Home Link – We wish you a Merry Christmas
Most of our Christmas performance songs will be a lovely surprise…
Just to help us along, please enjoy singing the song ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ together.
Also, if you’ve any old Christmas cards, envelopes, wrapping paper, gift tags, bows, ribbons etc… please bring them into nursery. Our busy little elves will no doubt use a lot of these items over the next few weeks as they enjoy writing letters to Santa and wrapping presents in the workshop. Thank you in advance for your donations.
Christmas reminders
Reminders
- Christmas ‘Stay and decorate’ sessions will take place on Tuesday 05, Wednesday 06 and Thursday 07 at 8.30-9.30am. We’ll need to finish the Thursday session promptly as we have our first dress rehearsal for the school shortly afterwards! Thank you in advance for being understanding with this.
- Please can all costumes be in school by Tuesday 05 December.
- ‘Story time with Santa’ is on Friday 08. If your child does not usually attend Nursery on this day they are welcome to come into school via the main reception at 10.00am. Please inform a member of staff.
- As you may be sorting out your Christmas bits and pieces, please donate any tags, wrapping paper, or cards to use in our elves’ workshop.
- Please use the Nursery email to forward pictures or non-urgent information to us: scholesf1@spherefederation.org
Let the festivities commence!
It’s the first of December so that means Nursery will have a very festive feel for the next few weeks. We embrace all beliefs and religions and as such, enhance our areas of provision with many different elements associated with Christmas. From snowmen to Santa Claus, Christmas trees, reindeers and the story of the Nativity. The children have been very engaged in general ‘counting’ activities this week. They’ve been using their developing number skills to count out a selection of objects from a larger group and use vocabulary including ‘more’ and ‘the same’ to say what they have. There has been lots of creativity as we began to make our lovely Christmas cards and salt dough stars for the forthcoming ‘stay and decorate’ sessions.
We’ve been practising our Christmas songs and took our ‘rehearsal’ into the hall for the first time on Thursday. Although the stage has not yet gone up, it was certainly exciting to be singing together with F2!
We still love working together to complete jigsaws! If you have any unwanted jigsaws at home, please send them in. They’re great for promoting team work, conversation and taking turns.
The story ‘Laura’s star’ gave us with lots of opportunities to talk about our feelings and the things that are ‘special’ to us. One very caring child said: “I would look after the broken star because it was sad and lonely”. They then went to the creative area and put a ‘bandage’ around a cardboard star decorated with lots of sparkles to make it feel better!
What we are learning this week
We’ll be sharing the Nativity story in key worker sessions and using the small world area to retell the story with our friends. In the home corner, we’ll patiently be counting down the days to Christmas using the advent calendar and decorating the Christmas tree with lots of baubles and tinsel.
The construction area will become a hive of activity as we take on the roles of ‘Santa’s helpers’ to make and wrap presents in the Elves workshop. Prepare to receive some very well wrapped and decorated ‘presents’ at the end of each day!
Our dress rehearsal takes place on Thursday where we’ll be watched by a small audience comprised of siblings from other classes in school. The children will be dressed in their costumes as we make any last minute adjustments before we perform to our families! We look forward to welcoming parents and carers to the ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions where there will be lots of Christmas craft activities for you to do with your child. Please ensure you have returned the slip so we know how many people to expect on each day!
Home Link – What can you see in the sky at night?
Can you make your own night time picture?
You can print, stick, paint or draw a picture for our home link gallery. Be as creative as you can!
From the moon to the stars…
From the moon to the stars…
It was lovely to meet with all parents and carers last week at our parents’ meetings. We hope you found them informative and reassuring. As ever, the door is always open and we absolutely value your feedback. We’re very proud of all the children who have settled in beautifully and amaze us every day with their increasing skills and independence.
Following on from our discussions, please remember to:
- Let us know when you have completed a Home Link activity. They are really important and help your child to make links between learning at home and nursery.
- Share those ‘Wow’ moments with us! Grab a WOW observation sheet or simply e-mail us if it’s easier. We love to hear about how your child is progressing at home, too, and we use the information to help us plan your child’s next steps.
- Have a look at the ‘What to expect, when’ document if you’d like to find out more about the Early Years Foundation Stage.
The children have really enjoyed all of the ‘Whatever Next’ activities and as usual, initiate their own learning opportunities as they play. There has been some fantastic collaborative play in the small world and large construction as the children became ‘Rocket fixers’ when their rockets broke down leaving baby bear stuck on the moon. We’ve been thinking about what might happen if we were on the moon and the other things we might see on our journeys. After using tin foil to make shiny moon rocks, we thought about other ‘shiny’ things we might see in the sky and, of course, we remembered the stars.
We found playing a selection of games and puzzles with key workers to be a real success in learning to take turns and share. Once the adults moved away, many children continued to play and organise the games and were sharing independently. Despite the changeable weather, we’ve had lots of fun outdoors. The grass can be especially muddy so we have been transporting wheel barrows full of bark chippings to the bottom of the garden to help create an extra, ‘mud free’, area where children can play. If your child has any waterproof trousers, these are a great idea for them to play out in. It saves several changes of clothes in one day!
With Christmas fast approaching we have begun to sing our Christmas songs in preparation for the ‘Sing-a-long’. Every child should have received a costume letter. Please let us know if you’re having difficulty sourcing any item of clothing.
What are we learning this week?
We’re going to use the story ‘Laura’s star’ as a stimulus for our learning and playing this week. The book has a lovely message about caring and friendship. Using the ‘star’ theme, there will be lots of opportunities to practise our counting as we find hidden stars in the areas of provision and fish for stars in the water. Each child will make a salt dough Christmas star to decorate at the ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions. Please look in your child’s folder for further information. Each time we cook or bake, we do of course use it as an opportunity to talk about counting, measuring and weighing the ingredients. We’ll also be exploring the ‘cold’ by adding coloured ice cubes to the water tray and investigating what happens. How long will it take for our ice to melt and what might be hidden inside the ice?
If you’d like to listen to the story, you can watch it here.
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
If you’d like to find out more about the importance of rhyming, there are also some links to documents that explain why nursery rhymes and playing games involving rhymes with young children are so important.
What are the 5 rhymes for 2017?
The 5 rhymes for the ‘Rhyme a Day Challenge’ are:
Monday 13 November: ‘Bobby Shafto’.
Tuesday 14 November: ‘Lavenders Blue’.
Wednesday 15 November: ‘Hickory Dickory Dock’.
Thursday 16 November: ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’.
Friday 17 November: ‘Old King Cole’.
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.