GP Pre-School Check In

Good Morning Parents and Guardians

Unfortunately we find ourselves in another lockdown, this is a very challenging time for us all .

I hope all our families had a lovely Christmas  and are keeping safe and well hopefully this will all be over soon and all the boys and girls can return to our classrooms for some fun learning activities with all our friends,

I'm sure that there was great excitement last Friday when all the children woke up to the snow, for some of the boys and girls it will be the first time they've ever seen snow. It's such a fun and exciting experience for the children.

During lockdown it's important to the children that we keep them connected to preschool. It must seem like a long time ago for them so it's important that we keep them refreshed and keep their memory's active.

I've put together some activities for the children that I think they will enjoy and should be easy to do at home. We decided to keep it a snowy theme as I'm sure they all loved it and maybe we will get some more brrrrrrrrrrr.

I would also like for the children to practice some of their more familiar circle Time songs it will help them to connect to preschool. They will also be quite surprised when they hear you singing the words. Singing is a great way of introducing language to the children. The children love to sing in school everyday.

These are two songs we sing everyday at preschool during our morning circle time. If you sing them with children everyday it will help to keep our morning routine going. Also ask them what they enjoyed yesterday, keeping them talking and using new words is very important.

                                                   Sensory play activities      

I have had a look at some snow themed sensory activities that I think the children will really enjoy and are easy to do at home. 

❄Snow dough ❄

This is an activity that we would use in Play School the children really love it, its a great sensory activity ,it can be kept in the fridge to make it cold so it feels like snow and it's very simple to make with only two ingredients.

2 cups of corn flour

1 cup of white hair conditioner. 

Mix both of the ingredients together to form a crumbly dough that holds its shape when moulded. The children can build their own snow man at home. When out on walks the children can collect pieces of twigs and leaves they can use for parts of their snowman. Snow dough has endless play opportunities children can include their own small world toys and create their own imaginary games. You can store the snow dough in the fridge when you're finished and it will become really cold like snow.☃

Freezing toys in ice.

This is another activity that we would use in Play School it's a great science activity where children learn how ice is formed and how it melts. It will help them to understand what happened to the snow last Friday. This activity is so simple just find any small toys or berries or twigs and freeze them in plastic cups or ice cube trays, the children can use a teaspoon or squeezy bottle with some warm tap water to pour over the frozen objects to melt the ice and get the toy out.

Ice painting

This is another favourite activity that the children love and is also simple to recreate at home just use an ice cube tray some paint or food colouring and if you don't have lollipop sticks you can use straws (just cut the straws to fit), or some twigs from outside will work just as well. Let the children help you prepare the coloured ice cubes, allowing them to see how they change form when frozen, once they are frozen take them out put them on a plate and allow them to get wet and then start painting the children really enjoy this activity when in school and create some beautiful artwork.

The Artic

This topic has endless possibilities you can talk to the children about the animals that live in the arctic polar bears, penguin's, seals ,whales, how the animals live ,what they eat, the noises they make etc. There are lovely children's videos on YouTube that they could watch.

This is a lovely song that we sing in school when doing this theme. Learn to walk like a penguin.

 You can talk to the children about Eskimos/innuit the people who live in the artic. What they wear to keep warm, their houses made from ice ,igloos, (you can build your own with sugar cubes) keep asking questions and keep them talking. Ask them about summer and winter in Ireland ,the different clothes we wear during these seasons and how different it looks outside, dark, wet, cold, icy, 

Reading and Talking.

Reading stories, singing and talking to children at this age is so important ,I hope some of these ideas will be helpful to the children,

 Pinterest is a great website with lots of ideas that parents might like to have a look at.

We hope to see all our children and families very soon, if anyone needs help or ideas around something your child might be interested in contact us and we can help to find activities that might be helpful.