Preschool - Tigers, rabbits and lions

Welcome back to the new term at Gateway. We hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year. This term our topic is Animals and their Habitats. The children have made some fantastic lion masks, and jungle puzzles, explored size with the animals of “Dear Zoo”, made their own zoo and counted spots on ladybirds from “What the Ladybird Heard”.

This week got off to an amazing start with the unveiling of our Take One Picture project. This is always an exciting time in the Gateway School calendar when we have a fabulous painting to inspire our planning. This year our painting is “Surprised!” by Henri Rousseaux. The children loved the painting and their focus was on the tiger and the lightning. Sam thought the tiger looked frightened and this led to a discussion on what may have happened in the time before the painting. We closed our eyes in order to listen and really focus on the soundscape. The children picked out sounds of the jungle and the heavy rain.

In an amazing coincidence the same day we had a special delivery from the zoo! A huge box arrived with a letter. The children were really excited to open this and inside was…….our very own tiger. He is already a huge favourite and hopefully will help inspire some fabulous work for our Take One Picture display - the children have already been involved in discussions and planning.

This term we have welcomed a new French teacher and our pre-reception children have been exploring numbers to 10 and naming snowman body parts with Miss Francis. In PE we have been listening to instructions such as stop and go. We’ve been moving like different animals and practising relay races.

Next week we are celebrating Chinese New Year as we enter the year of the rabbit. We will be making some interesting Chinese pictures, performing a lion dance and attempting to write some Chinese characters. If anyone attends any New Year celebrations we would love some pictures on tapestry!

We have been talking to the children about the change in the weather and practising putting on our coats, hats and gloves. We needed to wrap up warm in order to go outside. It would be great if they could continue to practise this at home.