We had a Cornish-themed day in Storytellers on the 5th of March in honour of St Piran’s Day. Children arrived dressed in black and white clothes to start the day. We explored Cornish tales such as the Mermaid of Zennor and talked about the story of St Piran. Great fun was had dancing to some beautiful Cornish songs. The children thoroughly enjoyed baking some delicious scones for their Cornish high tea in the afternoon, complete with their handmade Cornish-themed decorations and bunting. Don’t worry—we ensured Jam went on first!

‘Twas proper! 

 

Who was Saint Piran?

According to the Cornwall Heritage Trust, St. Piran was “the merriest, hardest drinking, hardest living holy man Cornwall ever knew.” However, legend has it that he wasn’t Cornish.

He was Irish and was an advisor to King Aengus of Munster.

When the King wanted to leave his wife for a younger woman, Piran said it was his duty to forbid it.

Aengus bound him to a millstone and threw him off the highest cliff in Munster. However, the stone floated, and it filled ashore on the north coast of Cornwall.

He built a church, St Piran’s Oratory, or praying place, which is the oldest Christian church in Britain. To this day, it still exists near Perranporth.

Piran was very popular, especially after discovering how to smelt tin. He became known as the Tinner’s Saint, and that’s why the flag of Cornwall is a white cross on a black background.

It shows the light of God in a dark world and the white tin metal against the black rock.

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 Every Wednesday, we hold a toddler group in our wonderful nursery building during term time. Any age preschool children are welcome to come along with their adult. Attending Twiglets is great fun. But it also has some surprising benefits too. It’s all about learning through play.

At Twiglets, your little one will love the songs, play and movement, and being around other children the same age. Your child will not just be having great fun; they will also be busy learning all sorts of important early skills.

Here are just a few ways that all the play and fun they have at Twiglets plays an important part of early learning:

 

Storytime – an early introduction to reading and phonics

We all know how much little ones love stories. But did you know that when you read to your baby or toddler, you also introduce them to many early literacy skills?

Studies have shown that babies who had lots of books read to them have a greater vocabulary and better early reading skills by age 4.

 

 Moving and grooving is more than just fun!

According to the NHS, once your child is walking, they should stay active for at least 180 minutes (3 hours) of the day! Twiglets is a great way for your toddler to run off steam. All the moving and grooving is helping them with gross motor skills, which will continue to develop as they grow.

 

Mini mark-making helps with writing later on. What might look like play time Twiglets is actually far more developmental than it might appear. Simply letting your child squish a Play-Doh ball helps them develop fine motor skills in their hands and fingers. Getting creative with chunky crayons or paints is helping them develop these skills, too. Developing fine motor skills from an early age will benefit your child when they come to learn more complex skills at nursery and school, like holding a pencil and beginning to write.

So next time your toddler gifts you their latest Jackson Pollock imitation painting, remember they’ve developed more than just their artistic talents!

 

1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – classes can bring numbers alive!

Lots of play activities at Twiglets introduce your child to counting and numbers. They might hear lots of counting in songs and rhymes. Or count out toys as they play. Or count the number of hops and jumps they make while dancing. Lots of exposure to counting and numbers will help them develop early numeracy skills in a fun way.

 

6, 7, 8, 9, 10 – here we go around again – Routines Twiglets is a great way to introduce your baby or toddler to routines, which is a big part of a nursery or school day. Gradually, your child will get used to the different routines in class. That might be sitting in a circle to start, tidying away at the end and stopping for snack time. Introducing this concept at a young age will make it less of an alien concept when it comes to that daunting first day of nursery or school.

 

Learning to fit into a group. When your child grows up and starts nursery or school, they must learn how to fit into a group. They will learn how to take turns and share. Twiglets is a great opportunity to teach all the basics. Greetings, turn-taking, sitting in an allocated spot, and pleases/thank yous all start to happen around your child. This encourages them to copy and do the same.

Tidy-up time teaches key life skills. Little ones can learn to help from a young age. Starting with helping tidy up their toys. Once they start nursery or school, they will be expected to pitch in and tidy their room or space so other children can enjoy it later.

 

Introduction to other cultures. Little ones are the least likely to judge another based on their background. Twiglets is a great way to begin introducing your little ones to different families from various backgrounds. This might be race, religion, or perhaps different family dynamics.

 

Making friends – important social building blocks.Being surrounded by other parents and children may be one of the main reasons you would attend Twiglets. Being in a group teaches crucial social skills that will really help your toddler in the future. It’s important for your child to understand social cues and learn how to make friends. They might start by learning how to share toys or equipment. Or to take turns. By attending Twiglets, you may also introduce your child to new concepts like empathy. If another child is upset, your toddler might start questioning why that is and try to help make them feel better. These are all important social skills when it comes to making friends later.

 

But what about the grown-ups?

  Parenting can sometimes feel like a solitary endeavour, especially for stay-at-home parents. Twiglets provides a valuable opportunity for parents and carers to connect with others who are going through similar experiences. This social interaction helps combat feelings of isolation and allows for sharing advice, experiences, and parenting tips. Being part of the group allows you to build a support network of parents who understand the challenges and triumphs of this particular stage of parenting. These relationships can provide a strong foundation for mutual support, empathy, and camaraderie.

  Above all, Twiglets group offers a fun and enjoyable experience for both parents and children. The laughter, play, and shared activities create lasting memories and positive associations with socialising and learning.

In conclusion, Twiglets offers many benefits for parents, from creating social connections and support networks to providing enriching experiences for your child. If you haven’t already, consider joining our friendly group and discover the many rewards it can bring to your parenting journey. Remember, you’re not alone on this adventure, and there’s a community of parents ready to share the joys and challenges with you.

Pancake Day is a chance to incorporate cultural celebrations into the curriculum, promoting inclusivity and diversity. To celebrate Shrove Tuesday (yes, we know it’s a week late), children in Storytellers made and explored the ingredients and cooking process for pancakes, flour, milk and eggs. They learned lots of new vocabulary such as ‘whisk’, ‘frying pan’, ‘batter’ ‘liquid’ and ‘spatula’. We investigated the ingredients and possible toppings and planned our pancakes with fabulous pictures!

Teaching Storytellers the history of Pancake Day in the UK was made engaging and age-appropriate through various activities and approaches. Physical and sensory activities are a great way to get all children involved. Our wonderful mud kitchen area offers abundant natural, open-ended activities; it provides an ideal space for the children to explore, create, and learn. These activities offer sensory-rich experiences that enhance fine and gross motor skills, language development, and social interaction. Integrating Pancake Day celebrations into the mud kitchen activities makes learning truly immersive and enjoyable!

After all the fun of the mud kitchen, everyone had a hearty appetite and was ready to cook!  Once everyone had given their hands a good scrub, we enjoyed cooking pancakes outside and trying out various toppings to choose our favourite! Maple syrup and strawberries seemed to be a popular one!

Spring Term 2

Cricket

Both KS1 and KS2 have cricket sessions being delivered by a specialist cricket coach. These sessions will be on a Monday for the next 7 weeks. The coach will also run a lunch time club to show the children new cricket related play ground games.

Cross-country

We are building up to the big race at Landrake on the 15th March. Before then we will complete a 5k at Sibley back on the 4th March. The children have been working to build their stamina at our weekly cross-country club.

Falmouth Maritime Museum

Last week we had a fantastic trip to Falmouth where we leant about Viking long-ships. We also enjoyed a trading workshop and found out that the Vikings made it is far as Iraq - trading their own goods for precious spices.

Dinosaurs

Ks1 have been had an amazing week! They have been digging up dinosaur bones and creating pasta skeletons. My goodness what a fantastic topic Mrs Elliot is delivering!

February 10th, 2024, marked the first day of the Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival.

 

The Lunar New Year is an international holiday celebrated in many countries throughout Asia and around the world. The holiday goes by different names depending on where you are celebrating, and it symbolises a hopeful transition from the cold winter to the season of renewal.

 

As we say goodbye to the Year of the Rabbit, we welcome the Year of the Dragon. The dragon is one of the luckiest and most powerful animals in the Chinese zodiac.

 

We made colourful dragon pictures; the children created a dragon dance together and took turns leading. We have looked at different traditions surrounding this special time of year and explored mark-making techniques as we created our own Chinese table decoration; our decorations were in red to bring us good luck. Lots of fun was had as we improved our fine motor skills and perseverance, using chopsticks to eat at the special banquet that we prepared together. Everyone enjoyed sampling different vegetables and a very exciting-looking dragon fruit, which we discovered had bright pink skin and a spotty inside and tasted yummy!

 Happy Lunar New Year to all who celebrate!

In French we have been learning all about the Cafe. To bring this to life the children needed to order their food in French. A huge thank you for supplying a variety of French delights. What a fantastic way to bring the subject to life!

 This week, we have been talking about love and people that are important to us; this threads through Personal Social and Emotional Development (PSED), which supports children to have a positive sense of themselves, respect for others, social skills, emotional well-being and a positive disposition to learning. These are all crucial for school readiness. PSED is about children developing confidence and independence. Positive social and emotional development in the early years provides a critical foundation for lifelong development and learning. Social development refers to a child's ability to create and sustain meaningful relationships with adults and other children. Emotional development in early childhood is just as crucial to a child's overall well-being as physical milestones like crawling and walking, as they shape how a child perceives the world, interacts with others, and responds to challenging situations. The children thoroughly enjoyed talking about their families and were wonderful at giving examples of how we care for each other and show kindness, after making cards and mixing love potions with fairy dust the week ended with baking some rather wonderful chocolate dipped biscuits to take home and share with their special people.

Our children learn through play, observation, and exploration; they gain so much through guided and free exploration of the world around them.
Supporting the children through interactive games and bringing learning to life through books and adventures is always fun. One of the best and most fun ways of helping children develop essential life skills, such as problem-solving, reading, building teamwork, and getting some good exercise for both the mind and body, is through a treasure hunt. We brought our story to life and went off on our own treasure hunt through the woods, the children followed clues and supported each other along the way. Finding the hidden treasure was a rather exciting discovery!

Trumpet lessons for KS2

For the next 10 weeks we are having trumpet lessons. We have Cornwall Music Hub delivering specialist lessons for all of our KS2 pupils. What a riot. In our first lesson we learnt how to: hold the instrument, create a clean sound and how to play to the beat. 

Who knows where this musical odyssey will  take us!

As part of our winter topic, the children of Storytellers have been investigating ice, and this week’s weather has provided some fabulous natural learning opportunities. The children explored our outdoor area, discovered various frozen areas, and were delighted to find ways to smash the ice and tip out exciting frozen shapes. We used exciting vocabulary to describe how the ice looked and how the ice was changing throughout the day.  The children investigated freezing their little containers overnight with various shapes and toys dropped in the water and excitedly checked the results the following day. Describing the changes they had seen and thinking about why the ice was melting has offered some excellent opportunities to extend the children's language and bring the magic of science to life.

Theatre Trip

What a fantastic start to the year! As a school we travelled to The Treater Royal in Plymouth to watch a performance of Goldilocks and the Three bears. It was a wonderful show - ventriloquists, dancers, jugglers and so much more. The children had a wonderful time and - thanks to the parents' group - were treated to ice cream at the interval. A huge thank you to Bex Ivins for volunteering to drive the mini-bus as well as all the staff involved in organising the trip. Also a big thank you to the staff, particularly the TAs, who volunteered their time to allow us to go. 

Drop off and pick up

Thank you for your continued effort to get the pupils into class between 8.30 and 8.45 for registration. We appreciate access isn't always easy and can lead to unexpected delays but it does make a great difference having them all in on time so we can stick to our timetabled sessions.

Mr Jones

We are delighted to have Mr Jones back teaching KS2 on Monday. He has literally hit the ground running and brought back x-country club. We had a fantastically muddy run on Monday with many unexpected obstacles along the track.

New topics

Make sure to have a look at the class pages to see our new topics for this term.

Merry Christmas from the Storytellers family. 

Storytellers and Twiglets had a very special visitor at their Christmas party today, Father Christmas popped in after parking the reindeer on the roof! The children excitedly asked him questions and spent time speaking to him about his reindeer and what his bells were for! The children were a delight to watch as it’s a magical time of year for them, and to be part of it is wonderful. We partied the afternoon away with games, dancing, and scrumptious food.

 

A huge thank you to our amazing Father Christmas and also to our extended Storytellers family, who all support us throughout the year. Have a magical Christmas with your fantastic little people 

Storytellers enjoyed a scrumptious Christmas lunch together today cooked by our fantastic cook, Sam! The children created very sparkly Christmas crowns and thoroughly enjoyed tucking into our delicious lunch; we had special lunch guests, Lily and Henry came along too, and Henry gave Sam extra cuddles as she looks after us all so well

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After weeks of learning lines, designing costumes and sets, and shaking off any pre-performance nerves, our Christmas play has brightened our last few weeks of term. Whether it was portraying Mary or Joseph, one of the three wise men or maybe even a funky camel, these fantastic memories will stay with the children forever. Our fabulous little sheep and Angels were spectacular as they confidently danced around the stage. 

We could not be prouder of our little team and how they all collaborated last night to deliver an outstanding performance, with everyone laughing and clapping. 

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Christmas has arrived at Storytellers: we visited The Tunnel of Lights on our festive trip. The children embraced everything on offer and were a delight to watch as they explored and shared their excitement. We all had a fantastic day venturing down twinkling tunnels, writing letters to Santa and bounding around in the snow. 

Here at Storytellers we strive to develop strong links with the village and the community, enjoying the opportunities it offers for the enrichment of learning and to join in with community events and celebrations. Today the children thoroughly embraced this by helping to decorate the enormous Christmas tree, alongside doing this they also learnt more about the church and its hidden doorways and smiling faces adorning the beams. Once outside they helped to setup the Nativity scene at the entrance. Massive thanks to Pat and Beth for taking time out of their day to enable this to happen. 

Our littlest fundraisers have had a very productive day creating posters and making some spotacular cakes and biscuits. They thoroughly enjoyed fundraising for Children in Need outside the nursery this afternoon. A massive thank you to everyone who came along to purchase some. So far, they have raised £37. 

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