We’ve had hugely successful first half term at Kempshott Under Fives – our little ones have adjusted well to our new routines and are thoroughly enjoying all of our topics and activities.

Our most recent topic has been “Autumn”. We’ve been making the most of our outdoor time and discovering all the autumn colours, patterns and the changes that we see in the environment as the seasons change. While we’ve been outdoors, we’ve been looking out for conkers, pine cones and leaves, which are all great natural resources to use in preschool at this time of year. After half term we will be spending more time outdoors and encouraging the children to get their listening ears on and listen out for the wonderful sounds of autumn such as crunching leaves, wind in the trees, splashy puddles and lots more.

We are also looking at animals that hibernate as part of our autumn topic. Lots of children have spoken about hedgehogs, so we have been collecting lots of lovely natural resources to build hedgehog houses. Hedgehog has also been one of our words to learn in our weekly Makaton signing lessons.

We continually promote British values at preschool, one of which is “Democracy”. Every two weeks the children vote for a new book to read at circle time, they love casting their votes and at the same time they learn all about different choices. We learn a new song, a new Makaton sign and a French word every other week too. We also do "write dance" where we lay on our tummies and move our arms with a crayon in each hand in time with the music. This helps to strengthen children's core muscles and to build on arm movements and co ordination which assist with pre-writing skills.

The children have really enjoyed creating our new display boards – we have a birthday display with all of our handprints, and we have a tree that we add to each week by creating something from our books and topics and adding it to the tree. It’s a lovely way to remember what we’ve been learning.

Coming up in November we will be getting creative with clay when we celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, and with bonfire night coming up we’ll be using lots of colour to create our own fireworks and we’ll be exploring lots of sounds for firework night too. It’s pumpkin season too so we’ll be making some yummy pumpkin soup with the children.