We’d like to extend a warm welcome back to all our pre-school families. We hope you had a blessed and peaceful festive season and we wish you a good and happy 2012.

We all felt really blessed in the last few weeks of December and would like to say a few special thank-yous. Firstly for the many lovely gifts and cards received and secondly, to Marie and Mariella Edwards for donating a fantastic real Christmas tree to Pre-school which brightened up the pavilion room.

Our Christmas Star production was a great success and the children were all so adorable in their special outfits. Thank you to Rev Linda Smith and to friends and family for coming along to watch and enjoy the show. We also enjoyed our trip to the primary school to watch their Christmas in Woodcote production too.

The staff and children are excited to do some shopping, with the donation from the Woodcote Correspondent, to update our literacy corner. We are looking forward to buying daisy chain cushions (comfortable for the little ones), an ABC letter rug (bright flooring & supports learning) and bean bags for the older children. Thank you for this wonderful gift!

As you are reading this, we’ve begun our wonderful new topic of Around the World. This includes learning about North and South America and using our imaginations to play at exploring the rainforests, mountain and snow peaks of the north while making friends with bears and raccoons. Listen out for some raucous role-play as we dress up and charge around the village hall being Cowboys and Indians as well as ranchers wrangling our herds.

Then we wrap up warm and head for the colder regions of the Antarctic and the Arctic where we will meet Polar bears, penguins, seals and whales. Much fun is expected as the children make an igloo to live in as they imagine they are Eskimos. There will be some pretend fishing followed by a delicious fish and chips lunch cooked by us in our lovely kitchen on site.

Just when we have had enough of the cold, we will wing off to a warm and sunny Australia, where the children meet kangaroos, koala bears, wombats and emus. They will get the opportunity to learn what it is like to be Aborigines living off the land. We will conclude our trip down under by enjoying a BBQ and by trying a popular Brisbane dish.

Our well travelled explorers will use their passports to fly to exotic Asia and India where they will be treated to a tasting of Indian masala curry with poppadoms and chicken stir fry (to be eaten with chopsticks- a sight well worth seeing when many of our youngest pre-schoolers cannot yet use a knife and fork properly) with prawn crackers. Using our large collection of dress up clothes, the children will be able to imagine they are natives of the regions, dressing in traditional Asian and Indian costumes. As part of learning about these different cultures, we celebrate the Chinese New Year by doing Dragon dancing and making a variety of themed arts and crafts.

Finally, our weary explorers return to the United Kingdom, where they make one last stop in Scotland. The children will celebrate Burns night by trying porridge and learning Scottish dancing and singing Scottish songs.

As the long wintery days are still looming ahead of us, we are pleased to invite you all to our Winter Disco, to be held on the 11^th of February in the Village Hall. This is open to friends and family but is not suitable for children. A lovely meal will be provided along with good music and a chance to shake of the post festive blues by dancing the night away. For more information please contact us or look out for posters giving details of this event. We hope to see many of you there as we try to make this an annual event on the village calendar.

If you are interested in starting your child at Woodcote Pre-school or for more information, please contact Liz on 01491682300 or email .  You can also find us at www.woodcotepreschool.co.uk.