The Busy Bees Group 

The Busy Bee group is for our children who are preparing to move on to school reception. Six children join two teachers for a variety of activities covering all areas of learning. Our aim is to help build their confidence; show them they are capable of doing things with practice; encourage teamwork, listening, sharing and turn-taking.
The Busy Bee Group focus on the prime areas of learning which include maths. Maths is made fun using lots of props such as number charts, board games, pompoms and tweezers, bricks, and water to aid in counting and number recognition, shapes, size, length, and weight.
Personal social skills are developed during the small group time sessions whilst the children work together and make friendships. Children grow respect for others and build on their emotional well-being and a positive disposition to learning.

Stepping Stones use stage 1 of the Jolly Phonics programme to teach the alphabet sounds, which is a starting point for reading and writing. The Busy Bee children quickly learn the letter sounds and corresponding songs, going on to match sounds at the beginning of words and pictures. 
We have explored the world through different projects such as growing plants, looking at animals and their habitats, cooking, model-making, science experiments, and books. Our experiments have included learning what germs are and how they can be spread, mixing colours, puffy painting, volcanoes, lava lamps, floating and sinking, alien super juice, making slime, witch’s potions. The list goes on.