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The Mill House

Chronicle

2019

GIGGLESWICK PRE-SCHOOL

MILL HOUSE

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019 The children here at Giggleswick Junior School Early Years have had another action-packed and fun-filled year, which ended with a move to our wonderful new setting, Mill House. Our children have thoroughly enjoyed working with the older pupils in a number of joint projects, exploring a

wide variety of cultural celebrations and getting out and about in our local community. What we aim to offer here at Giggleswick, through play experiences, are the tools to create a lifelong love of learning. The Giggleswick Learner is as much a part of how we shape our curriculum as it

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019

is in the older years, and this allows us to offer a truly unique learning experience. From big projects such as the joint nativity in the Memorial Library with Reception, learning how to pour our own water, and everything in-between, here is just a snapshot of the year weâ€™ve enjoyed.

MILL HOUSE

THE MILL HOUSE GRAND OPENING We wanted to ensure that Mill House was a nurturing, calm and homely environment where our youngest pupils feel comfortable and safe

This year has seen so many exciting new developments and experiences in our Early Years provision, and one of the most important has been the opening of our new pre-school. We celebrated the launch of Mill House with a special open house event for our current families and the local community, with our guest of honour, local artist Stephen Waterhouse, to complete the official opening. It was a wonderful day with everyone coming together to celebrate with the children as they proudly shared stories about their new school and enjoyed the fun activities on offer. A particular highlight was the beautiful singing by the preschool and Reception pupils.

Our Early Years pupils are instrumental in shaping their education here at Giggleswick and they have played an important role in creating the wonderful new environment at Mill House. From start to finish the children have been involved at every stage, from initial ideas and plans to construction models, colour choices, layouts and even resourcing!

We wanted to ensure that Mill House was a nurturing, calm and homely environment where our youngest pupils feel comfortable and safe. Children embrace learning opportunities best when they feel secure in their environment and that is why it has been so important to involve them in the design of our unique new setting.

The pre-school is based in its own newly renovated building next to the junior school and an extensive refurbishment programme has created a unique environment of indoor and outdoor learning spaces, purpose-built for two, three and fouryear-olds.

As we continue to welcome new children into our family at Mill House, we continue to evolve our dynamic environment to ensure it can best meet both the academic and emotional needs of our children. This is only the beginning for Mill House and our place among both the school and the local community. James Mundell Headmaster, Giggleswick Junior School

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019

MILL HOUSE

THE HUNT FOR MINI-BEASTS Everyone loved our Mill House Mini-Beast Week! There were mini-beast challenges, songs, rhymes and counting, alongside plenty of investigating and creating. To top off the week, we went on a mini-beast hunt in the grounds of the school as part of our Friday Welly Walk. We found a whole range of mini-beasts and explored how and why they lived in different homes and habitats.

FAIRY MUDDY PUDDLE WALK

ellies, cakes and fairies proved to be the perfect recipe for success for everyone taking part in the sponsored Muddy Puddle Walk, raising money for Save the Children. The first job was to bake and decorate plenty of muddy puddle biscuits for each other and their families. Next,

the children put on their wellies ready for their sponsored walk but were disappointed to find that there were no puddles to be seen! A very excited Reception class came to the rescue with good news for their younger friends. The Queen of the fairies had written a glittering letter and left sparkly clues for the children

to follow and suddenly our Muddy Puddle Walk became a search for fairies, elves and giants! The children had a glorious time walking, running and exploring our beautiful school grounds and raised ÂŁ297 for Save the Children at the same time.

BUILDING A BUG HOTEL

LEARNING IN THE GREAT OUTDOORS

Mr Byrne helped us build a brilliant bug hotel and one of our most important jobs was foraging for all sorts of natural resources to help make their house a wonderful bug home.

To make the most of the summer weather and our wonderful countryside setting, we took our learning outside as much as possible. Here we enjoyed numbers in the paddock, phonics with the parachute, and we also developed some fresh ideas for new outdoor areas.

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019

MILL HOUSE

ACADEMIC

PIRATES, PIGS AND DINOSAURS AT HOLIDAY CLUB The summer holidays saw seven jampacked themed weeks at Mill House, with the pre-school children getting involved in a huge range of activities. They joined in with baking, creating, upcycling, gardening, picnicking, water sliding, forest schooling, and a whole lot of laughing! Nature week involved the children going on a nature hunt around the school, looking for any natural

materials likes sticks, leaves, flowers and moss. When they returned to Mill House they used everything they had found to create a wonderful collage and an impressive dinosaur island. Pirates was the theme for another week and we had lots of opportunities to pretend to be pirates. The children made eye patches, hats and maps, before setting sail to find the buried treasure. They worked as a team and

used their maps to find clues which led them to the hidden treasure. They were all very excited to discover the chest, which was full of exciting treats. With the summer days being long and the weather fabulous, the children had a wonderful time with their friends, enjoying a little more of all the great activities we can offer at Mill House.

AL FRESCO AT CAMEMBEAR’S CAFÉ Ooh la la! Everyone was very excited the day Camembear’s French café went al fresco at Mill House. The children enjoyed asking for their snacks and drinks in French.

HARD HATS AT THE READY Construction has been the perfect theme to inspire young creative minds. With hard hats always at the ready, the children have really enjoyed working together as teams to create models and buildings, adapt ideas, draw plans and use technical vocabulary.

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019

MILL HOUSE

A TASTY LESSON IN PANCAKES

e celebrated Pancake Day with a lesson in batter making, frying and flipping! The children explored different ingredients and how they can affect our bodies in different ways. They all took safety very seriously and could explain how to stay safe in the kitchen, which was great to share. Everyone enjoyed the pancake tasting too of course.

TIME TO REFLECT The children have enjoyed time to think, step back and look at the progress they have made during their time at Mill House. We have been thinking about what makes us special while enjoying some time under the trees in dappled shade.

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019

SHHHâ€Ś WE HAVE A NEW CLASS MEMBER! We had to use our quiet voices as another very small member of our class joined us. After a little house was kindly donated from one of our parents, we were inspired to think about if we could care for a small animal. The children thought carefully about what they would need and how to look after them and so it was decided that yesâ€Śwe could!

This has inspired lots of building and construction activities as we thought about the house that a small animal needed. Some fabulous budding architects!

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019

MILL HOUSE

FEATHERED FRIENDS MAKE A FLYING VISIT Mr Shepherd from the grounds team kindly kindly brought us in some special visitors to say hello! We were delighted to welcome two Runner Ducks and four chicks to Mill House. We carefully held and stroked the birds while Mr Shepherd told us lots of interesting facts about them. The children were very caring and asked lots of wonderful questions.

CELEBRATING CHINESE NEW YEAR

PRICKLY BREAD BAKING My goodness, what a delicious smell! Our pre-schoolers enjoyed every minute of their day making their wonderful hedgehog bread bakes. After learning about animals that are more prominent during winter, we thought the only thing left to do was to create them in bread form. The children really enjoyed following the recipe, making the dough, kneading it and then snipping the hedgehog spikes!

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019

We had a wonderful array of Chinese New Year celebrations with splashes of red and gold throughout Mill House. The children thoroughly enjoyed getting involved with Chinese calligraphy, dragon dancing, chopstick challenges and arts and crafts activities to celebrate the Year of the Pig.

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019

MILL HOUSE

HALLOWEEN TRICKS AND TREATS We really enjoyed exploring our huge pumpkin that arrived for Halloween. The children worked well together as teams to try to move and lift it with leavers, pulleys and a lot of grunting! We then explored the insides, scooping and scraping out the flesh with some interesting descriptions of ‘stinky wellies’ and ‘smelly pies’. The children then designed their own pumpkin faces and we had a democratic vote to decide on our favourite to be carved into the pumpkin. Well done Annabelle for the winning design.

FROZEN YOGA The children took part in some Yoga with exercises set to the story and soundtrack of Frozen. They learned about balancing, breathing, stretching and understanding how to manipulate their bodies. It’s a great way to keep our minds and our bodies strong and healthy. This was enjoyed so much that Yoga has become a part of what we offer in the curriculum and forms a part of our well being enhancements.

DADS GO BACK TO SCHOOL It was wonderful to have so many dads at our Father’s Day Stay and Play. There was no holding back as they all got stuck into everything from gloop and rock painting to hand massages and biscuit decorating. Thank you to those family members who put on their dad hats for the day to represent those who couldn’t make it.

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019

MILL HOUSE

THE MILL HOUSE CHRONICLE 2019