Watch this space for what we've been up to!

Spring Term 2

We have had a wonderful week in Pre-School! It has been so lovely to see the sunshine starting to make an appearance, and we’ve made the most of it with lots and lots of outdoor play. We have been very excited to start spotting the first signs of spring! Our learning this week has focused on daffodils. We have explored what they look like, talked about where they grow, and learnt about the different parts of the flower, including the petals, stem, and leaves.

The children created their own beautiful daffodil pictures using a range of materials, carefully choosing colours and practising their creative skills. We can't wait to continue our Spring discoveries!

Spring Term 1

Pre-school have loved learning all about penguins! We explored where they live, what they eat, and why they can’t fly, and we even learned the Makaton sign for penguin.

The children had great fun with our frozen-water penguin skating, exploring our Antarctic wonderland using shaving foam, ice-paint painting, and ice-rink fishing. We also enjoyed painting igloos and creating our own penguin artwork. Next week, we will be exploring our story telling skills with lots of exciting activities!

November 2025

It’s been a wonderfully busy few weeks at Pre-School!

We’ve packed in lots of learning, creativity and fun, and the children have embraced every moment.

Firework & Bonfire Night

We explored the colours and excitement of bonfire night by creating collage bonfires and experimenting with colour, texture and pattern in our playdough and firework tuff tray. So many sparkling creations!

Remembrance Day

The children made their own poppies through drawing and crafting while we talked gently about what the poppy symbolises. We said thank you to the soldiers who fought for us, and our Pre-Schoolers made us incredibly proud by joining the big school for a 2-minute silence. They showed such maturity and respect.

Nursery Rhyme Week

We’ve had great fun singing and exploring some of our favourite rhymes, including:

• Sing a Song of Sixpence, • Humpty Dumpty, • When I Was One, • I Hear Thunder, • Two Little Dickie Birds

Nursery Rhyme Week is such a special part of early learning. Rhymes help develop early language skills, build children’s confidence, support memory and listening, and lay the foundations for early reading. Most importantly ….they bring so much joy!

Maths Week

We’ve been promoting maths all across our provision, discovering number, shape, pattern and problem-solving through fun, hands-on play. The children have been showing brilliant curiosity and enthusiasm as they explore how maths is part of everyday life.

Halloween Week!

What a spooktacular week we’ve had! It’s been full of spooky fun and lots of lovely mess!

Our activities included creating a giant spider’s web, where we practised our fine motor skills using tweezers and tongs to catch insects. We even recreated this on a smaller scale with our geometric log slices and elastic bands.

In the creative area, we’ve been busy making wands and broom props inspired by our story of the week, Room on the Broom.

We explored colour mixing in our spider web art, combining glue, salt, and coloured water to create beautiful patterns.

Pumpkin carving was a big highlight! As we scooped out the pumpkins, we learned new descriptive language and discovered the seeds inside, sparking conversations about plant growth and the life cycle. One of the children decided our pumpkin needed his own listening ears so these were added too!

Our spaghetti tray helped us practise scissor skills, and we also had fun ghost writing on chalkboards, forming letters with chalk and water.

To top it all off, we created bubbling cauldron pictures and experimented with potion mixing, making our very own fizzing cauldrons!

It has been the best half term We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the wonderful support shown to us as we have found our feet settling into our new home. Pre-School is now closed for half term but will re-open on Monday 3rd November.

Harvest week in Pre-School!

We’ve had such a wonderful time celebrating Harvest this week and learning all about where our food comes from! The children have explored so many hands-on activities that supported their curiosity, imagination, and growing independence.

Our highlights:

Vegetable Printing – we explored different textures, shapes, and colours, encouraging creativity, sensory exploration, and lots of descriptive language.

Farming Tray – planting potatoes and carrots gave children the chance to talk about how things grow, practise counting, and use new maths vocabulary while learning about nature and the world around them.

Farm Small World Play – children enjoyed creating their own farm stories and working together with friends, helping to build imagination, cooperation, and confidence in sharing ideas.

Book of the Week – The Little Red Hen – this classic story inspired us to make our own bread! We were amazed to see our dough double in size and learnt new vocabulary like kneading, proving, yeast, and rise. This supported language, science understanding, and teamwork as we worked through each step together.

Autumn Sequencing Puzzles – great for problem-solving, thinking about order and sequence, and developing concentration and attention to detail.

Oat Tray Mark Making – the children loved practising letters and numbers in the oats, building fine motor strength, early writing skills, and confidence in mark making.

Self-Care & Independence – we practised using knives and forks to cut the playdough food we made, helping children build independence and confidence in managing everyday tasks.

Tractor Racing – racing tractors down different tracks helped children develop coordination, control, and perseverance — and we loved seeing everyone celebrate each other’s achievements!

Light Box Exploration – continuing from our space theme last week, children explored colour, shape, and pattern in new ways, encouraging curiosity, creativity, and discovery.

September 2025

Welcome to our new home at Wheldrake with Thorganby school