life superheroes; people who help us. We will look at the different important jobs that some people do, and to help us with this, we have some visitors!

• Mrs Swales – a GP, and one of our lovely parents, is coming to talk to both classes about what doctors do.
• Mrs Cunningham (Yes, Miss Cunningham’s mummy!), is coming to visit to talk to us about her special job as a nurse.
• Mrs Vitello, a dentist, is coming in with two of her colleagues to talk to us about keeping our teeth healthy.
• The Fire Service is visiting AND they’re bringing their fire engine!
• We are also having a visit from the Police!

Aren’t we lucky?! Keep an eye out for photos on our Facebook page – Cygnets at Bawnmore Community Infant School. I’ve heard there will be things for us to look at, real life check-ups, and dressing up too!

We also have World Book Day this half term. We love stories, and so we will be having a real focus on our favourite texts. Can you bring in your child’s favourite book for them to share?

Our Maths learning will consist of comparing objects; looking at differences in size, weight, length and capacity. We will measure different objects, including ourselves! We will also look at creating our own repeating patterns.

In Phonics, we will continue to develop our rhyming skills, creating rhyming strings and identifying the ‘odd one out’ from a set of three rhyming words/pictures. We will also begin to look at initial letter sounds. The initial letter sound is the sound a word begins with. Introducing this will prepare us for our next step come the Summer Term; blending. Maybe you could talk to your child about initial letter sounds at home? What sound does their name begin with? Can you play I Spy? Remember though; we’re looking for sounds, not letters! Here’s a video of the Jolly Phonics song which helps you to hear the sounds. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv28ddzc9Oc&cbrd=1

If your child started with us in January, or starts their pre-school year in September 2024, practising listening is really important in preparing them for their next steps. Go for listening walks, inside our outside; what can you hear? Make some listening ears for them to put on their heads to make it more fun, what can your listening ears hear? Do they recognise sounds in and around your home? The toaster popping, the kettle boiling the tap running? Outside, can they notice the sounds of cars, birds and people? Have a go!

We hope you hear lots about what we get up to over the next 5 weeks and if you can help us or would like to come and talk to us about what you do, please get in touch with either myself: wilkins.b@welearn365.com, or Miss Reed: reed.s3@welearn365.com. We love to involve our parents as much as we can!

School and Pre-School close on Friday 22^nd March for Easter, and return on Monday 8^th April. Thank you.

Mrs Cobley, and the Cygnets Team.

Cygnets - Spring 1

Hello 2023! Welcome back everyone. A very Happy New Year to you all. We hope you had a wonderful Christmas break and are looking forward to seeing you all again.

At the beginning of this half term, we will be learning about winter in more depth; exploring the changes in weather and what happens when water becomes extremely cold. We will use ice in various different ways and watch what happens when ice gets warm too! The children will use their thinking caps to make predictions about what they think they might see. We will also look at which animal live in the cold and introduce the word ‘Arctic’. Using the interactive whiteboard, we will use the internet to help us find out facts about these animals; where they live, what they eat and how they keep warm! The children will be encouraged to practise asking their own questions too. For example; “What colour is a penguin?” “What do polar bears eat?”

This half term, we will also introduce rhyming. We will use familiar rhymes and stories to demonstrate these words to the children and help them to hear that two words can have the same sound at the end. As the weeks go on, we will take part in different activities such as ‘rhyming soup’ to help them recognise and identify these words and hopefully in time, suggest their own!

We are going to be working on our pen grip and making sure we use baby shark to help us remember how to hold our writing tools! To strengthen our fingers, we will continue to exercise with dough, use scissors and take part in ‘hands up for handwriting’. We will practise tracing our names and begin writing some or all of the letters in our names.  This takes time and that’s absolutely OK, we all learn at our own pace but if you’d like to practise at home too – simple tracing activities are great, not only for helping the children get a feel for the letter formation but for recognising their own names!

Special occasions/celebrations this half term:

• Chinese New Year – We will be learning all about the story of Chinese New Year, tasting new foods and making our own crafts for the year of the rabbit.

• Children’s Mental Health week – Mental Health is super important. We will talk about the things that make us feel different emotions, using the Colour Monster and Zones of Regulation to help us. No matter how young, it’s important to know that it’s ok to feel sad, angry, annoyed or anything else! We will take part in lots of feel good activities too!

• Valentine’s Day – Who is special to us? You might get a card!

• Pancake Day/Shrove Tuesday – Of course… we will have to eat pancakes!

Autumn 1 

Welcome to Cygnets!

It’s the beginning of a brand new academic year and we can’t wait to get started. Some exciting news – Cygnets have expanded! This means that instead of running from one class room, we now have two rooms and a greater space for more of you to come and join us! This was discussed when meeting all of you during Induction Day in July.

The staffing in Cygnets is as follows;

In the original Cygnets building, there will be Miss Wilkins, the Pre-School Manager, with Mrs Daly & Miss Cunningham, two of our fabulous Early Years Educators.

In our new Cygnets classroom, Miss Reed, our newest addition to the team will be working as our Room Leader, alongside Mrs Glass, another fantastic Early Years Educator.

You will also meet Mrs Stacey in the afternoons, yet another lovely Early Years Educator.

Our new room will only be open for the mornings to begin with and you should have all been told which room your child is in. If you’re unsure, please let us know! Despite having these two rooms, our aim is for the children and staff to get to know everybody and to explore each area. The children will have a ‘base’ room where they register, have snack and be dropped off/collected from but throughout the sessions, we want it to be one large free-flow space and we are really excited about this.

If your child is only doing half a day, they will be collected from their base room at 12pm. If your child is in the new class room but does a full day, they will be collected from the original Cygnets building at 3pm.

Helping your child -

We’d really like you to be as involved in your child’s Pre-School experience as possible and so, when you drop off in the mornings, we’d like to welcome you in to the class rooms to help your child with their morning tasks! As you come in, there will be a space for you to put your child’s snack and lunch. They then need to find their photograph for Self Registration. You will find three coloured boxes; one green, one blue and one red. These represent our feelings! Your child needs to choose a box to put their picture in. If they choose green, they are feeling happy and calm. If they choose blue, they might be sad or sleepy, and if they choose red, they might be feeling a bit angry or annoyed by something! Whichever emotion they pick, it’s OK. During registration, we take the pictures from the boxes and talk about how we’re feeling and why. It’s really important for the children to be able to recognise their emotions and share their thoughts.

Once this is done, please find your child’s peg to put their coat and bag on. Now we know how much you might want to hold on to your little ones and we know how fun it looks but please say your goodbyes as quickly as you can so that we can start our day and ensure that everyone is happy and settled. Please don’t worry – tears are to be expected and we are on hand to give your child all the comfort they need. You are more than welcome to phone throughout the day for an update – someone is always available to talk.

Things you need to bring:

• Snack – ONE piece of fruit and a named bottle of water.
• A packed lunch (if your child is doing a full day). Please be mindful that we are a nut free school.
• A bag with spare clothes – we tend to get messy in Pre-School!
• A coat/appropriate clothing for the weather.
• Named wellies to stay at Cygnets, ready for when the rain comes!
• A named pair of black pumps for PE days. These can stay with us to save you bringing them back and forth. PE is on Thursdays.
• A family photo. We like to display these in the classrooms for the children to share with their peers, but also to provide a bit of comfort whenever they might need it.

Our Learning Challenge question this half term is:

“What makes me marvellous?”

We hope this helps – please don’t hesitate to stop a member of the team or e-mail wilkins.b@welearn365.com if you have any queries or concerns – we are here to help and hope your little ones have a brilliant year with us.

Miss Wilkins, Miss Reed, Mrs Daly, Mrs Glass, Miss Cunningham & Mrs Stacey.