Nursery Class News

Parent Consultations

We’re looking forward to meeting with you all next week to talk about how your child has settled into Nursery so far this term. If you haven’t already signed up for an appointment, there’s still time. If you’re unable to make it next week, please speak to Mrs Long or Mrs Ellison and we’ll be happy to arrange an alternative time with you.

During our meeting, we’re hoping to talk to you a little bit about what you can expect your child to be learning as they progress through the Foundation Stage.

Here is a link to a document that can be quite helpful for understanding ‘What to expect, when?‘ –  but please remember all children are unique and make progress at their own rates and at different times. In this booklet, there are lots of ideas of ways to support your child further at home.

Home Link – Five little men in a flying saucer

For our Home Link activity this week, we’d like you to sing one of the songs that we’ve been learning this week.

Can you sing the song 5 Little men in a flying saucer? You can watch it and sing along at home.

Sing it with your key worker or email us a video of you singing it at home and get a star on your hand print.

Whatever next?

We have had a great time this week using the story ‘Whatever Next’ to stimulate our learning and play. We loved creating our own small world area to retell the story and take Teddy on his adventure to the moon. We made our own moon paintings, colour mixing black and white to make grey. Some children wanted to make things ‘more silver’ so set about using tinfoil to wrap up stones, or should we say ‘moon rocks’.

We had lots of fun investigating in the water tray… Look what happened when we used the funnels to fill the bottles! Children loved watching the water come out of the tiny holes and it provided lots of opportunities to talk about capacity.

During group time we introduced ‘dough disco’. This involves each child having a ball of playdough to manipulate into different shapes following the lead of the adult. Such activities are fantastic in helping develop dexterity, fine motor skills and finger strength.

After singing the rhyme ‘5 little men in a flying saucer’ the children had a great time using the large construction to make space rockets and spaceships to take them to the moon. We practised recognising the numbers 1-5, counting forwards and backwards as the spacemen got on and off the rockets. There has been lots of building, too, with smaller bricks which have resulted in some fantastic language as the children described their tall, short, bigger and taller constructions. We continued to sing lots of different nursery rhymes and used the puppets including a fish, a clock and a moon to play ‘guess the rhyme’. By using the recording pegs, the children were able to independently record themselves as they sang and then played their beautiful voices back for everyone to hear!

What we are learning this week

We’re going to continue with our ‘moon’ theme as we make craters in the sensory area using marbles and ‘moon dust’. We shall be painting onto tinfoil and printing using bubble wrap as we use different textures in our art work. We will be looking at pictures from the story ‘Whatever Next’ and thinking about the order the different events happened. This is a great way to not only stimulate talk but to help develop organisational and sequencing skills. We’ll be trying to remember all the things baby bear took in his picnic by playing different memory games. So we don’t forget, we’ll use different forms of mark making to write our own picnic lists. Once on the moon, we will start to think about who we might bump into! After reading the book ‘Q Pootle 5’, we hope to stimulate the making of some very colourful but friendly playdough aliens!

Reminders

• We look forward to seeing everyone this week for the parents’ meetings. If you can’t attend, please let a member of staff know.
• Save the date! Christmas ‘Stay and Play’ sessions will take place w/c 04 December on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings at 8.30-9.15. More information to follow shortly.
• As we go outdoors in all weathers, please ensure your child is appropriately dressed. Girls in particular really need either tights or leggings to protect their legs.
• Please ensure your child has a full set of spare clothes in their bag. If Nursery clothing is borrowed, can it be returned it to us as we are running low on certain items.
• There is a ‘wish list’ on the notice board in the entrance area. At the moment, we’re looking for a ‘flat screen TV’ type box and other good quality cardboard boxes
• If you would like to share any non-urgent information with us please get in touch using the Nursery email: scholesf1@spherefederation.org

World Nursery Rhyme Week

Home Link – Whatever Next

Can you read the story ‘Whatever Next’?

Tell your key worker your favourite part and get a star on your handprint!

If you don’t have a copy at home, you could visit the library or listen to a CBeebies bedtime story reading of ‘Whatever Next’ on-line.

Firework fun!

What a colourful week it’s been……

We’ve had another busy week in Nursery as we shared our bonfire adventures with our friends. There were lots of wonderful paintings and pictures inspired by the fireworks that everyone saw. We thought about the different sounds we heard and used our voices, instruments and streamers to recreate them. The children absolutely loved creating the huge firework paint pictures outdoors, which included getting very messy indeed! Such large scale activities are brilliant for helping to develop the children’s physical skills as they make ‘big movements’ with their arms. As we talked about bonfires, we thought about how hedgehogs sometimes hibernate within them. We decided to make our own playdough hedgehogs and tell them not to hide in the bonfires (all whilst using our counting to put on matchstick prickles of course!). The children really extended their vocabulary of capacity as they played in the blue water this week. Filling the different sized containers and using the piping attracted lots of different children into the water area which also allowed new friendships to develop.

 What we are learning this week?

After lots of interest in fireworks and rockets, talk naturally led us to outer space and the moon! We’ll be using the book ‘Whatever Next’ as a stimulus throughout our areas of provision. We shall be re-telling the story using the book, pictures and small world props to develop our speaking and listening skills. In the large construction, there will be lots of space and moon themed resources to inspire our very imaginative children in their play. We’ll use our counting skills and ‘fiddly fingers’ to add craters to the (playdough) moon and thread pipe cleaners carefully into the holes of colanders – after reading the story, the link will become apparent! Our challenge, set by the children, is to make the water ‘even darker’ and then together, we will all think about what ‘space’ inspired objects we need to add and how we can make our own colanders for water to trickle out of.

Next week is a nationwide ‘Nursery Rhyme Week’ developed to encourage the sharing of nursery rhymes in settings and in the home. Sharing such rhymes and songs is very important in helping early language development and is, therefore, something we do continually within our activities. The focus rhymes this year are ‘Bobby Shafto’, ‘Lavenders Blue’, ‘Hickory Dickory Dock, ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’ and ‘Old King Cole’. These will be sung within key workers sessions along with lots of our other favourites.

Home Link – Bonfire Night

We’re sure that you’ll see and hear lots of fireworks this weekend as some people celebrate Bonfire Night.

Talk to your child about the different shapes, colours and noises that the fireworks make.

Can you create your own firework picture or model?

You might want to use paint, draw, collage or make something using boxes. It’s up to you – be as creative as your child (and you) would like!

We can’t wait to see your firework inspired artwork and models!

Potions and pumpkin soup!

What fun everyone had during the half term holidays.

Thank you for sharing all your half term fun with us! It was wonderful to hear about all the different activities and adventures the children experienced. We love to share news, photographs and souvenirs during group time. It provides an excellent opportunity for developing your child’s speaking and listening skills and of course, helps them to gain the confidence to talk to their peers. There was a delicious smell coming from nursery this week as we made pumpkin soup. The children helped to chop the vegetables and picked different herbs from the outdoor area to flavour the soup! There were some very creative potions made in the water and sand as the children explored capacity, colour and let their imaginations run wild with some very horrible looking ‘recipes’. Outdoors, some very observant children found the biggest worm on the grass which grew and grew before our eyes as it wriggled under the soil. We began to discuss length and use lots of different words to describe and compare the size of the worm. “It’s enormous…the longest worm I’ve ever seen!” The children have loved making their own obstacle courses in the large construction area. There was lots of cooperative play, mark making and number play as we awarded prizes for 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd places!.

 What we are learning this week

Leading on from the Guy Fawkes weekend fun, we will be having a bonfire and firework theme as we incorporate all the wonderful colours, sounds and shapes into our provision. Outdoors, we look forward to using the ribbons and scarves to dance and move like fireworks. We will be getting very messy as we create our own firework art on a large scale using the powder paints and some very interesting paint flicking techniques – please see this week’s reminders! We shall be talking about the children’s own experiences and continuing with the safety messages highlighted at this time of year relating to fire. This of course leads into creating a ‘firefighter’ small world area to reinforce learning across so many of the areas; language, creative play and making relationships to name a few. By using bubble wrap, we hope to not only recreate the ‘popping’ sound of their fireworks but also strengthen our fingers in preparation for the super mark making (early or ‘developmental’ writing) we do during our play. We will continue to use number skills as we count out objects from a larger group and learn another number song about 5 firefighters!

Reminders

• If you have any old adult shirts could you please send them to nursery to protect clothing during our firework art activities. We do have some but possibly not enough to go round everyone.
• Please check the entrance area towards the end of the week for signing up sheets for Parents meetings. These will take place W/C 20th November and be held over several days and at various times as to provide as much choice as possible.
• If you would like to share any none urgent information with us please get in touch using the nursery email scholesf1@spherefederation.org

Thank you for your continued support.

Holiday adventures

Thank you to everyone who has e-mailed photographs and details of your activities in the holidays or to those that have sent in leaflets.

One of the most popular activities was pumpkin picking at Farmer Copley’s pumpkin festival, Piglet’s Adventure Park or Canon Hall Farm. It looks like you all had a good time scooping out the slimy insides and  carving some very elaborate designs into them. (What a talented group of parents and carers you are!)

You told us all about…

• Discovering dinosaurs at Temple Newsam.  Mrs Long thought that she could hear some strange noises when she was hanging washing out in her garden!
• Trips to museums and finding out about space.
• Learning to swing without being pushed.
• Eating pizzas at Pizza Express – mmmmm!
• Shark spotting at The Deep.
• Mark making, drawing pictures and writing letters.
• One lucky person even got to go camping…in the Moroccan desert and met a magician! Lawson told us all about his trip to see the magic man and toasting marshmallows on the fire.

We have enjoyed sharing the photographs with the children and it has been a lovely opportunity for children to tell us all about their adventures. It really helped them to remember what they had done during the holidays; children often forget to tell us about home, just like they forget to tell you about their day in nursery!

Children were excited to see their photographs on our iPads and they were eager to share their experiences with their friends. It provided lots of conversation, even with some of our quieter members of nursery.

Thank you for taking the time to e-mail us and please continue to keep us up to date with your child’s learning and new fascinations and interests.

It’s not too late to send us your holiday photographs if you haven’t already. We’ll look forward to seeing some more.

Home Link – Tell us about your holiday adventures

What did you do in the holidays?

Can you bring a souvenir or leaflet from somewhere you went in the holidays?

It may be a trip to the park, a farm or maybe the seaside. We’re going to share our adventures during the first week back and encourage children to tell their friends during group time.

You might want to draw a picture or send a photograph to our nursery email – scholesf1@spherefederation.org