Fee, fi, fo, fum…
Week 4 – “Fee, Fi, Fo, fum…”
Last week, we enjoyed listening to the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. Children used props to re-tell the story using different voices for the giant and using some of the repeated refrains from the story. In group times, children practised counting the giant’s golden coins. We carefully counted each coin once and tried to use our counting fingers, to say one number per coin. Keep practising your counting skills at home! Some children are finding it quite tricky to count out a set number of objects from a bigger group. For example, we were trying to take just 3 coins from the Giant’s money chest which was filled with coins. It’s quite a difficult skill to master, so you could continue to work on this at home. (Can you get 3 sweets from the bowl? Can you get 4 cars from the box? Put 3 animals in the field…)
On Monday, many of the children had remembered putting some balloons filled with water into the freezer before the weekend. They were keen to find out what had happened to them and were very excited to discover that the soft and ‘squidgy’ balloons were now hard, and very cold. It was quite tricky to get our mini icebergs out of the balloons but when we did, there were lots of conversations about the process of freezing and melting.
Even though we play outside in all weathers, sadly, the rain and wind got the better of us last week and we had to stay inside for some of the morning. However, it provided an excellent opportunity for us to get rid of some of our excess energy singing and dancing. We made our own stage to perform on and we learnt some new movement songs.
We also noticed an interest in dinosaurs…
Week 5 – What are we learning this week?
You might hear a lot of ROARING when you come in to nursery this week as we begin to add more dinosaur-themed activities in response to children’s interests last week. So, to build upon this popular interest, we’re going to create our own dinosaur landscape in our small world area using non-fiction books to help us find out about where dinosaurs lived. We will be reading dinosaur stories, building Jeeps in construction and counting dinosaurs in the swamp. Watch this space to see where our dinosaur interests take us!
We’ll also look at the letter ‘d’ and find objects that start with a ‘d’ sound. We’ll be playing eye-spy games to identify the initial sound in words, spotting the odd one out (e.g. objects beginning with d) and continuing to identify rhyming words in stories and rhymes.
Home Link – Houses
Children have really enjoyed re-telling the story of The Three Little Pigs and it has led to several conversations about different types of houses.
- What is your house like?
- Can you draw a picture of your house or take a photograph?
Have a look at the different houses on the way to Nursery one day and talk about…
- What are they made from?
- What type of house is it?
- What number is on the door?
- What shapes are the windows/doors?
I’ll huff and I’ll puff…
Week 3 – “I’ll huff and I’ll puff…”
The story of the Three Little Pigs was really popular last week; it was great to hear so many children re-telling the story using the puppets and language from the story. In the construction area, children made houses for the pigs and there was a lot of discussion about houses being ‘demolished’. We looked at some plans for new houses on an iPad and began to draw our own architect’s plans. Mrs Brown enjoyed creating some ‘mixed-up’ fairy tales with children on Tuesday, involving big bad wolves, princesses and giants…Thankfully, they all lived happily ever after!
The cold weather provided more fun learning opportunities; we compared the size of our footprints in the snow and used different coloured paint to investigate what happens when you spray snow. There are some new icy paintings on display in the Rainbow room that we created after looking and talking about the frost. The winter-themed stories in our book corner have also sparked a new interest in penguins! Over the last week, staff have noticed children asking to listen to a story called ‘Tacky the penguin’. We talked about the iceberg that Tacky stands on. Many children hadn’t encountered them before and so we decided to try and make our own mini icebergs. We filled balloons with water and put them in the freezer. We’re looking forward to finding out what happens to them when we get them out at the beginning of next week.
We’d also like to welcome our new children and their families who have joined nursery this week. Everyone has visited nursery for their first session now and we look forward to getting to know all of the new children over the next few weeks. We’re really pleased that they’ve already started to make friends with our older children.
Week 4 – What are we learning this week?
There will be more ice investigations when we take our balloons out of the freezer and create an arctic world for Tacky’s friends in the water tray. We continue to be led by children’s interests, so many areas of nursery have a traditional story theme. We’re going to read another favourite story that has appeared on our interest board – this week we’ll be shouting, “Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum!” as we play with Jack and the Giant in his castle outside. In maths, we’ll count beans and golden coins carefully, making sure that we say one number for each object and lining them up to help us count each one once. We will also be talking about rhyming words during group times next week. Try to find some words that rhyme in your bed time stories this week!
Home Link – The Three Little Pigs
This week, we’re going to be reading the story of The Three Little Pigs so we’d like you to enjoy reading this story at home together.
You could also…
- Draw, paint a picture or collage of the Three Little Pigs
- Make a house that you think the Big Bad Wolf wouldn’t be able to blow down! What would you use?
- Re-tell the story using different voices for the pigs and the wolf
- Think of some words that rhyme with pig
- Look for the number 3 and groups of 3 things when you are out and about (eg 3 on a bus, 3 lights on a traffic light, 3 red cars etc…)
- Listen to the story on-line
- Visit a farm and find out about pigs!
Run, run as fast as you can!
The Gingerbread Man story has provided us with lots of fantastic learning opportunities. The story props in our small world area have been very popular; children have enjoyed using them to re-tell the story and it has been great to hear children using lots of storytelling language and some of the repeated refrains from the story. At the beginning of the week, children had lots of fun trying to find The Gingerbread Man that kept hiding around nursery! We talked about the Gingerbread Man running everywhere and some children remembered that he shouldn’t run in nursery and decided to draw some posters telling him to slow down and walk.
We also continued to practise our counting skills – counting out and drawing the correct number of buttons on our gingerbread men. Children are becoming much better at accurately counting objects and at counting out 3-4 objects from a group. Remember to keep practising these important skills at home.
As you are no doubt aware from the muddy trousers and tights that you have to wash, we’ve still been playing outside in the cold and damp weather! This week, we’ve taken advantage of the mixed weather conditions. On Monday, we looked at the patterns in the frost and were inspired to create some icy artwork and on Wednesday, we listened to the pitter patter of raindrops under a tent that we made. Children loved colour mixing with paints in the puddles and creating footprints with their wellies.
Week 3 – What are we learning this week?
Thank you to those of you that have added your child’s favourite fairy tale story to our interest board. If you haven’t had chance yet, please do so next time you’re in nursery. Last week, whilst we were in the middle of making a den, children began to include a favourite character into their role play – can you guess who?
“I’ll huff and I’ll puff…” This week, in response to their play and favourite stories, we’ve added some ‘Three Little Pig’ themed enhancements to nursery provision. In the maths area, we’ll be investigating and looking at the number 3 (3 pigs, 3 wheels on a tricycle, 3 buttons on a gingerbread man, 3 sides on a triangle…). What can you find linked to the number 3 at home?
We’re also really looking forward to welcoming our new starters for their first sessions in nursery. As you will remember, the first few sessions at nursery for some children can be quite daunting; please be patient and bear with us if staff are helping to settle the new children.
Reminders
- Have you applied for your school place yet? The Deadline is Monday 15 January.
- Have you got any ‘Wow’ moments to e-mail us? What has your child done recently that has impressed you? We’d love to know too, so please let us know.
Home Link – Christmas holidays and fairy tale stories
Home Link Activity
- Remember to send us photographs of your holiday adventures and Christmas or New Year celebrations.
Over the next few weeks in Nursery, we’re going to be listening to a lots of traditional tales. What is your child’s favourite fairy tale story?
Please write your child’s favourite story onto the children’s interest board in the entrance of nursery.
It would also be lovely to see some drawings, paintings or collages of characters, castles or scenes from their favourite story. We’d love to brighten up our corridor and will display them on the Home Link notice board for everybody to see.
Thank you.
Welcome back to nursery 2018!
Welcome back to nursery. We hope that you had a lovely break and enjoyed the Christmas and New Year celebrations. We were really pleased to see so many happy and excited children on their first day back last week. It’s lovely to know that children enjoy coming to nursery and that they feel happy and safe, and have formed good friendships with their peers and staff.
Children were keen to share their news about Father Christmas and to tell us about some of their holiday adventures. However, two weeks is a long time for a 3 and 4 year old and they often forget! We’d love it if you could send us some photographs and a short description of something that you did in the holidays. It could be how you spent Christmas day with family, an outing to the seaside/theatre/park, playing in the snow (for the morning that we had some!) or anything else that your child would enjoy sharing with us. The nursery email is scholesf1@spherefederation.org Having a photograph to talk about that your child can really relate to, helps to boost their confidence and provides a great opportunity for them to talk about their own experiences. We often find that children who may be quite shy and reluctant to talk, often have lots to say when they can see a photograph and remember something special that they have done. We look forward to a full inbox this week!
We had lots of fun returning to nursery, building robots out of Christmas boxes, drawing around each other to create a large gingerbread man, using the remote control cars to navigate around nursery and taking part in throwing activities, where we had to reach the targets throwing the beanbags in different ways.
Last week, we spent time settling back into nursery routines and we introduced children to the popular traditional tale, The Gingerbread Man. Children really enjoyed listening to the story and are already beginning to join in with some of the repeated refrains “You can’t catch me…” We will continue to enjoy re-telling the story this week and we may even have a go at baking our own gingerbread men if we can catch them before they run away! Of course, there’ll be lots of counting opportunities too; children will be counting out buttons for the gingerbread man.
You can read the story of The Gingerbread Man on-line and there’s also a link to a game at the end of the story where children can match the correct number of buttons to the numeral on the baking tray.
This week, staff will be visiting the new children at home before they join us for a “Stay and Play “session on Friday afternoon. The current nursery children will be able to show us what fantastic friends they are by welcoming the new children and helping them to play and settle into nursery. This is a great opportunity for the children to demonstrate how much they have matured since they started nursery in September and how confident and independent they have become.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year! We’re looking forward to seeing lots of refreshed, smiling faces this week and we can’t wait to find out all about your Christmas excitement and holiday adventures. Don’t forget to e-mail us some photographs and let us know what you have been up to over the last two weeks. The children love to share their photographs with their friends and it’s a great opportunity for them to develop their speaking and listening skills.
Before the holidays, children really enjoyed counting buttons onto a gingerbread man on the interactive whiteboard. This led to discussions about ‘The Gingerbread Man’ story which is one of our nursery favourites. Some children were familiar with the traditional tale, whilst others hadn’t heard it before. This week, we’re going to enjoy listening to the story of ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and will hopefully be able to use the small world story props to re-tell the story.
You may even be able to smell something delicious cooking over the next two weeks…
If you have the story at home, you could read it together this week to help familiarise your child with the story.
Home Link – Christmas celebrations and holiday activities
Home Link….for after the holidays!
We’d love to hear all about your Christmas celebrations or about any fun activities and visits that you do over the holidays.
We look forward to seeing and hearing all about your Christmas celebrations and other adventures. Remember you can e-mail us, too.
Thank you.
We wish you a Merry Christmas
Our Nursery Christmas celebrations are well under way! The children have loved using the large construction area in their play. They have taken on the roles of busy elves making and wrapping ‘presents’ before building Santa’s sleigh to deliver them. We were especially pleased to see so many children engaging in all manner of mark-making activities: writing lists to Santa, writing gift tags and cards and even invitations to their own pretend Christmas parties!
Thank you to all of you who came to the ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions. We hope you enjoyed coming into Nursery with your child and having the opportunity to make some lovely decorations. For those of you who were unable to attend, rest assured that all children will have the opportunity to make the crafts over the next week, should they wish.
Our long awaited dress rehearsal on Thursday was a huge success. The children looked fantastic in their costumes and sang beautifully. You’re certainly in for a treat, so tissues at the ready for the performances this coming week. We were very lucky on Friday when Father Christmas himself came to school to read stories to the children in a beautifully decorated grotto. The children were very quiet and on their best behaviour as they told him what they had put on their Christmas lists!
What we’re learning this week
We’ll continue to play using the enhanced provision to enjoy all the ‘awe and wonder’ of this festive period. Our performances will, of course, be at the heart of this busy week. The children have done a wonderful job of learning the songs, actions and elements of the Christmas story.
We expect lots of excited children on Thursday when it’s not only Christmas dinner day but also our Nursery party in the afternoon. We’ll be playing lots of party games and of course having some festive party food which we expect will last until Friday!