It seems we have started off the new year at full speed with barely enough time to catch our breath between all the exciting activities taking place each day at our busy pre-school.

The children have been learning so much about other countries through hands on, multi- sensory activities. Listening to and dancing to music and singing songs from those countries, enjoying hearing traditional stories, sampling local cuisine and baking cookies shaped to compliment the topic, dressing up in traditional clothing and looking at artwork which has then inspired them to paint, draw, colour and cut to create beautiful artwork about the places and animals from these far away places.

They have enjoyed making and trying foods from around the world with a favourite being Australian Lamington cake and Anzac biscuits, as well as enjoying Mexican chilli, Texas chicken fajitas, mild Indian curry (especially the poppadoms), a fruity and spicy African dish, South African Koeksisters and Traditional English Roast Beef dinner with Yorkshire pudding.

We took some time out from our travels to hear about St Valentine’s Day and to make some sparkly, love heart covered pink and red cards for our loved ones.

We will be following our theme from last term of around the world by starting to think about the different countries that will be taking place in Britain for the Olympic games.

As the weather improves, we will be using the green for practicing our running, football and cricket skills and looking at a variety of other sports. We will be relating these sports to healthy living and to the importance of physical activities in keeping us healthy. We include looking at the foods that support well-being and strong healthy bodies in this topic.

After spending the first part of the year travelling the globe, we will be returning to Woodcote and learning about where we live. This includes trips around the village and discovering our community and the people who help us.

Memorising some traditional nursery rhymes is also something we look forward to. The children will be using them to extend their learning activities and games, specifically those aimed at communication, letters and sounds. We are excited to use these rhymes for our Easter Show which we will share with our families and friends and of course the highlight of the show being the Easter bonnet parade where we are always delighted by lots of creative homemade hats.

We have had some excellent news about developing our organic allotment and look forward to updating you as and when the work is carried out. The new improved site promises to be a even more wonderful asset to the pre-school than it already is and will also help create links between us and the elderly in the Woodcote community.

We would like to thank James Wheeler for donating some lovely new books to the school, which we sold in the run up to Christmas and which helped raised some extra and unexpected funds for us. We will have more of these quality books available in the next few months, which we will sell at any pre-school events.

In conjunction with Cabin Pre-school, we will be running a holiday club over the Easter Holidays. If you are interested in sending your child, please contact us on the numbers listed below,

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.