Royal Wedding Celebrations
We had a great day celebrating the Royal Wedding. Here are a few photos from our wedding and castle themed activities.
Home Link – Royal Wedding
We’re sure that there’ll be an interest in weddings, castles and royalty after the events this weekend. On Monday 21 May, can you find something red, white or blue to wear to nursery?
For this week’s home link, please talk about the Royal Wedding. Here are a few things that you could do…
- Make a crown or tiara
- Decorate/paint a wedding dress
- Bake a wedding cake or some buns
- Look at family photographs of weddings. Have you been to a wedding? What happened? How do people celebrate weddings?
- Look at Windsor Castle. Have you been to a castle? Who lives in castles? Do you have any stories with castles in?
- Read a story about a wedding, castle or prince/princess.
- Look for objects that begin with ‘c’ for castle, crown and cake!
There are lots of different opportunities for discussion around this topic! What interests your child?
Worms and minibeasts
Week 5 – Worms and minibeasts
Children enjoyed hunting for minibeasts at the beginning of the week. Some children chose to use the clipboards to write down what they found. Their lists included slugs, snails, spiders, worms and butterflies. Whilst searching for caterpillars on some leaves, we found a group of tiny eggs and little insects. We used the digital microscope to look at them closely; we think that they were ladybird eggs and ladybird larvae.
We’ve enjoyed learning all about worms. On Monday, Miss Backhouse and her group of helpers went outside to create a wormery. First, they collected leaves, sand and soil and put them into a tank in layers. The next part was the most fun: they went digging for worms! In group times, we read ‘Superworm’ and we compared the length of toy worms. Children put the worms in order of length and measured them using Numicon pegs. We talked about which worm was the longest and shortest.
At the end of the week, we had a special ‘wedding’ lunch menu and we began to talk about the Royal Wedding that will take place at the weekend.
Week 6 – What are we learning this week?
We’re sure that many children will watch or see photographs of the Royal wedding this weekend and that some of you may even be going to a party to celebrate. On Monday 21st May, we’re going to have a mini wedding celebration in nursery. Children are invited to wear RED, WHITE or BLUE clothes. We’ll watch some video footage of the wedding and see what the children are interested in learning more about… castles, weddings, kings and queens?
Keep encouraging your child to hear the initial sounds in words by playing eye-spy games. This week’s letter sound will be ‘Cc’ for castles, cakes and crowns! Listen to the Jolly Phonics ‘c’ song and sing a long at home.
What can you find around your house that begins with c?
A very busy, sunny Monday!
We enjoyed talking about wriggly worms today. In group time, we measured worms and ordered them by length. Outside, some children helped Miss Backhouse to make a wormery. We talked about where worms live and what food they need to survive and be healthy.
Sadly, some of our bean plants haven’t germinated so we talked about why this might have happened. We have planted some more beans and have also taken some selfies to create ‘cress heads’!
There was also a lot of excitement when some of the children realised that one of the tadpoles was no longer a tadpole! It had front and back legs and its tail had shrunk. We carefully caught the froglet and have released it back into the pond.
Finally, we have been busy looking for minibeasts all day! We found slugs, snails, ants, worms, spiders, butterflies… and the last thing we found was really exciting!
We found some little eggs that were surrounded by tiny creatures. It was quite difficult to see them so Mrs Long got the digital microscope to look at them more closely. We counted six legs and looked at the shape of their body. We think that the eggs were ladybird eggs and that the tiny insects were very young, ladybird lavae. When we looked on Google for more information, Daksh noticed that the matching picture on the Ladybird Lifecycle picture said ‘June’ so we could be right!
Home Link – Technology
As part of the Early Years Foundation Stage, children need to be confident using a range of technology. Please write a few things down and return this sheet to nursery to let us know what technology your child likes to use at home. You could also e-mail us a photograph of them using it: scholesf1@spherefederation.org
Here are a few examples of technology that your child may enjoy using at home…
- Toys with buttons, switches or remote-controls
- iPads, tablets, computers, phones – What are their favourite apps or games
- CD/DVD players
- TV with remote control
- Cameras
Mr McGregor’s Garden
We enjoyed learning all about the life cycle of a bean plant. We are just beginning to see signs of life in some of our beans. At the beginning of the week, children enjoyed talking about the type of plants that Peter
Rabbit likes to find in Mr McGregor’s garden. They drew pictures of the plants and we used them to create a big map of his garden on the floor. We had great fun navigating a remote-controlled Peter Rabbit around the garden and we used lots of positional language.
Here are a few other things we’ve enjoyed this week:
- looking at leaves with the digital microscope
- creating a new supermarket role play area and writing our own signs
- painting outside in the Tuff Spot
- making a ‘seaside’ area on our stage outside
- counting lots of satsumas at snack time
Children continue to watch the tadpoles and wait with excitement! We noticed a few of them have already grown back legs.
Week 4 – What are we learning this week?
Over the last couple of weeks, there have been a few recurring interests that we’ve noticed amongst children. The first is a fascination with very long worms and the other is an interest in wands, princesses and castles. So, as we like to follow children’s interests as much as we can, we’re going to learn about worms! We’ll enjoy reading the popular rhyming story ‘Superworm’ and we’ll use non-fiction books to find out fascinating worm facts. Listen to the CBeebies Bed Time story of Superworm.
In our sensory area, we’ll have wiggly spaghetti worms and in maths, we’ll be comparing and measuring the length of worms. We’re hoping to investigate a different printing technique by using string to create worm prints.
Look out for some castle enhancements in our construction area and a new castle small world scene that we’ll develop with the children. We’re also aware that there’s likely to be a lot of excitement and interest in the up and coming Royal wedding…
This week’s letter sound will be ‘Ww’ for worm!
- Listen to the Jolly Phonics W song and sing along at home.
- What can you find around your house that begins with w?
- Keep encouraging your child to hear the initial sounds in words by playing eye-spy games.
Reminder -Please remember to send only water in your child’s water bottle and ask children to leave their toys at home to play with after nursery. Thank you.
Nursery places available for September 2018
We currently have spaces available in nursery for September 2018. If you are looking for a nursery place for your child, or know of anyone who is, please get in touch.
15 hour and 30 hour places are available and we offer a variety of session times including morning sessions and full days. We begin each day at 8.30am and wrap around care is available.
Please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.
Contact Mrs Beesley or Mrs Long:
- e-mail: scholesf1@spherefederation.org
- call the school office: 0113 2649149
We look forward to hearing from you soon.
Home Link – Plants and growth
We’re going to continue talking about last week’s home link activity as not many of you had chance to be creative! Please scroll down to the ‘Plants and growth’ Home Link post from last week.
We’re also going to learn about the letter ‘n’ sound. If you find something beginning with the letter n, please bring it in for our sound shelf. Remember to write your child’s name on it.
Bikes, bubbles and bunnies!
We were really pleased that Peter Rabbit’s friend, George, could visit us on Tuesday afternoon. The children were really well behaved; they asked Gemma lots of questions about how to look after rabbits and they were gentle and calm around George. Photographs to follow!
Children have been fascinated with the tadpoles and have really enjoyed observing them closely with magnifying glasses and finding out about their life cycles in non-fiction books. They’re looking forward to watching them develop into tiny froglets!
On Friday morning, we were really lucky to be able to watch the ladies Tour De Yorkshire race from the playground. We took the flags that we had made and waved them, cheering as the cyclists, flashing police bikes and a helicopter went past. Afterwards, we stayed with the older children in school to watch a skipping performance and we took part in Wake Up Shake Up.
Week 3 – What are we learning this week?
We’re going to continue our learning about growth and life cycles, focussing on plants this week. We will learn:
- about the life cycle of a bean plant. We will plant our own seeds in bags and cups so that we can closely watch what happens. We’re hoping to see something similar to this video.
- about the letter sound ‘n’. Listen to the Jolly Phonics ‘n’ song.
- to operate a remote-controlled toy around Mr McGregor’s garden.
- to use positional language to describe where Peter Rabbit is hiding. There’s a video on YouTube that might give you more of an idea of the type of language that children need to be able to use. For example, Peter Rabbit is… in, on top of, underneath, behind the table.
- about bubbles – they seem to be a common interest amongst many children at the moment!
Tour de Yorkshire in Scholes
We enjoyed the excitement of the Tour de Yorkshire coming through Scholes on Friday. Each class decorated a bike to display and the whole school went outside to watch the women’s race speed past. We did some WuSu (Wake up, Shake up) dances while we were waiting and the Year 4 skipping team showed us their skipping dance from the skipping competition, too. It was a day to remember for sure!
