Preschool - Sharing different experiences

Our “Journey” to the end of the year is coming to a close in Preschool. Our last few weeks have been focused on all sorts of journeys - as our topic name suggests!

For example, we have been looking at ways to safely traverse from one piece of apparatus to another in PE; a very exciting visitor came to talk to us about a journey from England to America and the first Thanksgiving feast and we have ended the term getting ready for our own little retelling of the story of a journey to Bethlehem for the birth of a special baby boy.

Our specialist lessons have continued to be a highlight of our week, even as the weather turns colder; our PE sessions have moved to the hall where the children have had the opportunity to explore the school’s exciting gymnastics equipment! As well as refining our gross motor skills, we have been using our communication and language skills to listen to and give different instructions: “Go over the bench and climb under the table” in these. The children have enjoyed the company of Patrick the parrot (and his friends) in French and he has been teaching them all about Christmas in France, continuing to explore numbers and colours and even brought along some familiar stories such as Dear Zoo and The Gruffalo in French, so we could learn the names of animals and some descriptions. The songs for our much anticipated Christmas play have taken centre stage of our music lessons. We have been practising old classics such as Away in a Manger and We Wish You a Merry Christmas as well as our in-house favourites 5 Little Elves and The Reindeer Hokey Pokey!

At the heart of Gateway Preschool, of course, are our families. The children thrive on close-home school links and love seeing snippets of home within the classroom. Our fantastic children come from just as fantastic parents who have provided us with all sorts of fascinating stimuli to talk about and learn from! We had a parent visitor come in and talk to us about the story of the first Thanksgiving and teamed up with her daughter to do a whole presentation on their family traditions as well as the importance of being thankful. We were very grateful when they shared some pumpkin pie with us! We’ve shared Christmas traditions from across the globe, with parents sharing posts about holiday traditions in Poland and Ireland, for example, on Tapestry. We have even embarked on a huge project to help us to countdown the days until Christmas - a Preschool Family Advent Calendar - which has been shared across the school! The children and their families have sent in videos and pictures of their preparations for the festive seasons and we have seen a range of activities going on - dances from all the way across the world in Africa and sing-songs in little old Great Missenden to name just a couple.

The main event this half term has been our Christmas play - The 12 Days of Preschool - in which we put a very Early Years twist on a familiar Christmas song and explore the story of the Nativity… We are all eagerly awaiting the answer to Mary's question “ is there room at the inn?” as we haven't always had the right answer so far!

All the Preschool team wish you and your family a Happy Christmas and a wonderful new year. We look forward to seeing some of you during the holidays at Preschool.