Hatch Warren Under 5s
They say time flies when you’re having fun, and we’re amazed at how quickly our first half term has gone at Hatch Warren Under Fives.
The children have been busy, busy, busy learning through play. Our Rising Fives Coordinator, Pam, always takes her planning lead from the children and through her observations this term has introduced the themes of cars and transport; and colours, shapes and numbers. We’ve had boats floating on jelly, a car wash, we’ve made traffic light sandwiches and name trains. And to complete our cars and transport theme, the children had a visit from the local lollipop man – he even bought along a child sized lollipop stick for some role play with the children. The little ones have also been mixing colours, painting toast and going on walks to look at shapes and colours in our environment.
At HWU5s we introduce pre-phonics skills through the Phase One Phonics programme. Our early phonics teaching initially focuses on developing our children’s listening skills. Angela, our SENCO, has been having a great time with the children on indoor and outdoor walks listening to the sounds in our environment. The children have been listening attentively to the sounds all around them and talking about what they’ve heard. We’ve shared rhyming books and had great fun guessing the sounds from the listening box – socks full of marbles, pots full of buttons, squeaky dog balls, jingling bells, and lots more…
The children also joined in with Macmillan’s World’s Biggest Coffee Morning this year and opened their very own coffee shop. Parents came along for coffee and cake – all served by our preschool waiters and waitresses. The children took all the payments and manned the tills, collecting £112.50 for this wonderful charity.
Every October the children at Hatch Warren Under Fives spend a week in the great outdoors. Woodland week is a firm favourite on our activities calendar and the children had a great time discovering bugs, eating barbeques, making dens, and collecting some lovely autumn leaves and pine cones. And while we were down in the woods this year, Hatch Warren Under Fives and their sister preschool Kempshott Under Fives, hosted their own Teddy Bears Picnic for siblings, friends and families. We had an amazing afternoon and the children and their favourite teddy bears enjoyed a teddy bear trail, face painting, games and there was even a prize for the best-dressed teddy! Sainsburys Hatch Warren showed fantastic community spirit by very kindly donating the teddy bears picnic – gestures and local support like this are invaluable to our charity run preschool.
You can find out more about our preschool by visiting our website www.hatchwarrenunderfives.co.uk. And please give our Facebook page a like, “Hatch Warren U5s Preschool”.
Don’t forget we also run four fun and friendly baby and toddler groups at Hatch Warren Community Centre. Our drop-in PrePlay groups run on Monday and Friday mornings at 9.15am-10.30am and again at 10.45am-midday. Suitable from birth – 5 years. No need to book, just turn up and play!
HWU5s and the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)
In our news above, we mention “Phase One Phonics”. This falls largely within the Communication, Language and Literacy area of learning in the EYFS. In particular, it will support linking sounds and letters in the order in which they occur in words, and naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet. It also draws on and promotes other areas of learning described in the EYFS, particularly Personal, Social and Emotional Development and Creative Development, where, for example, music plays a key part in developing children’s language.
The emphasis during Phase One is to get children attuned to the sounds around them and ready to begin developing oral blending and segmenting skills. At Hatch Warren under Fives we are providing fun activities to support Phase One Phonics whilst following the Early Learning Outcomes set out under the EYFS. For example under Communication and Language, within the 30 to 50 months age bracket, the children should be able to “listen to others, one to one or in a small group, when conversation interests them”. The children have already switched on their listening ears and have taken part in some fun listening games, thereby achieving this target without even realising it. Over this academic year we will work through all seven aspects of Phase One Phonics in order to provide the children with great speaking and listening skills. This will ensure they will be ready to begin Phase Two when they start school next September.
To enquire about our waiting list at Hatch Warren Under Fives, please contact Michelle Tejevo, Head of Preschool, on 01256 322788, or at preschoolmail@aol.com. We also run a sister preschool, Kempshott Under Fives, located a short distance away at St. Mark’s Church in Kempshott.
