Lunar New Year
We had a great final week of half term; children loved reading a book about the Lunar New Year and we watched to some short video clips find out how people prepare for the festival and celebrate with their families.
We enjoyed decorating a lunar lantern with some of the handwriting patterns that we’re learning (circles, zig-zags, waves and lines) . We used scissors to practice our “snipping skills” too. The children were very proud of their learning.
In the sensory area we explored noodles. They were “ sticky” “ stretchy” “ gooey” “ cold” and “ sticky” Lots of great vocabulary to describe how the noodles felt.
On Tuesday it was Safer Internet Day in school. In nursery we talked about how important it is to keep safe online. We spoke about always only using a tablet or iPad when a grown up is with you.
Here is a useful website for advice and tips for keeping your child safe on line.
Keeping your under 5 safe online
Learning after half term:
We’ll be reading Jack and the Beanstalk and beginning our ‘growing’ theme. If you have a copy of the book at home, please read it together to help familiarise your child with the story. We’ll be looking for signs of spring in the garden, too. When you’re out and about over half term, see what ‘signs of spring’ you notice – it could be flowers beginning to grow or birds singing.
Nursery rhyme of the week – Mary, Mary quite contrary.
Sound of the week – Ee
Have a happy and healthy half term and we look forward to finding out about your holidays when we return to Nursery on Monday 23 February.
PE – yoga
We’ve been channelling our inner zen for the last couple of weeks in PE by doing some yoga. The children have really enjoyed it and it has helped to support our mindfulness that we are learning in our Feelings First lessons too.
We start with some breathing exercises, move on to individual poses and then partner work. We finish with some meditation or breathing exercises again.
Help at home by having a go at some yoga too!
Internet Safety Day
On Tuesday, we spent the day celebrating Internet Safety Day. In Year 5 and 6 we focused on personal information and being critical users online. The children discussed what personal information was, such as your address and date of birth and when you might be asked for this information. This lead onto talking about downloading apps and how you should always ask an adult before anything is downloaded. The children confidently spoke about how to make sure privacy settings were in place on their devises. As a class, we looked at some online hoaxes and talked about how we need to be aware of false information online. The children were clear that disinformation is the spreading of false information with the intention of deceit, whereas misinformation is sharing false information by mistake.
Help at home: Use the following website to find out more about how to keep personal data safe online.
Living and Learning-Safer Internet Day
Today is ‘Safter Internet Day’ so of course we have been learning about how to keep ourselves safe on the internet.
The poem for today (if the pic is blurry) is helping us to understand some important safety rules:
The Safer Internet Day Poem
Going online can be so much fun,
You can play, and chat, and find out.
But when things change and you feel unsure,
Then that’s when it’s time to shout…
“Something has changed, I need some help,
What’s happening doesn’t feel good.”
Things will get better when a trusted adult knows,
And your feelings have been understood.
To help us with our learning Hazel from D:Side came to educate us about the internet last Friday. Hazel had some amazing facts about the internet:
2 billion people go on the internet every day.
This helped us to realise that there are a lot of strangers on the internet. We should only use the internet to talk to trusted friends that we know or play games with known friends. We discussed that some adults may go on the internet, pretend to be children and pretend to be our friend. We should say NO to friend requests. We need to:
Stay smart-Always ask a trusted adult if we’re unsure of anything.
Stay safe.
Stay kind.
Think before you click.
Another interesting fact is that:
Utube has 30,000 hours of new content uploaded every hour.
With this large amount added hourly it is not thoroughly checked or filtered to ensure the content is suitable for children’s eyes and ears. Kids Utube however has more checks. It is strongly advised that children watch videos under the supervision of their adult/s.
A huge thankyou to D:Side for educating us in a fun and interactive way.
Help at home: Check the settings of games that your children play, are they set to ‘peaceful’ or ‘creative’ modes to limit violence? Are the settings set to not allow strangers to play?
Mad about animals
In KS1 this half term, we have been learning about animals. We have learnt about mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians. We have been learning facts about these animals and their features. These are things that make the animals unique and identifiable.
We identified each animal and sorted them into groups.
AJ – ‘I think a lizard is a reptile because it has dry scales.’
JJ – ‘A fish has scales and a tail and fins.’
Help at home by discussing animals with your child. What features does it have? Ask ‘Can you tell me what type of animal this is and why?
Food for the birds.
It’s been a busy week in Nursery. The children always love exploring the outside area, especially looking for worms and bugs under the logs. This week they began to notice that they couldn’t find many. Where they had gone?
We talked about the cold, wet weather. The children then began to think about the birds in our garden and wondered what they were eating? We decided to make them some food. Cutting up lard very carefully, we mixed it together with bird seed, it was “sticky” and “gooey”
We pressed it into cups, added string, and then hung them in our Nursery garden. We took some home too, so that we could watch the birds at home. Let us know if your bird feeder attracts the birds into your outside space. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Some other activities from this week in Nursery.
In group time, children in red, blue and yellow group learnt about the number 4. We looked at a domino that had two spots on one end, and two spots on the other. When we looked at the spots together, there were four. Children knew that a car had 4 wheels and a chair had 4 legs. We jumped four times and counted four claps.
Help at home: Have a look around your house and surroundings – What can you find four of? . Can you spot any numeral fours on doors or number plates? Send us an e-mail to let us know how you get on – you could send a photograph to show us what you find. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Next week’s learning:
We will be finding out about Lunar New Year.
Nursery Rhyme of the week
Can you sing along with Wind the Bobbin up ?
Sound of the week
We will be revising all the sounds that we have covered this term
Reminders
We are looking forward to meeting with the parents/ carers of our children in Red, Blue and Yellow group at our meetings next week. The meetings will take place on –
Tuesday 10 February 3.30 -6.30pm
Thursday 12 February 4.30 – 7.30pm
If you haven’t booked an appointment please contact the school office.
Please attend your appointment by entering via the main school entrance and making your way towards the school hall.
The Nursery Team
Phase 3 Stay and Learn
Thank you to all parents and carers who attended the Stay and Learn this week. Hopefully you found the ‘Phase 3 Phonics’ presentation and lesson informative and that you enjoyed playing the phonics games with your child in class. If you’ve any questions about the information you heard/saw during the session, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Please take a short few moments to feedback on the Stay and Learn session by copying this link and pasting it into your browser:
https://forms.gle/JWgXSyfTj53kx6Em9
Book Club
Enjoy seeing some of our 3,4A learners enjoying their favourite books in today’s book club…
Help at home: Ensure your child reads daily for around ten minutes and completes their reading record task ready for Friday’s book club!
Great Fairies of the World
This week, we read Great Fairies of the World by Stephanie Moss. This rhyming story introduces fairy characters with jobs that help others, including an architect fairy, a doctor fairy and an engineer fairy, to name just a few!
We discussed how the author chooses the most interesting and imaginative words to bring the characters to life. Through describing images and making our word choices more adventurous, we’ve developed our oracy skills and strengthened our writing too.
In provision, we linked our fiction reading to non-fiction information about real-life heroes in the community.
We also used the fairy theme in our classroom challenges by:
- using our phonics skills to read the fairy names and creating our own names using some of the phase 3 digraphs and trigraphs that we know. (If you’d like a reminder of how to pronounce them – watch this video!)
- finding answers to a reading quiz.
- designing and creating fairy gardens.
- making fairy potions and talking about the ingredients.
- practising our scissor skills by cutting out stars to make wands – just like in the story!
Phonics
Spring 1 week 5 focused on reading longer words, using the ‘chunking method’. When we ‘chunk it up’, we segment and blend longer words one syllable at a time. For example: sunset (s-u-n, sun. Then, read s-e-t, set. Finally, join them together. Sun-set. Sunset.)
Ask your child to show you how they ‘chunk-it-up’!
Help at Home: Here’s a game you could play at home to help your child remember Tricky Words.
This week’s game is: Tricky Word Splat.
- Write a selection of tricky words on paper/sticky notes.
- Place around the room/floor.
- Say a tricky word for your child to splat. You might jump on the words, splat with a masher or create your own ideas!
Each week, we learn a new poem and recite it daily. Saying the poem aloud helps the children focus on the sounds and rhythm of each word and line, supporting their reading development. This week’s poem is called Mrs Bluebird.
A visit from D-Side
This week, children also took part in an online safety talk with Dave from D-Side. They learned how to stay safe when using the internet, including asking a grown-up for help and telling an adult if something makes them feel worried or unsure. Watch out for more information about on-line safety in next week’s post!
If you’d like to email us any photos of your child’s home learning, share any achievements or tell us about any exciting events, please send them to our Reception email. Children love to share them with their friends and it’s also great for their confidence and communication skills too!
Year 3/4 – PE
This week, we’ve enjoyed taking part in yoga which is excellent for both physical and mental health. It helps to develop strength and flexibility. We enjoyed trying the following poses:
- warrior one
- warrior two
- triangle
- tree
Why not try some yoga at home?
