During May and June we have been celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

We have had our own garden parties, with cucumber and salmon and tuna paste triangle shape sandwiches. We’ve been making red, white and blue fairy cakes and enjoying scones covered in jam and cream. The children made and decorated some fantastic crowns and party hats all based around the colours of the Union Jack. The last day of term the children and staff had a royal tea party and dressed up in the appropriate colours or as princes and princesses. It was also lovely to have so many of the children participate in the Jubilee celebrations which took place during the holiday on the village green.

Thankfully we have had a few more dry days so that the children have been able to get busy down at the allotment with planting. We are really pleased that we have now planted carrots, parsnips, swedes, butternut squash, pumpkins, mange tout and gillyflowers. Thank you to all the other allotment members for their support and donations of plants that we have been given over the weeks, we look forward to being able to harvest produce in the autumn.

The walk to and from the allotment is as much fun as the actual digging and planting and takes much longer now that the village green is covered in tiny white daisies. Our little ones just cannot resist stopping to pick a few and as a result we now have a vase full of daisies, dandelions and buttercups. Hunting for insects is a much enjoyed activity too and the local insects have been terrorised (especially the poor worms at the allotment as the children like to pick them up and love them).

We have also started to celebrate the Olympic torch run around Britain by making our own torches from card and paper during craft sessions. You may have seen the children running a couple of circuits around the village green with their torches, which they thoroughly enjoyed. We look forward to many more Olympic themed activities during June and July, which will include track events with cycling, running, and hurdling around the green.

For the first time, we gave the children a task to complete during the holidays. The week we came back after half term, the children shared what they had been doing over the break with pictures and photos they collected for a special holiday Show and Tell. It was interesting to see the variety of activities our pre-school families get up to when school is closed.
 
June is the month to appreciate the special men in our families so we spent some time thinking about what fathers do for us in anticipation of Father’s Day. The children then treated them to a wonderful drawing of “My daddy”.

On the 23 June we hosted the coffee shop at the community centre. This is a lovely way for Woodcote families to get together over tea and cake and is a good fundraiser for us. It was good to see so many of you supporting us and we’d like to say a special thanks to those who helped by baking and donating cakes, giving up their time to set up the centre, serve cakes and beverages, wash up,  and generally make this event possible. 
 
Water sports week is imminent, so the children will be participating in many water based activities. Let's hope the weather is sunny so that we can enjoy role playing rowing, sailing (making boats…will they sink or sail?) surfing and swimming. In keeping with this theme, we’ll be the learning rhymes Row, row, row your boat, I am sailing and The Owl and the pussy cat went to sea.

Our annual Sports Day is on 6^th of July where the children participate in a variety of races and skill based sporting activities involving bean bags, hoops, sacks and other interesting equipment. It is always a fantastic morning and we look forward to watching the children having good healthy fun.

The end of the school year means the inevitable goodbyes to some of our older children who head off to primary school. This means that we have a few places available for the term beginning in September. If you have been thinking about where to send your little one, (age 18 months to school) please get in touch to arrange a visit. We would be glad to show you around. Contact us at www.woodcotepreschool.co.uk or on 01491 682300.