Run, run as fast as you can!
It was great to see everyone again this week and we couldn’t believe how much some of you have grown over the Christmas holidays! Thank you for your festive photos; we enjoyed looking at them and talking about your family celebrations at group time.
Children returned brilliantly to Nursery and have settled back into our routines well. It’s been very cold this week so please make sure that your child has a warm coat, a hat and some gloves every day. We’re always trying to promote independence at Nursery, so please take some time at home to help your child to learn how to put on their own coat and gloves. Gloves are especially tricky, but give it a try! Remember to label items with your child’s name too so that we can help to return them at the end of the day.
This week, we’ve been reading the well know traditional tale of The Gingerbread Man. It’s a great story for children to recall and there are lots of repeated refrains for them to use when re-telling the story. Try and tell the story together at home. Can they remember the main parts? Encourage them to use the repeated refrains. ‘Run run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man.’ or ‘Stop! I want to eat you!’
The ginger playdough was very popular – we’ve lost count of how many gingerbread people have been made this week! Children have enjoyed investigating the cornflour gloop, too. It was hard and then sometimes runny, how strange!
Our maths focus this week, has been learning to make comparisons between objects relating to size and length. We looked at big/little/small/large gingerbread outlines and ordered them by size. During group time, we introduced some more specific vocabulary relating to height such as tall, taller, short and shorter. We stood back to back with our friends and compared our heights and we even had a go at measuring each other using ‘hands’. We carefully counted how many ‘hands’ tall we were. Mrs Crompton was 10 hands tall! Some children knew that tape measures are used to measure height and used them to measure their friends. After group time, some children went on to compare the heights of their water bottles and the size of their carrots at snack time.
Try to use some of this language at home this week in order to help your child consolidate their new vocabulary. Who is the tallest person in your family? Who is the shortest? Which teddy is the shortest? Which bottle is the tallest?
Here are a few other photographs from our play this week: constructing with 3D shapes on the light panel, learning to draw our faces in the creative area and more measuring and investigating capacity in our play ‘baking’ area.
Finally, the cold weather sparked lots of interest and discussion in the ice that children found in the garden each morning. We’ll continue with this interest next week, investigating ‘ice’ and learning more about winter time.
Information for children starting Nursery in January
It was great to meet some of you this week for your door step visit and we hope that you’re looking forward to joining us in Nursery on Monday for your ‘stay and play’ session. For those families that we were unable to meet, don’t worry, we’ll look forward to catching up with you on Monday.
Here is some of the important information that we discussed at the home visit.
‘Stay and play’ visit
- Please take a lateral flow test just before the ‘stay and play’ session and wear a mask during the visit. We’re asking that only one adult accompanies your child. If you test positive, please don’t attend and get in touch to let us know.
- Please come to the Nursery door (blue) on Monday (via Morwick Grove entrance).
- Remember to bring proof of your child’s date of birth (passport/ birth certificate).
What does my child need to bring to Nursery?
- A drawstring bag with a FULL change of clothes (underwear, socks/tights, trousers/leggings, a top and jumper.) Make sure that everything is clearly NAMED
- A NAMED pair of wellies to remain at Nursery
- Children play out in all weather, so please make sure that your child wears a a warm, waterproof coat each day and has a hat and gloves during winter. Don’t forget to NAME them all!
- A NAMED water bottle
Arrival and collection
- Red and yellow group – Entry through the main Nursery entrance at 9am.
- Blue and green group – Entry to the Sunshine room through the Nursery playground at 9am.
- Collection at the end of the day – Nursery closes at 2.15pm on Monday and 3.15pm Tuesday-Friday. Children can be collected from 3.05pm onwards (or 2.05pm on Monday) to help reduce congestion at collection times. For children attending for the morning session, collection is at 12pm.
If you have any other questions, please let us know. For non-urgent enquiries during term time, you can email us and we will try to reply as soon as we can during the working day, once we’ve finished teaching. scholesnursery@spherefederation.org If you have an urgent enquiry, please call school and speak to the office.
We look forward to seeing you all on Monday and hope that you’re getting excited about coming to play!
Have you applied for a primary school place yet?
Don’t forget, if your child is due to start school in September 2022, you need to apply for a primary school place before 15 January.
Please refer to our previous post for more details.
Happy New Year!
We hope that you all had a fantastic Christmas and enjoyed the New Year celebrations. We’re looking forward to seeing you all this week and finding out about your holidays and time with your families.
If you’d like to choose one or two photographs of your Christmas or New Year celebrations, please email us and we’ll share them at group times and on our Nursery display. Scholesnursery@spherefederation.org
We’re also looking forward to meeting some of our new children this week for their doorstep home visit. You’ll soon get to meet everyone when they begin Nursery next week.
Reminders
- Remember to bring your water bottles this week – containing WATER only please. Also, don’t forget to write your name on it if Santa brought you a new one!
- The weather is very mixed at the moment. Remember to wear a warm, waterproof coat to Nursery and bring a hat and some gloves. (All named please.)
See you soon!
Merry Christmas!
We’ve had a brilliant week filled with lots of festive fun! Here are a few photos from our Christmas party, our secret visit from Father Christmas and some of the other festive activities that we enjoyed.
As you will no doubt have already heard, we received a letter in Nursery this week. It was from… Father Christmas! He’d been to visit school and to play in Nursery with us, but as we’d all gone home, he sent us a video message instead. He told us that he’d put his sack down somewhere but couldn’t remember where. He also said, that if we managed to locate his missing sack, then we could have a little early Christmas treat. Luckily for Father Christmas, we are good detectives and found his missing sack under our Christmas tree! We hope that you all enjoyed reading your new story from Santa.
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We’ll see you in January.
Christmas dinner day
Yum, yum! We loved our Christmas dinner and had a great time celebrating with our friends. Thank you to the lunch staff for cooking such a delicious dinner for us to enjoy with all of the trimmings.
Also, thank you to Mrs Pennock for creating our very own Christmas light show. We loved looking at all of the giant characters in the hall.
As well as recording ‘Our First Christmas Play’, we’ve been learning about the Nativity story this week and writing letters to Father Christmas. If you’d like to continue this learning at home, there are some short videos that you can watch on the CBeebies website. They’re all about how Christians prepare for Christmas and the Christmas story.
Our Christmas performance will be ready to watch next week… watch this space and check your inbox early next week for more details.
Party day – Don’t forget it’s our Nursery Christmas party on Monday 13 December. Please read our previous post for more details. Also, if you haven’t already, please don’t forget to add your £1 donation to the party pot. This will go towards the cost of some treats at our party. Thank you.
Christmas fun in the hall
A massive thank you to Mrs Pennock and all the lunchtime staff who created a fabulous atmosphere for Christmas dinner day today. The children and staff had a lovely time!
Christmas has arrived in Nursery!
There was a lot of excitement this week when children arrived to a very festive looking Nursery as we turned the calendar to December.
We’ve enhanced many of our areas of provision to provide lots of opportunities to learn about Christmas and talk about the traditions that some families join in with at this time of year.
Here are a few photos from this week. You can see that we have been very busy…
- practising cutting skills as we looked for our favourite toys and having lots of conversations about our Christmas wish lists
- helping Father Christmas to load his sleigh and look after the reindeer in our small world area
- listening to ‘Stickman’ and using the story props to re-tell the main events from the story
- exploring the texture and properties of water beads
- wrapping presents in the Elf workshop and building sleighs in the construction area to help Father Christmas deliver the presents on Christmas Eve
- talking about Christmas traditions and helping to decorate the Home corner
- decorating the trees in our Nursery garden. It’s quite tricky to hang baubles on the trees – and also great for developing fine motor skills.
Christmas information
Here is all of the important Christmas information that was provided on the letter that we sent home on Monday.
Christmas events
We will still be celebrating Christmas this year, although once again, it may look a little bit different to our usual Nursery celebrations. Here are some important dates and information about the next few weeks in Nursery.
Christmas Recording
As outlined in our previous letter, it’s not going to be possible to host a Christmas performance that you can watch in school this year. However, that’s not going to stop us from performing! You’ll be able to watch ‘Our First Christmas Play” from the comfort of your own home. For this, we’d like children to have a Christmas themed/coloured top trousers, leggings or a skirt to wear when taking part in the play. Please bring it to school by Wednesday 1st 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 their clothes and put it in a small bag. It will remain in Nursery until we have filmed our play.
Christmas Dinner
Christmas lunch in school will be on Thursday 09 December. If you’d like your child to join in, 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 13 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, 2.15pm.
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 main Nursery door. Please arrive promptly at 12.30pm and collect at 2.15pm. Please let a member of staff know if your child will be joining the party.
Children attending mornings only – If your child usually only attends Nursery for the morning session, please feel free to swap their morning session that day and just arrive for the party in the afternoon, or you can collect them slightly earlier on the party day at 11.30am. This should allow you time to have some lunch before returning to Nursery. Please speak to a member of staff if you have any questions.
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 party 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 put their Christmas crafts in a bag and send them home in the final week.
Applying for a primary school place?
If your child is due to start primary school in September 2022, you can apply for a place from 01 November 2021. The deadline for applying is 15 January 2022.
You can apply for a place online at: www.leeds.gov.uk/apply
Use this link to download and read further details and FAQs.
