Summer Fun at Riverview, ’25

 Here at Riverview, we have been enjoying lots of summer fun! We have been exploring the world around us, making predictions, and working as a team, to achieve an end goal. We have spent lots of time learning about our bodies, and how to keep them safe during the hot weather.

We have been exploring our large loose parts, and construction areas; we have been building as a team to see what new and fun obstacles we can create together. Our Pre-School children have been exploring a variety of loose parts, and using their imagination to create water slides and ramps for the cars. The children worked together, and demonstrated great teamwork and co-operation while building with the loose parts. The children worked together to lift the guttering onto the frame and, when it was complete, they began to test their ideas by sending down some cars.

Babies have loved exploring our outside areas, and experimenting with filling and emptying. They have enjoyed exploring using different materials and items. They have also loved exploring different foods and textures; they have enjoyed making fruit smoothies and ice lollies – yum yum!

Toddlers have shown a great interest in the parachute, and exploring different ways of moving their bodies; they used their arms to hold the parachute up high, and bent their knees to go low. We talked about different positions such as high, low, under, and on top. They loved this, and used a ball to support this play. We made predictions as to what would happen if they placed the ball on top of the parachute, we then tested our ideas and waved the parachute to see.

Pre-School have loved exploring large scale paintings, and using different materials to create pictures together. We talked about the world around us, the weather and what make us unique.

We have welcomed visits from Rhythm Time, Superstar Sports, Cryo Sports and Mini Athletics. All the children have enjoyed the physical activities they have taken part in. We have enjoyed talking with the children, and observing activities they have enjoyed, we have then continued to use these thoughout our daily activities.

We invited our Pre-School families to come and join us in some fun school readiness activities. We loved looking at what school readiness is, and offering support and guidance around fun ways to get school ready.

We would like to say thank you and good luck to all our families that we have waved off to school this year, many having attended Riverview since they were babies! It has been a pleasure to watch them grow, learn and develop over this time. We wish you all the best on your next adventure!

During the summer term, a phrase you hear a lot in Early Years is “school ready”, but what does it mean? As a setting, we pride ourselves on preparing children for the next stage of their development, supporting children through their journey with us, and for their onward journey to reception, and beyond. We believe that the early stages of a child’s education are so important; what we do in this time is the foundation for all their future learning, and this is a theme that is ingrained in our curriculum. The prime areas of learning underpin all aspects of development, this is why we work hard every day to ensure our children have a good level of development across these areas. We hope that when the children leave us to go to reception they can talk about their feelings, make positive choices, have the confidence to talk to others, ask questions and share ideas. We also focus on their independence in their own personal care, such as eating and hygiene. We hope that by securing development in these areas children can then begin to delve deeper into all areas of learning.

Our children loved celebrating music and Tramlines, a music festival held just down the road at Hillsborough Park. Lots of our families attended, and the children loved telling us about the music they heard, and showing us the dance moves they had prepared or did whilst there! We loved exploring moving our bodies to music, and talking about our families. Below, in the next section, are a few songs we used, and the ones our children have enjoyed.

Our children love to experiment making their own playdough, here is a useful link on how to make playdough at home https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAIAm6BF0fs

We like to use lots of communication whilst making and playing with playdough for example “what does it feel like?” and feeling each ingredient before we add it and then feeling the mixture again once added together.

We have also loved moving our bodies to different beats, this has been a favourite in all rooms – we love to “wake up shake up”! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gUbdNbu6ak&list=RD1gUbdNbu6ak&start_radio=1 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwT5oX_mqS0&list=RD1gUbdNbu6ak&index=2