Snowman at Sunset
Thank you to everyone that was able to watch our performance of ‘Snowman at Sunset’. We’re really proud of the children ; it’s quite daunting standing on stage in front of a hall full of people and we thought that they did brilliantly. We hope you enjoyed the songs about building snowmen and snowflakes falling and that it left you feeling in a festive mood. Super singing Nursery, well done!
In Nursery, we’ve been learning about the Nativity story, making Christmas lists, building sleighs, drawing maps for Santa and decorating the trees outside.
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We’re looking forward to our final week of the term and have lots of Christmas themed learning planned. Don’t forget it’s our Nursery party on Monday afternoon and you are also invited to join us for one of our ‘stay and decorate’ sessions where you can read your child’s Learning Journey and enjoy making some Christmas crafts together. Please see the Christmas letter or reminder letter for more details.
A donation pot for your £1 contribution towards our party costs will be outside Nursery this week. Thank you to everyone that has contributed already.
Whatever Next!
A few week’s ago, we enjoyed reading ‘Peace at Last’ written by Jill Murphy. This week, we listened to another of her stories about a family of bears, titled ‘Whatever Next’. It’s about a little bear who went on an adventure to the moon. He used a cardboard box as a rocket, some wellies as his space boots and a colander for a space helmet. He packed some food and shot up the chimney into space. When he got there, he enjoyed a picnic with his friend owl. What would you take into space with you?
Children loved making their own rockets in the creative area using different shaped boxes and bottles. It was quite tricky working out how to attach the different parts together. Some children used PVA glue, some tried a stick of glue and for some things, only cellotape would hold the parts in place. Once the rockets were ready, there were lots of count downs!
10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 BLAST OFF!
We loved singing ‘5 Little men in a flying saucer‘ and counting the aliens in our maths corner. At the dough table, we used different tools and star shaped cutters to make rockets, stars and space ships.
Outside, children enjoyed exploring some unusual objects that appeared near our space rockets.
We also had some very special visitors in Nursery at the start of the week. Children enjoyed looking after some Giant African snails and watching them crawl around the tank, eating their cucumber snack. Thank you for sharing them with us.
Reminders
- Please return the Christmas slip to let us know if you can attend one of our ‘Stay and Decorate’ sessions in December. Please see the letter for more details of dates and times.
- Remember to send your child’s costume for the Christmas concert to school as soon as possible. Please NAME all items and put them in a NAMED bag. As you can imagine, changing 20-3o children can be tricky; having items named and in a clearly named bag makes things much easier for us. Thank you.
World Nursery Rhyme Week
We always sing lots of rhymes in Nursery, but as it was World Nursery Rhyme Week, we sang even more than usual! Nursery rhymes are an essential part of developing early literacy skills and have many benefits.
Here’s a link to lots of popular Nursery Rhymes – pick your favourite to sing along to at home, or find a new one to learn together. What’s your child’s favourite rhyme? Send us an email to let us know and we’ll make sure we sing it in Nursery. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
This week, lots of our areas of provision were linked to popular rhymes. We sorted Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars in the maths area and made some simple repeating patterns. Big star, little star, big star, little star... Children carefully folded legs for Incy Wincy Spider and printed Baa Baa Black sheep at the creative table. In the sensory area, children loved making Jelly on a plate wibble and wobble! We also had lots of cups of tea in the water area as we sang I’m a Little Teapot.
On Friday, we enjoyed joining in with some fun, spotty themed activities to join in with fundraising for Children in Need.
Bonfire night
We began the week talking about children’s experiences of Bonfire Night. Children loved playing in the small world area and launching the rocket into the sky. Whooooosh!
We watched firework videos and talked about the colours, patterns and noises that we saw and heard. Outside, we listened to some firework sounds and pretended to be fireworks, dancing with ribbons.
What noise did the firework make? Pop! Bang! Whizz! Crackle, crackle! Fizz!
Children also talked about the bright colours that they’d seen in the sky and enjoyed using brightly coloured paints, to make firework prints and pictures.
In the shallow sand tray outside, we looked carefully at the firework cards to try and create different patterns and shapes. There were crosses, zig-zags, spirals and wavy patterns.
In group time, we’ve been learning to compare quantities using language such as ‘more than’ and ‘fewer than’. E.g. The blue plate has fewer cookies than the blue plate. I have more biscuits than you.
Try and use some of this language at home, too. Children are often familiar with the words ‘more’ and ‘most’ but don’t often hear ‘fewer/fewest’.
Reminders
- Next week, Monday 14 November is ‘Anti-Bullying’ day in school. It is also Odd Socks Day and children and staff are encouraged to come to school wearing odd socks to celebrate that we are all unique.
- Nursery coffee morning – after Nursery drop off on Wednesday 16 November. See our earlier post.
- WATER BOTTLES – Please check your child’s bottle has their NAME clearly marked on.
Nursery coffee morning
Celebrations
This week, we’ve been talking about some different celebrations. Children were very excited on Tuesday when they returned to Nursery; there was a lot of talk about witches and bat costumes and tales of trick or treating in the dark. We also learnt 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 loved looking at the special sweets that were part of the celebrations.
In the dough area, we made our 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. In the garden, we created some rangoli patterns on the floor using chalks.
Outside, children helped to tidy the garden after the holidays; there were a LOT of leaves that needed sweeping up!
In phonics this week, we listened to sounds in our environment. We enjoyed reading ‘Peace at Last‘ and hearing all of the noises that stopped poor Mr Bear from getting to sleep. In the Nursery garden, we heard a helicopter flying above us and the leaves rustling in the wind. What can you hear in your house? You could also listen to the different sounds that fireworks make if you go to see any. Do they pop, crackle, hiss, sizzle or BANG?
Finally, towards the end of the week, we began to talk about another celebration that lots of children might take part in at the weekend – Bonfire Night. We talked about how to stay safe and next week, we’ll continue our learning as we’re sure you’ll all hear and see lots of fireworks in the sky this weekend!
If you have joined in with any Diwali celebrations, or are going to take part in Bonfire night celebrations, please send us a photo of your child celebrating for our ‘Home learning’ display. Children love to share their photographs and talk about their adventures. Email us at scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
Have a good weekend and stay safe!
Increasing/changing sessions for January
Thank you to those parents/carers that have contacted us after receiving the letter regarding increasing or changing your child’s hours (if your child is currently attending for less than 30 hours) in January.
If your child is moving from morning sessions to full days, we will send you further details of a short transition plan soon.
Parent Teacher Consultations
Nursery Parent Teacher consultations for Nursery children will be held on the following dates:
- Monday 21 November from 3.30pm until 5.10pm
- Wednesday 23 November from 5pm until 6.50pm
Room on the Broom
Harvest time
Thank you for your generous donations for our Harvest Festival on Tuesday. We watched a short clip together and talked about harvest time. Outside, children have really enjoyed playing in the farm small world area and ‘harvesting’ the vegetables on the farm. We’ve also enjoyed sorting farm animals in our maths area (by type and size), singing ‘Old Mac Donald had a farm’ and completing some farm animal jigsaws.
We continued learning about autumn and used all of the treasure that we’d collected in our autumn bags to create some Andy Goldsworthy inspired art outside. We looked at some of his art and talked about what he had used and the shapes that we could see. We noticed leaves, sticks and stones and lots of circle shapes. Children also enjoyed playing in our new woodland small world area in the Sunshine room. What animals might you find in the wood?
Following on from an interest in ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ last week, children have enjoyed mixing porridge oats and re-telling the story with their friends.
We’ve been busy ‘mark making’ in a number of ways, including drawing and also dipping conkers in paint to see what marks they make when they roll!
Reminders
- Nursery closes on Friday 21 October for the half term holiday. We will see you again on Tuesday 1 November following the training day, when school is closed, on Monday 31 October.
- If you are thinking of increasing or changing your child’s sessions at Nursery, please speak to Mrs Beesley or Mrs Long this week.