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Keep up-to-date with the latest news and images online at www.lancaster.ac.uk/pre-school
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Royal Wedding Celebrations at the Pre-School
The Pre-school celebrated the recent Royal wedding with a garden party. The children thoroughly enjoyed the special day with traditional games, a disco, tossing the bouquet and a very long Conga. Party lunch boxes with mini-scones and wedding cake's featuring our own Royalty were quickly polished off. The sun shone all afternoon and the dancing continued until home-time!
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Pre-School Stomp
The Pre-School Stomp is our initiative to increase and promote physical exercise .The children are fabulous Stompers and to celebrate and share their achievements we held a week of Family Stomping. It was great to see so many parents attend and we hope you enjoyed not only the Stomping, but also joining us for a healthy lunch.
Parents commented on being surprised at how far and fast their children were able to walk. We can see that being competitive is often a family trait, especially with the ones who ran the route! It was exciting, rapidly collecting tokens for each lap and after a close knit competition the proud winners of the Family Stomp were Pre-School 3.
The health benefits are already noticeable with the children who have greatly increased stamina. The staff team keep it fresh and popular introducing new and fun way to Stomp.
The weekly winners of the Stomp are displayed in the foyer, as is the Token collection tube, so you can track your child's room and their progress each day.
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Pre-School at Roses 2018
The children in Pre-Schools 1 + 3 were thrilled to be involved with Roses this year. It is a really big event where the historical rivalry of the Houses of Lancaster and York is battled out by the Universities Sports teams over the Bank Holiday weekend.
We visited the Sports Centre and had fencing sessions with the LU team and coach Keith Cook. Keith is a six times Commonwealth champion and he brought his latest medal for the children to try on. The children quickly worked out the scoring system and cheered on the individual fencers.
We also watched the Trampoline team and participated in some training exercises and practise jumps. The trampoline coach explained how the trampolinist's needed to do ten acrobatic jumps during their performance, the children counted and clapped as they went through their routines.
Back at the Pre-School Centre, top free-styler Joe Ashworth came along to give demonstrations to children and parents during our week of Family Stomping. If you were lucky enough to see him, we are sure you will agree, Joe is a very talented individual.
On our next adventure, we headed off down to the football pitch where the children had coaching sessions with some of the Lancaster University men's football team. They were put through their paces, but listened carefully and followed all the instructions.
The culmination of an exciting few weeks was the opening Match of Roses 2018. Eleven very proud children accompanied the players onto the pitch along with our very own mascot Bonington bear.
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Dentist Visit
Dentists Yasmin and Romit visited Pre-School. They discussed with the children how to care for your teeth and gums. They highlighted three key messages, all of which go a long way in helping us develop and maintain a healthy mouth. They are, brush your teeth last thing at night and on at least one other occasion with a fluoride toothpaste. Cut down on how much sugary food and drink you have, and how often you have them. Visit your dentist regularly, as often as they recommend.
As the children had already done many activities for National Smile Month, they were very knowledgeable and the dentists were very impressed with them.
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Busy Babies
We have had a lovely term and have enjoyed meeting our new babies and their families.
Making the most of the sunshine, we have been spending a lot of time in our outdoor area. We have had a bit of revamp and introduced some new features. The babies have really enjoyed the swing and exploring the smells and textures of the herbs.
The babies with older siblings love playing together and we ensure that they are able to interact on a regular basis. The older children are so gentle and kind, it is so nice to watch them being so nurturing.
Within the room, additional resources have been purchased to make the room accessible to all, we have a new beanbag chair and some interesting floor based activities.
Babyroom continue to run the Teddies Club at the Chaplaincy Centre each Friday morning during term time. The babies enjoy the social interaction, and everyone is welcome to join us.
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WOW
Each new term we like to celebrate our families and collect photographs to display for the children. We also enjoy finding out and sharing news with each other. We have a 'WOW' moments board. This is for both families and staff to use to share information and celebrate achievements. The staff can use the board to record when their key children have tried a new experience or achieved higher stages of development. Some examples we currently have on the board are, a member of staff passing a test, children who have attended events with their family, and children singing a full song all by themselves.
Keeping healthy is important to us and we will be participating in lots of fruit and vegetable tasting. We have great activities planned to promote physical development and will be accessing the wider outdoors spaces to provide the children with bigger challenges. Do you have any ideas or suggestions for healthy snacks that your child enjoys? Please do share them with us.
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Music and Movement
This term we have been providing the children with lots of opportunity to engage in music and movement activities. The children have really enjoyed the visits to the Rainbow room with all its wonderful interactive features. Equally popular are the weekly mini discos where we have continued to develop our co-ordination and balancing skills whilst bobbing away to our favourite tunes!
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One Potato, Two Potato
The children in Nursery 1 have been exploring the natural world in many different ways, firstly they explored the home corner where we had provided a wide variety of real vegetables. They developed their language and communication skills as they discussed the meals they could make with the vegetables. Taking this to a higher level the children looked closely at the vegetables, seeing ones that could be peeled and different ones that had layers like onions and cabbages. This provoked numerous questions, I wonder what will be inside? What colour will it be? Will there be patterns? Obviously, we needed to investigate further and see if our predictions were correct. The children were very pleased with themselves if they had guessed correctly.
Both fine and gross motor skills along with an increased awareness of using tools and equipment were promoted as the children peeled, chopped and mashed their own potatoes. They were also able to observe the change in texture and the effects of heat as we cooked the potatoes.
It has been a great theme with so many different learning outcomes.
We have now decided to grow our own potatoes and green beans and look forward to looking after them to help them grow. Then we will cook and eat them too!
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Challenge Accepted
Nursery 2 have been stretching their physical abilities and challenging themselves. In addition to the regular stomping which has seen their levels of stamina greatly increase, they have also been climbing hills and balancing along the beams of the big sandpit. A few very determined and adventurous children have also been climbing the boulders in the garden.
In our garden, we have been busy planting and the children showed control in the movements as they carefully dug the soil and handled the plants. Grasping skills and strength were developed as we tended to and cultivated our plants, lifting heavy watering cans and spraying the leaves with the water bottles.
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Visiting the EcoHub
Always keen to explore the wider campus, Pre-school 1 have been visiting the EcoHub. Situated down at Alexandra Park, this haven of tranquillity provides a wonderful learning experience for students of all ages. Run by Green Lancaster, the site is used to grow organic fruit and vegetables. When we were there, we spotted some rhubarb, strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes and lots more. There are also chickens, a pond, a great big old barn and a lovely seating area to have a picnic.
Walking down to the EcoHub is great fun, but we also are learning important lessons about road safety. Everyone has concentrated really well and we get to let off steam by having a race on the final part of our journey.
We intend to continue with our visits over the summer and fingers crossed we will be able to enjoy some of the harvest. We are especially excited about the strawberries!
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Catch
We haven't spent that much time indoors this term, it's been so lovely. We have made the most of our fantastic outdoors exploring the big garden. We have enhanced our gross motor skills, playing chase, rolling down hills and playing Hide + Seek with our friends.
Laughter filled the air as we enjoyed finding new and funny ways to pop bubbles. Keep a look out for our new bubble station that is coming soon. Have you seen our pulley system and weighing scales? Ask us about them, we can tell you how we make them work.
The tadpoles are growing and everyone has been helpful taking care of them, it is interesting watching them and observing the life cycle as it occurs, we have already identified the next stage when the tadpoles will turn into froglets!
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Green Fingers
We have been talking about healthy eating in Pre-School 3 and so we decided to grow our own vegetables. We planted seeds and the children have shown a real sense of pride in what we are doing. This has promoted responsibility for caring for their plants, which has increased their self-confidence. It has also opened the children to reasoning and discovery, co-operation, sharing and teamwork. Having our own growing area has enhanced our physical skill, both fine and gross motor. Literacy skills have been developed as we learnt the names of different plants and herbs, we have also identified letter sounds. Our Cognitive skills have been further extended as we analysed and predicted outcomes.
Pre-School 3 have been amazing, enjoying every minute and observing the changes as they occur on a daily basis. They truly have green fingers and we do not mean of the usual paint variety.
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Pre-School Privacy Notice
The Pre-School privacy notice can be accessed via this link.
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Pre-School Drop Off
Can we please request that all parents accessing the drop off car park ensure that they access it using the one-way system as per the diagram above. This is to ensure the safety of all using it.
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Term & Closure Dates:
Term Dates:-
5th April until 24th August 2018
Undergraduate Terms:-
23rd April until 29th June 2018
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Door Cards
Can we please remind all parents/carers to use their door entry card/library card to gain access to the Centre.
If you have misplaced either of your cards, can you please advise the office immediately and a replacement door card is available to purchase at a cost of £5.00.
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Pre-school Feedback Forms
If there is something you would like to share, comment or ask please complete our feedback form available from reception.
All feedback, new ideas and suggestions are welcomed.
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