Walton Pre-School

Gallery

Introducing early science activities

Exploding mud monsters

Fizzing dinosaur eggs

Magnetic objects

Listening to Autumn stories Oct 2024

Autumn Craft October 2024

Sept 2024

We celebrated MacMillan Coffee morning and helped by making cakes to sell.

We raised £135.40

New Term begins - Sept 2024

Wow what a busy first week and well done to all the children who have settled so well into Pre School.

The children have been keen to explore the Walton Woods garden area and have picked apples, seen our family of pheasants ( mum now have 5 babies) found bugs, picked radishes and tomatoes and so much more.

Looking forward to lots more fun and learning.

Graduation - July 2024

Its both a time to celebrate and a time of sadness as we say farewell to our Butterfly Class who are moving onto ‘big school’ in September.

We are so very proud of each and everyone of you.

Teamwork - July 2024

June 2024

We often undertake baking as part of expanding our children’s life skills, today we chose to make sandwiches instead. We carefully spread the butter on the bread, followed by Jam. We then put the two pieces of bread together and with support cut the bread into triangles so that we could eat the sandwiches at snack time. Yum Yum they were delicious!

June 2024

Do you like our counting hands?

June 2024

Some more amazing tuff trays for the children’s enjoyment whilst following their interests.

June 2024

Check out our balancing skills.

The sun is shining and we are making mud pie!

Intergenerational project - May 2024

We had the most amazing afternoon with our Forget me not Dementia group where we all took part in some flower arranging in china tea cups.

We had beautiful flowers all donated by Marks and Spencer’s and were helped in our design by members of the group. Butterfly Class all made an arrangement which they took home to their parents.

9th May 2024

Today we had a visit from Baloo an ex service dog. The children really enjoyed listening to her story and asked lots of questions. We ended the visit by presenting Baloo with a new dog bowl, some healthy food and of course a few doggie treats. Thank you Baloo we really enjoyed meeting you.

The joys of sensory play - May 2024

Ever wondered why children come home from Pre School covered in flour?

Well it has great usage when learning to trace around letters, its so easy and soft to run your fingers through and create the letters in the flour with immediate recognition of what has been created.

Duck Hatching Part 3

Our ducklings experiencing water for the first time.

Learning to swim.

Saying goodbye

On Friday we said our goodbyes to Dingleberry, Quaxley, Chick, Sweetpea, Arsenal and Flopsy. It will strange for everyone not to have these amazing ducklings, who have filled the last 3 weeks with moments of excitement, anticipation, amazement, laughter, awe and wonder. It has been such an amazing educational experience with so many moments witnessed in real time by the children and staff.

We are all going to miss you so much.

Duck Hatching Part 2

Latest duck pictures whilst enjoying the great outdoors

In the following order:
DINGLEBERRY, QUAXLEY, CHICK, SWEET PEA, ARSENAL, FLOPSY

Our amazing duckling project - April / May 2024

We were very eggcited! To receive our eggs ready for hatching and followed the instructions impeccably.

We prepared the cage ready for new ducklings to settle into.

We waited with eggcitement for when the eggs began to crack and could hear the ducklings cheaping from within the eggs.

Our first duckings arrived and we were so lucky as we were able to sit and watch this.

The children had chosen names and as each duckling was hatched a name was drawn from the hat.

Our first duckling was Dingleberry, look how I fluffed up and grew into a handsome duck.

Followed by 2 further yellow ducks.

Look at how we changed after a few days.

Welcome to Quaxley and chick

April 2024

We created our own farm and vegetable patch

April 2024

We’re in the local paper (www.gazette-news.co.uk.)

We were lucky to meet a wonderful couple at the recent Nursery World Show in London, who explained to us about how their son had sadly died after choking in a nursery. Through this tragedy they have researched and developed an anti choking device which they kindly donated to us.

Their aim is to get this device into as many nurseries as they can to help to prevent / reduce the risk of choking. So far over 1040 children’s lives have been saved.

We are so very grateful to the Oliver Steeper Foundation for this donation. All staff have now completed their training.

www.oliversfoundation.org.uk

Easter 2024

The Easter bunny has arrived at Pre School!

The children have thoroughly enjoyed searching for Easter treats hidden in the woodland garden.

We all had so much fun.

The children made Easter bonnets which were judged in their age groups by volunteers from the Walton & District Foodbank.

What Fabulous hats!

Spring 2024

Our new topic is growing and we created our own garden centre.

April 2024

A cool way to create flowers in paint.

March 2024

Whilst in our forest school garden we looked for bugs and had a visit from two friendly ducks.

Wiggly Worm Experiment - March 2024

We had fun with a tissue paper wiggly worm experiment.

The children coloured some tissue paper the adults then rolled this round a pencil, squeezed it as small as it could go and pulled it off the pencil.

The children then used large pipets to add water on to the worm and it grew in length.

Amazing!

Working with RHS - March 2024

During March we joined forces with the RHS to share seeds within our community and to plant seeds which would produce food for us to eat.

March 2024

On a nice dry day we were able to re-vamp our mud kitchen for the children to use.

Nature Windows - March 2024

We created our own nature windows to see what mini beasts we could find and what better place to look than our bug house. We hope with continued good weather than we can undertake some repairs to this and to replenish some areas to create a cozy environment for our bugs to live. We also collected twigs and brought these back int the classroom to make shapes.

Forest School Garden - March 2024

We really enjoy being in our Forest School garden and make the most of the better weather days.

Growing - March 2024

Our New Topic for the Spring is growing, we have been busy making grass worms

Tidying Our Garden - March 2024

We have been busy weeding our wildflower garden after the long winter. We are now looking all tidy again and would be grateful if anyone has any plants that they would be happy to donate to make this look less bare. We are hoping with warmer weather that we may begin to see some little seedlings appear

World Book Day - March 2024

Today we celebrated World Book Day in lots of ways, including dressing up, reading our favourite books, learning about authors and illustrators and making our Cat in the hat fruit skewers to eat at snack time. We ended the day by listening to Michael Rosen reading ‘Were going on a bear hunt.’

Still Life Drawing - March 2024

We practiced still life drawing, what do you think?

Happy St Davids Day - 1st March 2024

Fire Service - February 2024

As part of this terms topic we have been learning about roles in the community. We had been learning about the Fire Service and created our own area to spray down with hoses.

We celebrated Chinese New Year - February 2024

Building stars of the future! - February 2024

Last week the children continued the topic ‘People Who Help Us’ with a Builders tuff tray. We had bricks and different tools builders use to build and construct. We used shaving foam for cement to help hold our bricks together and not forgetting our safety hats.

Shrove Tuesday - February 2024

We celebrated Shrove Tuesday and made pancakes in the classroom. We mixed the batter practicing our cracking eggs skills and then we pretended to flip these – Oh what fun

We then cooked these on our portable ovens. We chose healthy fillings of fruit but also had some squirty cream! They were super delicious end enjoyed by all the children and of course the staff too.

Staff Attended the Nursery World Show in London - February 2024

Visit Walton Library - 24 January 2024

As we continue to learn about the community we live in we went to visit Walton Library for a song and rhyme session, which included many of the children’s favourites.

We then were able to have a look around the children’s library area, choosing books to share with our teachers, colouring in the new sheets at the desk as well as exploring the new equipment such as the sensory seating areas.

Thank you so much for a lovely morning.

Creating their own shop - 24 January 2024

The children extended their learning from the visit to Marks and Spencers by creating their own shop when back at Pre school. We used real food items, we had trolleys and baskets as well as working tills. We created our own lists and enjoyed shopping at the Walton Pre School village shop

Trip to local Marks & Spencers shop - 24 January 2024

We are learning about our local community and went on a trip to our local Marks & Spencers shop

We were soon greeted by M&S staff at the front doors. We bought along our own shopping trolleys and baskets. We were given a shopping list and with our adults we went to find the items. We filled our trolleys and baskets high! We even got to use the checkout and scan the items we had brought.

We were invited into the back of the store for a rest break to have a biscuit and some juice/milk.

We had the most wonderful morning in Our Community.

A BIG thank you to all the staff at M&S who made us feel so welcome, smiled throughout our visit with nothing being too much trouble.

Christmas - December 2023

The children enjoyed a traditional Christmas Dinner cooked by some of our Trustees, after which they had a visit from Santa and his elves.

Remembrance Day service - November 2023

Our children proudly took part in the Remembrance Day service. We walked through the town following the band and even marched to the drum beat. We carried our wreath with pride and waited to be called out to lay this at the memorial. The Royal British Legion and local Councillors praised us for our attendance and behaviour as some of the youngest participants.

Children in Need - November 2023

The children enjoyed supporting Children in Need by wearing yellow or spots, we even had a visit from Pudsey!

We took part in Joe Wicks workout too and raised £85.00

MacMillan Coffee morning - September 2023

We celebrated with lots of home made cakes, buns and biscuits and raised an incredible £284.10

Harvest 2023

As part of our Harvest Celebrations the children have been visited by Mark Rowlands from Coastlands Community Church. Mark spoke with the children about Harvest Festival, the children all engaged and asked many questions. The children were so proud of their Harvest donations they invited Mark to follow them into the corridor. Mark was thrilled to see the enormous amount of donations that will help support the community.

The children then visited the Walton and District Community FoodBank to pass on their harvest donations.

This Term's Topic is 'All About Me'! - Autumn 2023

The children have enjoyed various activities to help with our topic ‘All About Me’.

They have been making faces using natural resources from Walton Woods along with playdough and craft materials. They also used glue to stick facial features onto blank faces. We then asked the children if they could point to different features on their own faces. These activities helped the children to gain confidence in their conversational skills, helped develop their fine motor skills and helped them understand similarities and differences between themselves.

In the tuff tray we had cutting hair spaghetti. The children practiced their fine motor skills using scissors to cut the spaghetti. We use language short, long, curly, wavy, straight.

Just Some of the Many Fun Learning Experiences the Children have Enjoyed this Month - September 2023

Coloured monster spaghetti! The children used their fine motor skills using tweezers to grab hold of the spaghetti and place into matching coloured bowls. This also gave the children time to express themselves using language of how they feel ‘sad, happy, excited, angry, confused, scared’. We then read the book ‘The Colour Monster goes to School ‘.

We used bowls, tweezers, mini dinosaurs, vehicles and bears to sort objects into colours. We used tweezers to pick up each mini object to put them in the correct group. This helped to promote gross and fine motor skills to help develop pencil control and scissor control . Children extended this by adding water to see if dinosaurs would sink or float.

We explored a new way of mark making which was using the Beebots with pens. The children had to direct the Beebot by using the different direction buttons. The pens left a trail on the paper so the children could see where they had been.

We had so much fun playing with bubbles. The children explored different objects to create bubble wands. They had conversations about the size of bubbles, the colours they could see in the bubbly water and everyone finished with beautifully clean hands!

Bug hunting with a difference! The children used hammers to break the bugs free from the ice blocks.

Discovering the many different textures found in nature.

Children made their own shakers. They used a variety of spoons and scoops to collect the pasta, rice, lentils and sequins and place them into a bottle. We will use these at circle time to play rhythms when we are singing.

The Caterpillar Class were shown a photo of the Naze tower to link in with our ‘all about me’ topic. We put some paper on the floor along with some paints and sponges. The children used their motor skills to make marks on the paper. We will cut this into the tower shape and display it on our board.

A Fantastic Start to the New Academic Year - Sept 2023

We have had such a busy first couple of weeks as we support our new children to settle and our existing children to get used to their new classrooms.

We have explored to the fullest and found trees to climb, crates to balance on, food to make, tuff trays to be messy in, puzzles to make and of course the grass to be cut. We had so much fun, enjoyed each other’s company, began to make friends and had lots of laughter and fun.

We are of course learning too!

A Wonderful End to the Academic Year of 2023

We had a wonderful Graduation Ceremony and Family Picnic in Walton Woods to celebrate the achievements of, and say a fond farewell to our Butterfly Class of 2023.

We all feel very blessed to have known the children and extremely emotional to be sending them off on their new adventures.

We wish our families all the very best and we know all the children from Butterfly Class 2023 will continue to be amazing.

Storm Watch - July 2023

We thoroughly enjoyed watching the storm this week. The children were curious as they saw the first flash of lightning then we heard the thunder. We opened the doors and watched the storm whilst discussing what a thunderstorm was. One explanation was “lightning is a flash and thunder is when the clouds dance and rain comes out”

We asked the children if there’s any songs about rain and we sang “I hear thunder” and “it’s raining it’s pouring.”

Frinton Scarecrow Festival - July 2023

The children and staff have had so much fun
making our entry for the Frinton Scarecrow Festival. Transporting
our Royal Guard and his trusty steed ‘Windsor’ was interesting! They were both
a very popular exhibit with the visitors throughout the day.

Our Blooming Garden - July 2023

Our wild flower garden is springing into life with beautiful flowers and colours to attract the wildlife.

Frinton Firefighters Visited our Pre School

We had an amazing visit from the fire service based at Frinton. The firefighters were so welcoming of the children’s questions and thoroughly enjoyed showing them all the different parts of the engine and all the equipment and tools they carry.

Thank you so much for your time.

Campfire in Walton Woods - July 2023

We enjoyed having a camp fire yesterday and eating smores, so very yummy!

Beach Trip - July 2023

We had an amazing beach trip yesterday with Caterpillar Class. We had so much fun playing in a rock pool

and found so many interesting things. We ended the day with a lolly before we walked back to Pre school.

Transport Day - June 2023

We thoroughly enjoyed our transport day. We were joined by our local PCSO officers who helped us understand about road safety and dangers that may occur on the roads and when crossing the roads. The children learnt about road safety that incorporated: roundabouts, zebra crossings, traffic lights, speed cameras and building works as well as staying safe around other road users. After all our fun we came back into our classrooms for a bowl of ice cream.

To further support our Transport Day, our cooking activity this week was also transport themed as we made traffic light biscuits, which were delicious!

Gardening - June 2023

We were very grateful this week to welcome Martina from Honeysuckle Gardening to support the children in planting flowers in their beautifully decorated plants pots which they could then take home. The children loved the activity, adding bobbing butterflies to each pot of flowers. Thank you Martina!

Wildlife Trust's 'Let's Go 30 Days Wild'! - June 2023

We are so excited to be joining in with the Wildlife Trust’s ‘Let’s Go 30 Days Wild’! It’s a fun initiative that encourages children to experience one wild thing every day for 30 days. As part of this month’s 30 days Go Wild, we have been in our forest school taking part in lots of wild activities including counting flowers on the grass, looking for bugs and collecting items found in the garden.

Healthy Eating - June 2023

Our topic has been healthy eating and we have been having lots of fun with different activities to help encourage children to make healthy choices. As well as eating lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, the children have also been using their artistic skills to draw different fruit and vegetables, and use fruit and vegetables cut up in different shapes and dipped in paint to create pictures. The children also made their own freshly squeezed orange juice to drink at snack time. It was delicious!

Bees! - May 2023

Can you guess what we’ve been learning about? As part of our topic, we’ve had a ‘Bee Day’. We’ve had lots of creative fun and also been using bees to help with our Maths.

Den Building - May 2023

With the lovely weather this week, the children were challenged to make a den for some shade in Walton woods. They had tarpaulin, string, scissors and sticks. With help of an adult, the tarpaulin was tied between a tree and the fence. With lots of great team work, they proudly created a den.

Flower Shop - May 2023

This week Butterfly Class changed their home corner into a flower shop!

We enjoyed having a camp fire yesterday and eating smores, so very yummy!

Planting and Growing - May 2023

The children have been planting lots of seeds and plants, watering them and watching them as they grow. Look at our fabulous grass and cress caterpillars!

King Charles lll Coronation - May 2023

We celebrated King Charles lll Coronation by having a garden party. We were so lucky as we had the most lovely sunny morning. We were joined by the King and Paddington Bear who had marmalade sandwiches. We all sang our new Coronation song and enjoyed the celebrations. The children also took part in lots of creative activities and every child made a card for the king with their own questions written inside which were then all posted to Buckingham Palace.

Wildlife Garden - April 2023

Look at our new wildflower area to attract wildlife to our garden. We have spread wildflower seeds and planted some cottage garden plants which were donated by a member of the Forget me Not group. We have a bee and bug house which we won in a M&S competition to add too. Before and after pictures to show the difference!

Hatching Chicks - April 2023

As part of this term’s ‘Life Cycles’ topic the children had the wonderful experience of hatching chicks at Pre School. They helped in every stage, from looking after the eggs in the incubator, using a special lamp to be able to see the chicks inside the shell, watching the chicks hatch out of the eggs, helping to keep the chicks fed and watered and giving them lots of gentle strokes and cuddles in the classroom and out in the garden.

Silly Sock Day

We celebrated Silly Sock Day during Autism acceptance Week (27th March – 2nd April) by wearing our silliest socks. We celebrate each year to help to raise awareness and start conversations about autism, whilst having fun and coming together to raise vital funds to support the work that Autism Anglia do

International Women’s Day

On March 8th 2023 we celebrated International Women’s Day. As a Pre School we always engage our children in activities and conversations to inspire and reinforce an inclusive mindset.

We champion the role of women and hope to inspire our future generations to challenge any form of discrimination today, tomorrow and everyday.

Holi Celebrations

We celebrated Holi at the end of March, this is the Hindu festival of colours, love and spring. We had various activities such as decorating patterns using coloured rice, paint mixing activities, mixing chalk to create new colours, making different coloured playdough and then mixing them together. We ended the day by taking part in our own colour run outside. We wore goggles or sun glasses and old T shirts to protect our clothes and eyes.

This was such a lovely experience which the children thoroughly enjoyed

6th March Fire Drill

Today the children have practised the fire drill.

They all listened and followed instructions given by their teachers.

The children waited patiently whilst the register was taken and stood nicely at the fire evacuation point.

All children have received a certificate and sticker.

Well done everyone!

World Book Day 2/3/23

Staff and children took part in this years world book day by either dressing up as their favourite character from a book or bringing in their favourite book and wearing pyjamas.

We had a fun day reading lots of stories and love the annual celebration of authors, illustrators, books and the overall joy of reading

St Davids Day Fri 1st March 23

We celebrated St Davids Day by making our own daffodils.

Pancake Day

To celebrate Pancake Day the children have participated in various activities. They have been busy cutting and sticking to make their own pancakes with different toppings. On the maths table we’ve had out different size frying pans with numbered pancakes. The children even had a go at flipping the pancake in the frying pan.

The children all came together during snack time, followed a healthy recipe of how to make pancakes, helped mix the ingredients together alongside staff in readiness to cook their pancakes.

The children self selected their fruit for extra toppings alongside some lemon and a little drizzle of sugar. Don’t they look delicious!

Chinese New Year 2023 - Year of the rabbit

We celebrated Chinese New Year in January, we ate noodles and prawn crackers which were delicious. The children made traditional red money wallets, Chinese lanterns and attempted to copy some traditional Chinese writing. We had noodles in our tuff tray where we practised using chop sticks! We set up an interest table with all things Chinese in order that the children could explore and extend their knowledge.

Special Christmas Visitors!

On the 1st of December Pre School children had some special visitors ……. The cheeky elves, Sparkle and Shine had arrived!

During the last week at Pre School, whilst lots of festive activities were taking place, one special occasion we were all looking forward to was Christmas dinner.

We all came together for this very special social occasion. With helpers from the Committee supporting with cooking and Foodbank joining us too for dinner.

Lots of crackers were pulled and laughter had by all.

A very special thank you to our Committee helpers and also to Food Bank who paid for the Christmas meal. Walton Pre School is very thankful for the support we receive.

Look at the children’s beautiful Christmas inspired art work.

Children in Need 2022

Thank you all for supporting Children in Need. We are thrilled to have raised £40.00.

The children all took part in a variety of activities, during our pyjama day at Pre School.

We also had a very special visitor too! Thank you to our local Primary School – Walton Primary School.

Remembrance Day - November 2022

On Friday 11th November the children at Pre School held a 2 minute silence to remember all of our soldiers and animals that fought in the war.

In preparation the children made individual lanterns to hold as well as using the Pre School uniform to create one large Poppy in the middle of the Pre School Hall to stand around during our silence.

The children continued celebrating the day with a variety of craft activities.

On Sunday our staff, family and children attended the Walton on the Naze Remembrance Service and laid a poppy wreath in the Memorial Gardens.

We are all so incredibly proud of you.

Thank you for all taking the time to represent Walton Pre School on this occasion.

Well done everyone!

Halloween 2022

We all had a spooktacular day at pre-school today.

Diwali

During this week the children have celebrated Diwali.

The children have explored fact files with staff, understanding the meaning of Diwali: Row of lights; A festival celebrated by Hindus and Sikhs.

With the classrooms coming together staff and children created a large Rangoli pattern on the floor using a wide range of coloured rice.

First the children collaged half an elephant face (Caterpillar Class 2-3 years and Butterfly Class 3-4 years) showing their differentiation and interpretation in choice of materials and resources used.

The elephant symbolises: education, wisdom, wealth and prosperity.

The children discussed the colours and identified that each bag contained a matching cup.

The children worked together and filled the pattern beautifully. Look what we created!

Potion Making Activity

This week the children took part in a potion making activity. Flowers were added to the table along with scissors for the children to cut, snip and pull the petals and leaves off.

We discussed the smell, texture as well as ingredient’s that we felt were missing to finish our potions.

The children gathered their clip boards and drew pictures to identify to staff the ingredients that needed to be collected from the kitchen: bubbles, water, coloured water (food colouring) and spoons.

Their potions were very magical!

Her Majesty The Queen

On Friday the 16th September the children came together in their classes to remember Her Majesty The Queen. The children looked through national newspapers at circle times, took part in beautiful art activities and stood for a 1minute silence.