Run, run, as fast as you can
Happy New Year and welcome back to Nursery! We hope that you all had a great Christmas and enjoyed a break over the festive period. We were expecting to welcome everyone back on Monday morning but the weather had other ideas ! It was lovely, however, to see everyone on Tuesday morning and hear about your holiday adventures and presents from Santa. Thank you for sending in your photos of your Christmas celebrations.
This week, we’ve been reading ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and children have been retelling the story in our small world area. If you have a copy of the story at home, please enjoy reading it together. If not, you might like to listen to Mr Tumble reading it.
We have enjoyed joining in with the repeated refrain “Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.”
This week we have been learning our new sound is ‘m’ for mouse. We pronounce it as ‘mmmmm’.
Help at home: In group time, our sound bag had lots of ‘m’ objects including a marble, a mouse, a map and a mirror. What can you find around the house that begins with the ‘m’ sound? What other ‘m’ objects could we have put in our sound bag?
As the snow froze solid in our Nursery garden it was too dangerous for us to play outside. This led to lots of discussions about keeping safe.
” We could slip and fall”
” I might bump my head”
“We can’t run on the snow, like we can’t run inside”
Well done everyone!
We couldn’t to go out in the snow, but we could bring the snow inside to explore.
We added snow to our water tray to create an arctic landscape.
The snow and ice felt
” very cold” “wet” “freezing”
We painted the snow and it looked amazing!
We used frozen paint to create our pictures.
Next week – 13 January 2025
We look forward to welcoming our new families and children to Nursery for their first sessions on Tuesday 14 January. Our new ‘yellow group’ children will join red group as they come into Nursery through the main door each morning so it may feel a little bit busier than usual. Please be patient as we help to settle the new children into Nursery. We’re looking forward to getting to know everybody and making some new friends.
Next week’s learning:
‘Dinosaur Roar’ by Paul and Henrietta Stickland is our story next week. If you don’t have a copy of the book at home, you might enjoy watching the first 3 minutes of this clip together.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip
Letter next week – ‘d’ for duck
Nursery rhyme next week – The Grand Old Duke of York
Have a happy and healthy weekend and thank you as always for your support.
The Nursery Team
Reading
We have read Here We Are (Notes for Living on Planet Earth) by Oliver Jeffers this week. We have enjoyed reading and discussing the book, picking out the main themes and messages.
We will link the book to our geography learning about our local area and science learning about plants, animals and habitats too. We will be learning about our locality, Scholes, and the city and country we live in.
Help at home
- read the book again and talking about the key messages
- talk about our local area – particularly what you like and dislike about it
- help your child learn their address
- read other books by Oliver Jeffers
There is a link to listen to it here. (This is a YouTube link. Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog along the play bar and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.)
Lost and Found
It has been great to see all the children this week and hear about their magical Christmas experiences.
The weather has definitely matched up to our new topic this half term – Fire and Ice.
In literacy, we have been reading the story Lost and Found.
In the story, a boy finds a penguin at his door and goes on an adventure to try to find his home, as he thought he was lost.
Just like the boy, we explored and learnt about where penguins live and extended our vocabulary by learning a new word: iceberg.
Here is some of our super writing!
Phonics
We have begun learning our Phase 3 sounds. This week, we have learnt four new digraphs/trigraphs ai,ee,igh,oa.
Maths – super subitising!
This week we have been practising our subitising skills. This means, we have been looking and saying how many objects we can see – without counting one by one.
One there and two far away. That makes three!’ Jaxon
Two and the bottom and two at the top. Billy
Check out our other learning.
Home Link
How fast can you melt an ice cube?
What happens if you put the ice somewhere hot/cold? What happens if you put salt on it? How different does it look after 10 minutes?
You may choose to record your results using drawings or use a timer.
Notices
Stay and Learn – Tuesday 14 January 9am – 10am
Our Stay and Learn sessions are a chance to find out more about your child’s journey through Reception. You can observe some teaching and learning, and pick up some tips to support your child at home. This session is all about Phonics (phase 3).
Swimming dates
Rainbow – 22 Jan, 5 Feb
Sunshine – 15 Jan, 29 Jan, 12 Feb
Please ensure your child is in their PE kit on these days, including trainers.
Mathematics
In maths, we’ve been exploring units of measure and learning how to convert between them. We know how to change millimetres (mm) into centimetres (cm), centimetres (cm) into metres (m), and even metres (m) into kilometres (km). This helps us understand how different measurements connect and makes it easier to solve problems involving length and distance.
Help at home: can you come up with your own true or false questions? You could even measure things around your home and convert them into different units!
Class News – Science and reading
What a snowy start! The children have coped really well this week despite the weather conditions.
In Science, we’ve looked at how sounds are made by exploring different musical instruments. We know that sounds can travel through solids and liquids as well as the air (gases).
In Reading, we’ve read a poem called ‘The Sound Collector’ by Roger McGough. We’ve discussed which sounds we like and dislike and how it could feel if there were no sounds. We have practised our retrieval skills to find accurate answers and have discussed the poet’s choice of vocabularly.
Well done to everyone who has brought in their reading record today. Help at home by listening to your child read regularly.
Applications for a Reception place.
A quick reminder.
Applications for a Reception place for September 2025 can be made until 15 January 2025. Guidance on applications can be found on Leeds City Councils You Tube video
A quick guide to school admissions
Please remember that you still need to apply for a Reception place at Scholes (Elmet) Primary School, even if your child attends Scholes Nursery.
Welcome Yellow Group.
We enjoyed meeting all of our new children and families at their home visits and we’re looking forward to getting to know you more next week.
Here is a reminder of some of the important information that we discussed during the home visit.
- Your child will need a drawstring bag with a full change of clothes. Please make sure that you write their NAME in everything.
- We play outside in all weathers so a warm, waterproof coat is essential. Please also send gloves and a hat during winter. Children need a pair of wellies at Nursery. Remember to name their coat, shoes and wellies!
- Please put your child’s water bottle in the yellow basket in the entrance. You’ll need to collect it at the end of their session each day. Again, please remember to write their name clearly on the bottle.
Registration and end of day
- Nursery opens at 9am and we close registration at 9:10am.
- When you come into Nursery (main entrance via the path from Morwick Grove) you’ll be asked who is going to collect your child and for their lunch option.
- If you change who is collecting your child, please inform the office. If we haven’t met somebody before, we will ask for your password.
- Once you’ve put your child’s belongings on their peg, you’re welcome to settle them somewhere to play before you say goodbye.
- Nursery closes at 3pm but you can collect your child from 2:50pm onwards.
- At the end of the session, parents and carers are able to come into Nursery to collect your child’s belongings and check their folder for artwork.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask a member of Nursery staff. We look forward to seeing you again at the Stay and Play visit on Monday 13 January from 3.30-4.15pm. See you all there.
KS1 football dates reminder
Dear parents,
This is just a quick reminder of the dates for 5 aside football for KS1. This is for the children that play semi-regularly at Fives in Seacroft.
Our next match day will be Monday 10th February 2025.
Thanks,
Miss Young 🙂
Living and learning
‘I know what a drug is’.
At school, our definition of a drug is something that alters our mind and/or our body. This week KS1 discussed what safe drugs are such as medicine and how we can ingest these safely.
We discussed several scenarios.
The children know that if they are feeling poorly or are hurt, the sensible thing to do is tell a trusted adult. It is not safe to take medicine without an adult.
Science – light
We have started our new science learning this week. We are learning all about light. As physics will be our focus this term, we are being physicists. The children were given their new vocabulary to learn and as a class we rag rated how confident we felt about these words.
In the lesson the children identified different light sources and were able to tell which ones were luminous (emit light) and which were non-luminous (reflect light). They understood that light travels in straight lines and they understood how we see objects.
Help at home: Can you help your child learn their vocabulary? Play some games such as Pictionary.