While no one railroad can completely duplicate another line, two or more may compete at particular points - John Moody

Big trains, small trains, old trains and new have been rattling and whistling through brambles - choo, choo, choo! Terrific Trains by Tony Miton and Ant Parker  The children have had to work cooperatively this week to share the trains and design the tracks for them to go on, so lots of great negotiating skills have been taking place.

Miss Clare and Leo the Leopard's group have been making lots of different types of train on the art table: sponge print trains with card print tracks, geometric trains, fingerprint colour mixing trains, cutting around Thomas the Tank Engine and junk model (using last weeks building bricks) trains. During caret time for singing the children were up an active as they sang, 'Face, funnel, wheels and dome' and 'Two little engines resting in a shed.'

The telephones were out in the communication area this week and were used in the train station role play area as well as around the classroom.  Children used the phones and imagined talking to someone on the other end as they played independently.  Together they used the phones to talk to each other and recreate past experiences as well as make it part of their current play.

Each child at Brambles has a 'Best Book' where all their best pieces of work and photos of their year are displayed.  As the Best Books are the children's, they also get to anecdote them with their keyworker.  The children and keyworker really enjoy this 1:1 time together looking at past work, describing how they made it or what they drew.  They also really like to reminisce as they look at each photograph and talk about what they were doing.  Keyworkers particularly enjoy this activity as the children come out with some great quotes that they are able to write into the child's book.  The Best Book is completed at  the end of the year and  given to the child to share with their family at the Leaver Assembly.  Over the years there have been some wonderful comments from families about the best books, especially as it has the children's comments and memories in their words - a great keepsake of their time at pre-school.

EYFS Links
Speech, language and communication skills are vital for all children. Without these skills they will not reach their full potential. Children at 3 to 4 years will usually be actively learning language and asking many questions. Children develop skills at different rates, but by 4 years usually children will:

• Listen to longer stories and answer questions about a storybook they have just read.
• Understand and often use colour, number and time related words, for example, 'red' car, 'three' fingers and 'yesterday / tomorrow'.
• Be able to answer questions about ‘why’ something has happened.
• Use longer sentences and link sentences together.
• Describe events that have already happened e.g. 'we went park.'
• Enjoy make-believe play.
• Start to like simple jokes.
• Ask many questions using words like ‘what’ ‘where’ and ‘why’.
• Still make mistakes with tense such as say 'runned' for ‘ran’ and 'swimmed' for ‘swam’.
• Have difficulties with a small number of sounds – for example r, w, l, f, th, sh, ch and dz.
• Start to be able to plan games with others.

The Best Book and Telephone activity supports Communication and Language development.  This week staff were particularly looking at:

• Beginning to use more complex sentences to link thoughts (e.g. using and, because etc)
• Can retell a past event in correct order (e.g. went down slide, hurt finger)
• Uses talk to connect ideas, explain what is happening and anticipate what might happen next, recall and relive past experiences.

The train has taken us all the way to the port to see what Miss Joan has in store for us next week.  Sailboat, sailboat in the sea, won't you come and carry me.  Through the oceans, through the bay, to any place that's far away!