Preschool - Bubbles, story structures and solar eclipses

This week, in Preschool, we have been enjoying the sun. We spent lots of time outside, had lots of water play, washed the animals with soap and sponges and enjoyed emptying, filling and channeling water through pipes. The children learnt mathematical concepts of full, empty, half full as well as improving their fine motor skills whilst handling the jugs, funnels and cups.

We also had a bubble station which was lots of fun! The children used bubble wands to make bubbles, and they really enjoyed making great big bubbles, so we used the hoops to make really big bubbles. Miss Atieno then had the idea that the children could stand in the bubble tray and we could bring a bubble up over them. This was so exciting and the children all loved being inside the bubbles!

On Wednesday, we talked about books and what an Author and Illustrator are. The children read a book that last year’s Preschool children had written and they were really excited to talk about ideas for their own book. Xavier thought it would be good to write a story about a friendly dragon, and Lila said a book about a princess fairy would be good. We extended this activity by taking the children down to Forest School to recreate their stories. George pretended he was an enormous dinosaur and tried to ‘scare’ Otis who used his sword to frighten the dinosaur away! What great ideas they all had, and they all showed a good understanding of how a story is structured.

On Thursday one of the children came in and was so excited that it was the solar eclipse. We decided to follow this interest. The children all enjoyed watching a video about what a solar eclipse is and we then followed a link from the observatory at Greenwich where we saw the eclipse live on the TV! Everyone thought it was amazing. We made a paper eclipse too using card to make a sun and moon so the children could physically see what was happening during the process and could recreate it themselves.