Pre-School Activities

Children learn through play – it stimulates creativity and imagination, it encourages them to explore through their senses.

The Great Outdoors  We are lucky enough to have a fantastic outdoor area for our children to explore. From creating dinosaur world on the decking to making pies in the mud kitchen, there is so much for our children to discover outside. We  have access to the Primary School grounds.

As well as spending time outside a typical morning’s play will include many of the following activities.

Painting & Drawing

Children are able to paint freely choosing their own colours. Sometimes they are offered the opportunity of doing splatter paintings, printing and using other paint techniques. Children can draw daily and are encouraged to colour using various materials.

Books

A large selection of picture books are available and we place much emphasis on reading stories to children.

Junk & Collage

The children are given plenty of opportunity for cutting, glueing, sticking and building simple models and pictures. As well as being fun, this kind of activity encourages dexterity and helps the children learn about shapes, textures and colours.

French

Integrating spoken French into our curriculum through songs and rhymes, games and conversation.

Music

We have a good selection of children’s instruments, we encourage singing and reciting rhymes.

Drama & Role Play

Children enjoy dressing up and acting out their favourite stories and rhymes.

Home Corner

We have a home and shopping corner where children can play imaginatively with play cookers, kitchen equipment, food baskets, scales, prams and dressing-up clothes.

Play Dough

This is a much-loved activity, and in the interest of hygiene the dough is replaced frequently. There is a wide selection of toys, cutting equipment etc. easily accessible to the children.

Visitors

Visitors from the community come in to talk to the children including the local fire brigade and the school reception year teacher.

Other Activities

These include a Nativity Play, Christmas Party and Sports day.

All these activities combine to:

Enrich language development
Form the basis of mathematical understanding
Offer the chance to explore and enjoy natural materials
Develop muscular strength and co-ordination
Establish the use of symbols and patterns, laying down the foundations for reading and writing
Encourage habits of listening and concentration
Provide an introduction to science and the world around us

A Typical Day

At Brockenhurst Pre-School we have a flexible routine – this is just an example of how a typical morning may run.

Our Pre-School teachers welcome us, they chat to our parents and carers about what we have been up to.

We register ourselves hang up coats and bags on our peg.

We choose an activity; there are adults ready to help us to choose and to encourage our ideas.

Around 9.30 we have circle time, we have lots of fun with puppets and props, we sing and move to music we use rhythm sticks, we count and learn the alphabet and listen to stories. We then play some more before snack time, we enjoy helping to prepare the room for a peaceful time. We wash our hands; we pour our own drinks and enjoy a really good chat.

11.00 After snack time we go outside to play.

11.40 We then join together for circle games like the farmers in his den or oranges and lemons.

11.50 Then it’s back to Pre-School. We have a story with our friends and get ourselves ready for lunch.

12.50 We get ourselves ready, collect our works of art, and wait to be called to go home if we are not staying for the afternoon.