Author: Reception Team

What a fabulous, festive and fun filled week we’ve had! Children loved our Nursery Christmas party on Monday. We danced to Christmas songs in the school hall and played some traditional games including pass the parcel and ‘corners’.  Afterwards, we enjoyed eating some party treats and then watched the animated version of ‘Stickman’. Lots of children remembered parts of the story from reading it in Nursery in our small world area.

 

On Wednesday, we watched a live pantomime and enjoyed some popcorn during the performance. The children were engrossed and soon began to join in… It’s behind you!

On Thursday, everyone had a traditional Christmas lunch together which included pulling crackers, telling jokes and wearing party hats! Afterwards, we visited the ‘Christmas lights’ in the school hall. You may have already seen the photographs on our Facebook page. We had another surprise when we got back into Nursery, Father Christmas had been! We watched a video of Santa playing in Nursery, he read us a story and left us a Nursery present. Thank you, Santa!

Finally, we’d like to say thankyou for our cards and gifts and for your lovely comments about our Nursery Christmas Sing-a-Long videos. We’re glad you enjoyed watching at home.

We’d like to wish you all a very merry Christmas (even if it might be a little different to usual) and a happy and healthy new year! 

 

 

 

 

 

We couldn’t let COVID-19 ruin all of our Christmas fun; we’ve tried to ensure that children have taken part in as many of our usual Nursery Christmas activities as possible. The main difference, sadly, is that you haven’t been able to join us for them.  Instead, we’ve put together a few short video clips to ensure that you don’t miss out on some essential Early Years Christmas singing!  We hope that you enjoy singing along at home and would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a happy, healthy (and hopefully a more ‘normal’) New Year.

We’ll  look forward to seeing you on Tuesday 05 January. Remember, we have a Training Day on Monday 04 January.  

Christmas Sing-a-Long

We’ve had a fun and festive week in Nursery. Children have been busily making cards and decorations – look out for these coming home in the final week. (The contents of the bags have been quarantined and haven’t been touched for 72+ hours, but as always, please follow good hand hygiene procedures.) 

Here are a few of the activities that we have enjoyed this week.

• Making and decorating salt dough decorations and Christmas cards.

• Counting out the correct number of presents using the Interactive Whiteboard.

• Working with friends to decorate the trees outside.

• Making Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in the playdough area and learning to use a rolling pin to roll the dough out flat. In our Dough Disco activities, we’re also learning how to roll a ball using the palms of our hands.

• Writing toy lists and letters for Father Christmas.

• Playing outside and sheltering from the rain in our den.

Look out for our final post of this year on Monday…we’re sure it’s one that you’ll love! 

Reminders

• Remember it’s our Christmas party on Monday 14 December. Please see the previous post for more information regarding clothing, times and £1 donation.
• Water bottles – please make sure these are NAMED and that your child has a water bottle every day, even if they only attend for an afternoon session.

You may have noticed, whilst peeping through the waving window, that ‘Christmas’ arrived in Nursery on Tuesday morning. Children have been full of excited talk about what their cheeky little elves have been up to at home and have been busy making toy lists.

Here are a few of the festive things that we’ve enjoyed this week.  In the home corner, we have a mini Christmas tree and a selection of decorations for children to use as part of their role play.  We also have Santa’s house at the North Pole in our small world area; this has been really popular with everyone and Santa has been flying around Nursery in his sleigh!

During group time, we enjoyed mark making on Christmas tree shapes. Children practised lots of different patterns, using zig-zags for tinsel and circles for baubles. In Nursery, we encourage children to draw and write in many different ways and to experiment with patterns.  Some children will have already developed a preference for using one hand, others will swap and draw with both hands. Similarly, some children will still be using their whole hand to hold a pencil in their fist,  whereas other children may use two fingers and their thumb and may be developing more control.  All children develop differently; the best way to support their writing skills is to have fun drawing together.  You could paint, draw pictures in the bath with bath crayons, use giant chalks outside, draw inside a large cardboard box or simply draw or colour in a picture. Talk about the marks you’re making. What do they show? What do they mean?

In our outside area, children have enjoyed playing with the Winter Wonderland small world area and using decorations to decorate  trees in our garden. Trying to hang baubles on the branches is a great fiddly fingers activity! 

Important reminders

• Please make sure that your child has a festive or brightly coloured top at Nursery for their first session this week.  Children will wear them whist we video our Christmas songs, beginning on Monday.
• Packed lunches– We’d like to politely remind you to follow our school’s guidance regarding healthy packed lunches. Packed lunches must NOT contain nuts or products containing nuts – this includes Nutella products. Also, please ensure that you limit sugary treats and leave chocolate bars and sweets for home time. Thank you for your cooperation.

This week, we will begin our December Christmas themed fun in Nursery! We’re going to start by reading the popular children’s book ‘Stickman‘.  Here are a few activities that you might like to join in with at home.

• Listen to the story being read by the illustrator, Axel Scheleffler, by following the link above. You may also like to watch the ‘Stickman’ animation that’s available on BBC iplayer.
• Have a look in your garden (if you can), can you find any twigs that look like Stickman? If you have some googly eyes, you could stick them on.
• If you’re feeling creative, you could create a picture using twigs and leaves from your garden. Can you make Stickman a Family Tree?
• In maths, we’re going to compare lengths of pieces of tinsel. You could do this with sticks that you find or tinsel if you have some. Which is longest? Shortest? Are any pieces the same length?
• We’ll begin learning some Christmas songs, including ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ and ‘Jingle Bells’. Enjoy singing them at home and have a go at finding some items that you could use as instruments. What could you use that sounds like bells? 
• During group time, we’re going to draw some baubles and tinsel on our Christmas tree outlines. Cut out a Christmas tree shape and use some coloured pencils to add on decorations. Can you you add a star on top?

Have fun! We’re looking forward to seeing you at Nursery again soon.

It’s nearly that time of year again, it always comes around so quickly! Obviously this year, our Christmas celebrations are going to be a little bit different. However, that doesn’t mean to say that we’re not going to have fun!

Here are some important dates and information about the next few weeks.

Christmas songs  – Whilst it’s not going to be possible to host a Christmas performance that you can watch in school, we’re going to do our best to create one that you can enjoy watching at home!  For this, we’d like ALL children to have a Christmas themed/coloured top in school by Friday 4 December.  You do not need to buy anything new – a cheerful or festive top that they can be comfortable in all day (playing out and eating lunch in too) will be fine.  Please put your child’s NAME in the top and put it in a small bag in their group box this week.  It will remain in Nursery until the end of the following week.

Christmas lunch  –  Christmas lunch is on Thursday 17 December.  If you’d like your child to join in and haven’t already told us, please let us know and we’ll add your child onto the list. Payment (£2.20) can be made online. Please call the office if you are unsure of how to do this.

Christmas party –  Our Nursery Christmas party will be on Monday 14 December in the afternoon. If your child already attends Nursery on that day, you can send them to Nursery in cheerful or festive clothing.  Children will still be playing in Nursery provision and outside in the morning, so please make sure clothing is warm and comfortable.

For children that attend Nursery on Monday, collection will be at the same time as usual. Please adhere to your child’s pick-up time. There will be more children in Nursery that day and we need to ensure that we stagger parent/carer collection times to allow for social distancing space.

If your child doesn’t attend Nursery on Monday, they are welcome to join us for the party. Children will need to have had lunch before they arrive and be wearing their ‘party’ clothes. We will greet you at the Nursery gate as we usually would in the morning.

Red group –  Please arrive promptly at 12.20pm and collect at 2.20pm.

Blue group – Please arrive promptly at 12.30pm and collect at 2.35pm.

Yellow group –  Please arrive promptly at 12.30pm and collect at 2.35pm.

Party treats – Children will have lunch as usual on Monday but during the party, we will provide them with a treat and drink. We’d like to ask for £1 contribution towards these treats and will place a donation jar outside Nursery soon.  Thank you in advance for your contributions.

Christmas crafts – It wouldn’t be Christmas in Nursery if we couldn’t take part in all of our favourite Christmas crafts! Sadly, we can’t invite you to our usual ‘Christmas Stay and Decorate’ mornings, but don’t worry, children will still get to take part in some fun activities. We will quarantine all Christmas crafts and will send them home in the final week.

If you have any questions, please get in touch or speak to us next week.

 

This week, children have really enjoyed being outside in all weather. We often see a different side to a child’s personality when they’re playing and learning in our Nursery garden. The freedom of being outside and being able to move and make noise without the constraints of the classroom is great for a child’s mental and physical well being.

On the rainy days, we listened to rain drops pitter pattering on umbrellas and enjoyed investigating colour mixing in the puddles. We continued our nursery rhyme theme outside, using instruments to accompany lots of our favourite rhymes. We also had great fun knocking  ’10 green bottles’ off the wall. Children also used the bottles for a number of other games, using them as props in their role play as fireworks rockets and babies. What great imaginations!

On Friday, we enjoyed practising our throwing and catching skills. Children waited really patiently for their turn and after a few attempts to catch the ball, we could definitely see an improvement in their confidence and skills.

Physical Development is one of the Prime areas of our curriculum and incorporates both gross and fine motor skills in the ‘Moving and Handling’ strand.  Every child is different, but here are some of the areas that we were developing during our outdoor play this week.

22-36 months

• I can run without bumping into things or tripping up.
• I can squat down on my knees to play and can get up without using my hands.
• I can kick a large ball.

30-50 months

• I like running, walking, jumping, hopping, skipping and moving around in lots of different ways.
• I can run around, stopping, changing direction and slowing down so that I don’t bump into things.
• I can catch a large ball when you throw it to me.
• When you show me how to stand on just one foot, I can copy you, just for a second without falling over.   (We did this when we sang ‘I’m a little teapot’ with actions!)

If you would like to read more about the type of things to expect in your child’s development in this area of the curriculum, you may find this document useful.

In the Sunshine Room, children have loved role playing in our bakery. They made buns and biscuits using playdough and sold them in the shop.

 

We continued to learn and sing lots of  rhymes in our nursery rhyme small world area. In the Quiet Room, children played a game of ‘Incy Wincy Spider’, taking turns to roll the dice and move their spider up the drainpipe. We also investigated tyre tracks, printing with vehicles as we drove them through paint.

 

If you’re learning at home this week, here are a few activities for you to try and some that we have planned for Nursery. We hope you enjoy joining in at home; don’t forget to keep in touch and send us an email. Scholesf1@spherefederation.org

Five Currant Buns

• ‘5 Currant buns‘ is one of our favourite rhymes. We like to make currant buns in the playdough area using bun cases and baking tins. What could you use for  cherry on the top?  Children love to role play shops; we have created a  ‘bakery’ in Nursery with a till, some coins and order pads.
• If you have the ingredients at home, have a go at baking some currant buns. Children love to bake and its beneficial for children in so many ways.  If you don’t fancy traditional currant buns, use a basic Victoria sponge cake mixture and add some currants.

Five Little Speckled Frogs

• Sing a long to the rhyme together at home. If you have some paint, have a go at making some frog stick puppets to use to act out the rhyme.  You could paint frogs or try  printing them if you have an old sponge or scourer. You could even try and make a frog using your handprints!
• If you want to find out more about frogs, there’s an old episode of ‘Come Outside‘ all about frogs that you might like to watch.

Grand Old Duke of York

• Get a small blanket or towel and a few small soft cuddly toys. Stretch the blanket out and hold it between you and your child. Sing the rhyme and bounce the toys on the blanket. As you ‘march to the top of the hill’, raise your arms and as you ‘march down again’, crouch down lower. Children love to try and bounce the toys off as they reach the top of the hill!

Little Miss Muffet

• Do you have some porridge oats or rice crispies at home? In our sensory area, we’ve been talking about Little Miss Muffet and helping to mix her curds and whey. We used different sized bowls and scoops and children loved scooping, pouring and mixing the oats. Warning – It can be messy, but is easy to sweep/hoover up!

I’m a Little Teapot

• Let your child enjoy an extra long bath time and give them some plastic cups and jugs to play with. We’ve been using teapots in our water area at Nursery and mixing cups of tea for our friends. During group time, we’ll be singing the rhyme and decorating a teapot (outline drawn on paper) with patterns. We might use spots, stripes, circles or zig-zags.

Have fun!

Has your child been singing more nursery rhymes at home this week?  We’ve certainly heard lots of singing in Nursery and we really enjoyed all singing together outside, too!

• Twinkle Twinkle – We continued our learning from group time in the maths area where we had lots of different stars to count and sort. There were different colours, textures and sizes to sort.

• Five Currant Buns – This is always a popular activity! Children used the coins to pay for currant buns that they were selling in our playdough bakery.

• I can sing a rainbow – In our Fiddly Fingers area, we developed our pincer grips by using our fingers and thumbs to pick up the tiny rainbow buttons and beads to put on the rainbows.

• Five Little Speckled Frogs – Children loved feeding the frogs delicious bugs and making them jump into the pond.

• We also enjoyed printing Baa Baa Black Sheep, drawing Incy Wincy, mixing Little Miss Muffet’s curds and whey and trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together again!

  

Finally, outside we’ve enjoyed flying kites in the wind, marching to ‘The Grand Old Duke of York‘ and riding the tricycles.

Welcome! 

Some of you will have already noticed that we have a new member of our Nursery team. We’d like to officially welcome Mrs Gosper to Nursery; she works every afternoon and will be Yellow group’s Key Person, along with Miss Morris.

 

 

 

 

As you’ll have already seen, it’s World Nursery Rhyme Week. Our activities will all be themed around our favourite rhymes and the 5 rhymes that are the focus of this year’s Nursery Rhyme Week.

If you’re self-isolating at home, here are a few activities that are linked to some of our favourite rhymes that you might like to join in with.

Miss Polly had a Dolly

• Children love role playing being doctors and nurses. You could take turns to be the patient or use soft toys and some old bandages and plasters.
• Get Well Soon is a series on CBeebies that helps to explain about different illnesses. This episode is all about sniffs and runny noses!

Humpty Dumpty

• In our sensory area in Nursery, we’re going to be investigating what happens when Humpty Dumpty falls off his wall! We will build a wall using wooden blocks or Duplo bricks and will hard boil some eggs to use as Humpty Dumpty. Have a go at home; use felt tips to draw a face on Humpty and then see what happens when Humpty cracks. What’s inside? What happens to the shell? Can you put Humpty back together again?

The Wheels on the Bus

• Why not build a bus?  Children love to use blankets, chairs and cushions to make things. Arrange them in a line and make seats for siblings or teddies to sit on. What could you use as a steering wheel? Go for a ride on the bus and remember, each passenger needs a ticket! Where will you visit? Remember to sing the rhyme on your journey.

Old MacDonald had a Farm

• What noises do farm animals make? If you have some toy animals, hide them in a bag and make the animal noise. Can your child guess which animal it is? This is a great listening game and one that we’ll be doing in our group time this week.  There’s a farm animal listening game here too.
• If you have some small world animals at home and toy tractors, have a go at making a farm. Children love to ‘feed’ the animals using cereals such as weetabix.
• Get creative – can you draw or paint your favourite animal?

How many Nursery rhymes do you know? Have a go at singing them and then look up some new ones. There are lots on-line and some on the CBeebies website.