Spring in our step

There was love in the air in the run up to Mother’s Day.  The children were all enthusiastic to create hand made cards to surprise their Mummy’s and it is great to see how many of the preschool children could write their names independently.  Many children talked about where they would hide their cards at home in readiness for Sunday. However, there was less enthusiasm for giving away the coffee cakes they made on in Wednesday’s cooking session, with a number of children suggesting that they should eat the cakes themselves because "my Mummy doesn’t like coffee!”.  One grateful Dad let it slip that he had forgotten that it is Mother’s day this weekend and thanked us for the tip off! 

Spring has arrived over the past few weeks with birds singing in the garden and buds emerging on the trees.  Despite a few dull days we have been treated with some glorious sunshine and made the most of it with lots of outdoor learning. On our country walks the children have found wild daffodils across the field and many of them asked to take some home for their Mums. To celebrate the arrival of the new season, the children have made Spring display festooned with blossom and birds. We entered our Spring display board into a competition with Early Years Resources and are delighted to have come in 2nd place! Click here to check out our display board and the other entries on their Facebook page.

With Miss Natalie the pre schoolers have been practising their pencil skills by writing some Spring words. May of the children chose their favourite flower as their Spring word. Flowers have been a big part of recent activities with the children using tulips and daffodils for still life paintings. The children also planted sunflowers of their own and took them home to watch grow over the next few months. 

Last week a few children went for an outing to Sandpit House. They had a wonderful time playing in the brand new garden and took part in an art session in the Art room.  We received lots of positive feedback from the children with one commenting “it was really good because there was a fireman’s pole” and another happy because “it had lots of climbs things”.

Since our last blog we have had our school photographer Brett Lenman come in to take the group photographs for the preschool children. We were so pleased with the final result as Brett worked his magic, achieving the impossible of having 16 children looking at the camera at the same time. Order forms have been handed out by your children’s group leaders.

This week Easter has been a big part of the children's activities. They learnt that the hot cross bun was invented in St Albans in 1361, where Brother Thomas Rodcliffe, a 14th Century monk at St Albans Abbey, developed a similar recipe called an 'Alban Bun' and distributed the bun to the local poor on Good Friday. During assembly they have talked about the customs and story of Easter and the children have enjoyed learning the traditional songs of "All things bright and beautiful" and "Give me joy in my heart".

The Spring term has now come to an end and these past three months have flown by. We hope you and your families have a relaxing Easter break and we are looking forward to a fun filled holiday club over the next two weeks.