Wellbeing Wednesday

We celebrated our first Wellbeing Wednesday this week wearing our brown clothes. Wellbeing Wednesdays take part on the last Wednesday of every month. The children are invited to wear a particular colour to re-enforce colour knowledge. We focus on a healthy message promoting Health and Self Care with the children. We also discuss a Safety Message which usually involves the children, but also provides additional information for our parents to take home and share with their families. If you would like any further information on issues around health please speak to Roxy, our Health Champion for the setting.

The Healthy Message for children for this month was hand washing. The children learnt about correct hand washing techniques in the water tray and were encouraged to try them out using soap. Our bi-lingual staff carried out the activity to support children in their home language too. The children also learnt how important it was to dry their hands afterwards and put their paper towels in the bin. This will hopefully give children independence when washing their hands in the bathroom. Please continue to promote these skills at home for school readiness.

Making Faces

The children have been using playdough and manipulating it to make facial features. Playdough is a great resource for developing children's

Enhances fine motor skill

When your child squishes, rolls, flattens, shapes, scores or cuts play dough, he develops and strengthen his hand muscles. The strengthened hand muscles helps improve fine motor skills of your child

Improves pre-writing skills

When your child plays with play dough, his pincer grip (the squeezing of pointer finger and thumb to grasp an object) improves. An  improved pincer grip enhances your child's pre-writing skills


This also supports our learning focus of similarities and differences and developing mutual tolerance and respect for all.

Holly Mount

We have had our first visit this academic year to Holly Mount residential home. We hope to visit each Monday afternoon with a group of 8 pre-school children and take part in activities with the elderly residents there. This supports our St Marys Values teaching Mutual Tolerance and Respect engaging children in the wider community.

Our Bodies

The children have been using chalk outdoors to draw around each other. They have then been encouraged to fill in their features as they learn 'All About Me'. They learn to distinguish between the marks they make and gives meaning to marks as they draw and paint. This promotes writing skills. It also encourages children to draw lines and circles using gross motor movements (large movements) which supports their physical development.