Our Makaton Sign of the Week is …. White
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Welcome Back!
We were pleased to welcome our children back from the October holiday today and especially pleased to show them our newly redecorated room. We are still a long way from having the room completely finished but we are definitely getting there.
Tomorrow we are hosting the ladies from the Needle and Natter group for the Big Soup Share, we are excited to be making some soup, sandwiches and cakes for them.
We were keen to do some hammering today on the workbench – lots of great coordination and some very polite and empathetic comments (when my fingers got in the way of the hammer 🔨 🤭). Showing some very good teamwork as well as significant artistic talentwe worked together to create a beautful picture which we hung up in the garden.
It was very windy in the garden today, the children noticed the wind was blowing the leaves round and round, “its like a tornado” they told me. I tried to get a video of it but every time I went to take one the wind went away. “If you wait a wee bit longer it’ll come back” the children told me. I did and, eventually, I got a little bit of the tornado on film to show.
Vision, Values and Aims
Playgroup’s Vision, Values and Aims were created several years ago. We are looking at them now to see if they remain relevant and appropriate. We’d be grateful if you could add a comment below on what your think is our USP (Unique Selling Point). What makes playgroup different, what does it add to our community? We are looking forward to hearing thoughts from everyone in the community – not just parents with children at playgroup! I’m also happy to receive comments privately – just Email (jane@cambusbarronplaygroup.com) me if you’d rather
#visionsvaluesandaims #whatmakesusspecial #playgroupsinthe21stcentury #whatmakesusshine #CambusbarronCommunityCentre #CambusbarronCommunityDevelopmentTrust #CambusbarronVillage @cambusbarroncommunitycouncil #wewanttohearfromyou #haveyoursay
October Break
Playgroup is now closed for the October break. We will re-open in our newly redecorated playroom on Monday October 22nd.
As we are well into the autumn season and, with the weather getting colder and wetter, we would be very grateful if parents can remember to send waterproofs and wellies with their children 🍁🍂🍂🌧🌬.
Our woodland play sessions will continue after the October break. Our next session will be on Thursday Oct 25th.
Child Smile
We are always pleased to welcome Lisa from Child Smile to playgroup. Today she brought our friend Ollie along and talked to the children about how to brush their teeth. The children are always interested in her talks and love to brush Ollie’s teeth!
Thank you
Huge thank you to the volunteers who came along to help clear out our room today. We cant wait to see how our room looks after it has been redecorated!
Toadstool Pizzas
We have been interested in fungi in the woods and this week we started to grow our own fungi in the playroom. We have been amazed at how quickly our fungi have grown. These fungi are ordinary mushrooms and it has been gratifying to hear the children remember the instructions they heard in the woods so clearly – always wash your hands if you touch fungi in the woods.
After picking some of our mushrooms we used knives to cut them up and to see the gills underneath the cap. The stalks just snapped off, we didn’t need to use the knife at all.
We have also been interested in pizza in the playroom and in finding where the Gruffalo lives in the woods. We combined all of our interest today and made a Gruffalo and mushroom shaped pizza. We suggested putting some (real) mushrooms on our mushroom shaped pizzas but that didnt go down too well!
Organised Sports are not Play….
This article has a strong US focus but contains many thinking points for me. It echoes again how much children’s lives have changed in recent years and how much more adults directed they become. Well meaning adults work as hard as they can (in more ways than one) to do the very best for their children but, by inflicting adult determined rules and goals on children, instead can limit children’s opportunities to learn and develop.
As with most things I think there is a balance to be had. The discipline, teamwork and sportsmanship that comes with organised sports is significant though I’d agree with the article that these are not skills particularly suited to very young children who are still developing emotional, communication and movement skills.
https://www.self-directed.org/tp/organized-sports-not-play/
Bird Boxes
We have been very interested in finding out more about where animals live and were looking for foxes’ dens, squirrels’ dreys and badgers’ setts when we were in the woods this week. We noticed some bird boxes that people had put on trees and decided that we would try making one that we could take to the woods and see if a bird would like to live in it. We made a prototype box and painted it a lovely shade of purple – what bird would not want to live in such a beautiful home?? We are going to make a real bird box in our workshop this week.
Cambusbarron Village Nursery 