Living and Learning – Anti-bullying and Odd Socks Day
This year, the focus of Anti-bullying Day has been respect. We watched the CBBC online assembly to start the day.
We have discussed:
- being respectful
- how to respond respectfully to other children
- that sometimes people have a difference of opinion
- the definition of bullying
- the impact on a person’s feelings if they have been bullied
- how to STOP bullying (Start Telling Other People)
In addition to this, we have been wearing odd socks today to represent how we’re the same and we’re different.
Help at home by asking your child how we know the difference between being rude, mean and bullying.
Living and learning: Odd Socks Day
Today is Anti-bullying day and to show our support of this, we’ve been wearing odd socks. This is to celebrate that we are all different and that we should stand up for discrimination and bullying. We discussed the different types of bullying including cyberbullying.
“Bullying is when you hurt someone physically or emotionally (including online) several times on purpose.” Junior Leadership Team
We talked about how bullying might make a person feel and how it is important that you Start Telling Other People.
Anti-bullying Day
This year’s Anti-bullying Day theme is ‘Choose Respect’. During our live lesson from BBC Teach we were asked to think about how we feel when some is disrespectful towards you. As a class we generated a list of words/ terms to describe our feelings.
This led to a discussion about choosing our words carefully when we speak to or about other people. Choosing to be respectful is a positive choice that we can all make.
Help at home: discuss how our words have meaning. How can we make up after a fight? What is the difference between having an argument and bullying?
Community Week – a discussion with children at Moortown Primary School
As part of Community Week, the children had the chance to connect with another school community – Moortown Primary School. The children were able to ask the students at Moortown about daily life at their school. Similarly, the children at Scholes had the opportunity to answer any questions from the children at Moortown. We discussed different religions, the setting of each school (whether they are based in a village or town), the school community and, of course, school dinners!
The children at both Scholes and Moortown found this experience really useful and enriching. It was great to get to know another happy and healthy school community.
Help at Home: Ask your child what they learnt about the community at Moortown Primary School.
Colours in the sky.
The children were very excited when they returned to Nursery, sharing their experiences of Halloween with their friends. There was a lot of talk about witches, bat costumes and skeletons.
We began the week finding out about Diwali, the festival of lights. We watched some short video clips to find out about how some people prepare for Diwali and enjoy celebrating with family. We learnt about rangoli patterns and diva lamps.
In the dough area, we decided to make own Diva lamps by rolling a ball and pushing our thumbs into it to make a ‘thumb pot’. We added patterns with the tools and put a candle inside. We created some rangoli patterns too by following patterns with jewels and gems.
Wednesday was Bonfire Night, the children played with the bonfire themed small world area adding the sounds of the fireworks to their play. “whoosh, bang, zoom, whizz”
Along with hearing lots of different sounds the children had seen lots of bright colours in the night sky. They used spinners to make firework pictures, the faster it spun the bigger the splash ! At group time we used chalks to create the Bonfire Night sky.
As part of our phonics learning, we’ve introduced the letter ‘s’ this week. We took turns to pull some objects out of a bag that all started with the letter ‘s’ We talked about the ‘s’ sound that we could hear at the start of each word. In Nursery, we focus on our listening skills. We’re not learning about letter formation just yet.
We show the children this picture card and use this pronunciation phrase. You could try this at home.
Show your teeth and let the s hiss out sssssss sssssss
Help at home: What can you find at home that begins with the letter ‘s’? Go on a sound hunt together and look for some. Let us know what you find.
Reminders
- It’s “Odd Socks Day” on Tuesday so wear odd socks to Nursery for the day
- It’s Children in Need on Friday and it’s a non-uniform day. Please remember it will be a usual Nursery day, so please dress your child in clothes that are appropriate for outdoor and messy play.
Next week
It’s World Nursery Rhyme Week so instead of our usual Nursery Rhyme of the week our provision will be Nursery Rhyme themed. We’ll be singing lots of our favourite rhymes. If you’d like to send us an email with your child’s favourite rhyme and we’ll try to sing it at Nursery next week. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Sound of the week – Aa for astronaut and apple
Open your mouth wide and make the a sound at the back of your mouth a a a
Living and learning : Community Week – A Polish Visitor
All the Year 1 and 2 classes welcomed a visitor this week. Carolina, who was born and lived in Poland until she was 19, came to talk to us about living and working in a different country. It was really interesting to see and hear about the differences and similarities between her life in Poland and England. The children were very respectful, asking questions and listening intently.
Festivals
Welcome to Autumn 2! This half term, our theme is light and dark.
We’ve covered lots of important events and topics this week…
Bonfire Night
We learnt about why some people celebrate Bonfire Night, with an introduction to The Gunpowder Plot. The children enjoyed sharing their experiences of Bonfire Night and how they celebrated at home or out and about.
In the construction area, we built replicas of The Houses of Parliament. We explored casting shadows of our models with torches and used colour paddles to make the shadows look like fire!
Diwali
We found out about the Hindu festival of lights – Diwali. Our focus book was Binny’s Diwali by Thrity Umrigar.
We also found out about the festival through sharing non-fiction texts and watching My first festivals.
Take a look at some of the activities we explored, when learning about Diwali.
Our word of the week is: festival.
Maths; identifying and composing 5
In Maths, we’ve been using our fingers to identify 5. We ‘grew our fingers’ using the peas in a pod song.
Five little peas in a pea pod pressed,
One grew, two grew, so did all the rest,
They grew and they grew and they did not stop,
Until one day the pod went pop!
Later in the week, we used 5 frames and 5-die frames to explore the different ways to compose 5.
Phonics
This week, we focused on the new digraphs ff, ll, ss and the single letter phoneme j.
We’ve also learnt the tricky word; as
Tricky words are words that should be read by sight. We start by identifying which part of the word is ‘tricky’. In as, the ‘s’ is tricky because it makes the /z/ sound.
Poetry Picnic
Each week we learn a new poem and we recite this poem every day. By saying the poem out loud, we can focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word or line. We talk to the children about how this can help us become better readers. This week’s poem is called Who has seen the wind?
Click the link to watch Reception recite this week’s poem! Who has seen the wind?
Help at home; World Nursery Rhyme Week
Next week, we’ll be celebrating World Nursery Rhyme Week.
If your child would like to, we’d love to share a recording of them telling their favourite nursery rhyme in class. Please send your videos to the email address below.
Dates for your diary
Anti-bullying Day and Odd Socks Day- 12.11.24 To support anti-bullying week, please send your child to school wearing a pair of odd socks (Tuesday only).
Maths Stay and Learn – 13.11.24 – 09.00 – 10.00 Please join us in the classroom to watch a short maths session and enjoy some maths activities with your child.
Children in Need – 15.11.24 Non-uniform day for Children in Need.
Swimming
Rainbow class loved their first swimming lesson this week! There were lots of happy faces splashing in the pool on Wednesday. Next week, Sunshine class will be swimming.
On your child’s swimming day, please provide a swimsuit/swim shorts, a towel and a pair of goggles if needed. No floatation equipment is required, as we provide these in school. Your child should still come to school wearing their PE kit.
Living and Learning – Me and My Community Week – Coffee Morning
Coffee morning and WUSU.
What a great success! Thank you to the members of the FOSP team who ran the coffee morning on Thursday. Thank you to the adults who supported our school community by coming to the coffee morning and joining the children at Wake Up, Shake Up!
Living and Learning – Me and My Community Week – Grandad Wheels
On Wednesday, the children enjoyed a fantastic and hilarious visit from Grandad Wheels, author, Brian Abram.
Brian, ‘Grandad Wheels’, delivered assemblies where he shared his story, told jokes and made us all laugh, as well as discussing what life is like in a wheelchair. We enjoyed listening to ‘Chaos at Cheapfoods!’. At the end of the assemblies, Brian set the children the challenge of designing a new wheelchair.
After reading a story to the Reception children in the school library, Brain visited each class so the children could share their designs. He was really impressed.
Thank you to FOSP for funding this wonderful visit.
Thank you to everyone who ordered a book from Brain – in total, £254 was raised through book orders – Brian puts this money towards two charities that support spinal injury.
@grandadwheels
Living and Learning- Me and My Community Week
Welcome back!
We’ve kick started our first week back into a themed week; Me and My Community Week.
We started learning about who makes up our school community and had a creative discussion about the meaning behind our school logo.
What do the trees/ colours/ railway represent?
Throughout the rest of the week, we’ve been learning about:
- a healthy relationship is a positive one
- Why are protected characteristics important?
- different types of family communities
- respecting others that are differernt to us
- British Values
- different types of bullying and how to seek help
- What is a charity?
- main rivers and mountains in the UK
- significant buildings in Leeds
What a fantastic and busy first week back!
Help at home: talk about what is mutual respect and tolerance, and how can we show it?